By letters patent, in December, 1607, Henri IV. gave a permit to the pêcheurs of Marseilles which allowed them to sell their fish in all villes de mer that they might choose, and to be free from paying any tax for the privilege. Thus it is seen that from the very earliest times the traffic was one which was bound to prosper and add to the city’s wealth and independence.
Louis XIII. was even more liberal. He extended the right of control of the fishing, even by strangers, to the “Prud’hommes de Marseilles” (a sort of a fishing guild, which endures even unto to-day), and forbade any taking of fish between Cap Couronne and Cap de l’Aigle, except with their permission.
Louis XIV., on a certain occasion, when he was passing through Marseilles, confirmed all that his predecessors had granted, and further accorded them 3,500 minots of salt, at a price of eleven livres per minot.
The “Prud’hommes” formed a sort of court or tribunal which regulated all disputes between members. To open a case one merely had to deposit two sols in a box, the contents of which were destined for the poor (the other side contributing also), and four of the chosen number of the “Prud’hommes” sat in judgment upon the question at issue. The loser was addressed in the short and explicit formula, “La loi vous condamne,” and forthwith he either had to pay up, or his boats and nets were seized. “Never was there a law so efficacious,” says the historian of this interesting guild; and all will be inclined to agree with him.
The “Prud’hommes” of Marseilles still exist as an institution, but their picturesque costume of other days has, it is needless to say, disappeared. The old-time “Prud’homme,” with a Henri Quatre mantle, a velvet toque for a hat, and a two-handed sword, would be a strange figure on the streets of up-to-date Marseilles.
The amateur fisherman in France is not the minor factor that English Nimrods would have one believe, though the mere taking of fish is a side issue with him. Not always does he make of it a solitary occupation. At Marseilles he has his “fishing excursions” and his “chowder-parties,” and the deep-sea fishing bouts held off the Provençal coast would do credit to a Rockaway skipper.
Read the following announcement of the banquet of “La Société de Pêche la Girelle” of Marseilles, culled from a morning paper:
“Members will meet at six o’clock in the morning, and will leave for the Planier (Marseilles’ great far-reaching light) grounds ‘sur le bateau à vapeur le Cannois;’ the overflow in small boats. To return at noon for a grand banquet chez Mistral. Bouillabaisse et toute le reste.”
Another great passion of the Marseillais, of all classes, is for the “campagne.” The wealthy commerçant has his sumptuous villa—always gaily built, but a sad thing from an architectural point of view—in the valley of the Huveaune, or on the slopes of the “Corniche” overlooking the Mediterranean. The petit bourgeois, the shopkeeper or the man of small affairs, contents himself with a cabanon, but it is his maison de campagne just the same. It is merely a stone hut with a tiny terrace fronting it on the sunny side, sheltered by a tonnelle, and that is all. The proprietor of this grand affair spends his Sundays and his fête-days throughout the year here on the slope of some rocky hill overlooking the sea, sleeps on a camp bedstead, and goes out early in the morning pour la pêche, in the hope of taking fish enough to make his bouillabaisse. Probably he will catch nothing, but he will have his bouillabaisse just the same, even if he has to go back to town to get it in a quayside restaurant. This is a simple and healthful enough way to spend one’s time assuredly, so why cavil at it, in spite of its ludicrous and juvenile side,—a sort of playing at housekeeping.
The cabanons are numerous for miles around Marseilles in every direction, above all on the hills overlooking the sea and in the valleys of the Oriol, the Berger, and the Huveaune, in fact, in any ravine where one may gain a foothold and hire a pied-de-terre for fifty to a hundred francs a year.