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Marseille-Three authors tell the story of “their” Marseilles

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT:

 

YOU CAN HEAR A HUNDRED UNKNOWN LANGUAGES SPOKEN THERE

 

Between 1840 and 1868, Gustave Flaubert (1821 – 1880) made a series of journeys, either alone, with his family or accompanied by Maxime Du Camp, across the Pyrenees, Corsica and Brittany, then Carthage and the East.

 

“Marseilles is a pretty town, built up of large houses that look like palaces. The sun, the fresh air of the Midi filtering freely along its long streets; there’s a certain Oriental feeling, you can walk at ease, breathing in contentedly, the sun seeping into your skin, soaking it up like a large bath of light. Marseilles is now what Persia must have been in Antiquity, or Alexandria in the Middle Ages: a shambles, a mixture of all nations, where you come across blond hair, close-cropped hairstyles, large black beards, white skin marked with blue veins, the sallow complexion of Asians, blue eyes, dark looks, all outfits, jackets, coats, wool, cotton, turned-down collars, turbans and large Turkish trousers. You will hear a hundred unknown languages spoken, Slavonic, Sanskrit, Persian, Scythian, Egyptian, all of the expressions, those spoken in snowy countries, those sighed in the Southern lands. How many have come to this quayside where it is now so nice, before returning to their mineral coal chimneys, or their huts on the edge of large rivers, under the hundred cubit palm-trees or in their rush dwellings on the edge of the Ganges?”

 

Gustave Flaubert, Voyages, Ed. Arlea poche No. 109, 2007, 700 p, €18

 

ALBERT LONDRES:

 

ONBOARD FOR ALL SEAS

 

Albert Londres (1884 – 1932), journalist, war reporter, has put his career in writing. In 1927, he discovered and fell in love with Marseilles, a city swarming with life that he saw as misunderstood and unpopular.

 

“It’s one of the most beautiful harbours on the edge of the water. It is illustrious from all angles. At any time of the day or night, boats work for it right out in the seas; it is one of the greatest lords of the open sea. It’s like a French lighthouse whose light sweeps across the five sections of the earth. It’s called the Marseilles harbour, and is more than five kilometres long and never-ending. It may even be six or seven kilometres long. Jetty A, jetty B, jetty C. It goes almost to the middle of the alphabet, the Marseilles harbour… It is the market offered by France to sellers the whole world over. Camels bringing their heavy loads towards the Mediterranean barges from far-off lands, beyond our seas, trek unknowingly towards it. Marseilles harbour, a court of honour in an imaginary universal trade hall.

All of the old well-known names of the great sea merchants are displayed there, on the walls of its jetties, like a polite invitation to travel. Paquet, Transat, Cyprien Fabre, Chargeurs Réunis, Transports, Messageries Maritimes with the unicorn emblem. Peninsular. Nippon Yusen Kaisha. Where would you like to go? Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia? Senegal, Egypt? The Congo, Madagascar? Syria, Constantinople? Tonkin? The Indies? Australia? China? South America? The choice is yours. Here, you can board for all seas, the Red and the Black, for all straits, all canals, all gulfs. New countries? We’ll show you some new countries! We’ll help you discover things you never dreamed of!”

 

Albert Londres, Marseille, Porte du Sud, Éd. Jeanne Laffite, les Arsenaulx, Marseille.

 

BLAISE CENDRARS:

 

THE TOWN BELONGS TO PEOPLE FROM THE OPEN SEA

 

Blaise Cendrars (1887 – 1961) stopped travelling in 1940, when he settled in the Provence area. He discovered Aix, the “Côte Bleue” where he wrote “I have never been as happy as at La Redonne (…) a circle of blue water like the lake inside an atoll”, and Marseilles.

 

“I have never lived in Marseilles and once in my life I arrived there, disembarking from a liner, the d’Artagnan, but Marseilles belongs to people from the open sea.

Marseilles smelt of pepper and carnations that morning.

It’s a town with a special place in my heart. It is now the only antique capital which does not overwhelm visitors with monuments of its past. Its prodigious destiny is not thrown in your face, any more than its fortune and wealth blind you or the modernism of the first harbour in France bowls you over with its ultra-ultra aspect (as so many other up-to-date harbours), the most specialised harbour of the Mediterranean and one of the most important in the world. It is not a town of architecture, religion, important literature, academies or fine art. It is certainly not a product of history, anthropogeography, political economy or politics, royal or republican. Nowadays, it seems to have adopted a middle-class and working-class outlook. It seems to be easy-going and fun-loving. It is dirty and in bad shape, but it is nevertheless one of the most mysterious towns in the whole world and one of the most difficult to work out”.

 

Blaise Cendrars, Je Débarque à Marseille, in Marseilles’ Cultural Review of the Town, no.200.

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