(Page 106)
Account of The Plague at Marseilles, in 1720.
MARSEILLES has been several times visited by the plague, as in the year 1580, in 1630, 1649 and 1650.
In May, 1720, the citizens were informed, that the plague had made its appearance in Palestine, and Syria. On the 25th of that month, a vessel from Syria, and the island of Cyprus where the plague prevailed, arrived at the isles of Chateaudif, in the vicinity of the harbour of Marseilles. After performing a quarantine, the passengers were permitted to mix with the inhabitants. One of the crew, and a person placed on board as a guard, had in the mean time died; but the surgeon employed to examine the bodies, declared, that he could discover no mark of the plague. On the 12th of June, a ship, with a foul bill of health, as it is termed, cast anchor. On the 24th and 26th of June, four persons died. Three of these were porters, who had been entrusted with the care of purifying the merchandize on board of these vessels. The fourth was a boy belonging to the first vessel. Hence it appears that the progress of this contagion was in the beginning extremely slow. The surgeon again certified that there was no sign of the plague; but the magistrates began to distrust him. They caused the bodies to be buried in quick lime, and the vessels, from the cargoes of which the porters were suspected of having caught the contagion, were ordered to be removed to a greater distance. On the 7th of July, two other porters employed in the Lazeretto were taken ill, and on the 8th a third; on the 9th, the whole three expired. They were buried in quick lime, and their clothes were burned. Three other surgeons had been appointed to inspect their bodies; and it was at last confessed that they had died of the plague: from this time to the 31st of July, the contagion made feeble but gradual advances. The gentlemen of the faculty, who had declared the dangerous nature of the disease, were insulted by the rabble, who would not believe that the plague would have advanced so very slowly. The magistrates were afraid to injure the commerce of the city by the report spread that this infection had got into (Page 107) Marseilles. Though they seem to have done their duty, yet they were so little aware of the gulf, which was yawning beneath them, that on the 15th of July, they sent letters to the health officers in the other ports of Europe, informing them, that though many persons were sick in the infirmaries, yet that the contagion had made no progress in the city. Indeed, from this day to the 26th, almost nothing was heard of it, and the people had begun to believe, that the danger was over. On the 26th, however, the magistrates were informed, that fifteen persons were taken ill, in the street of Lescalle. The physicians durst not venture to declare the fact and assigned any other reason for their sickness, than the plague.
At the end of July, the magistrates became alarmed in earnest. Some of them began to be exhausted by the melancholy employment of attending the funerals of the dead, and the removals of the sick to the public hospitals, both [of] which offices were performed in the night. The marquis de Pelles, governor of the city, examined the treasury, and found in it only the pitiful sum of eleven hundred livres. Corn, butcher’s meat, and wood, were extremely scarce and dear. The wealthy part of the inhabitants had by this time fled. It was now certain that the contagion was fixed in the city; and it was readily foreseen, that, unless vigorous measures of prevention were taken, famine would complete the scene of calamity. All beggars from the country were commanded to leave the city; but it was immediately found impracticable, to carry this order into execution. The chamber of trade of the parliament of Aix, had published an arret, prohibiting the citizens of Marseilles from quitting the territories of the town. The other inhabitants of Provence were forbidden to hold any correspondence with them; and coachmen, carriers, or others, attempting to retire from Marseilles to the country, on any pretence whatever, were to return back under pain of death. It was, therefore, impossible to drive out of the city, two or three thousand beggars, and other strangers of different kinds. An attempt was made to dispel the infection by burning fire in the streets, but to no purpose. A variety of regulations were adopted to prevent the spreading of the (Page 108) distemper, as well as the progress of famine. What fuel had been in the city, was already consumed in the experiment of making fires. A great quantity of sulphur was bought, and a part of it distributed to the poor, in every quarter of the town, to be burned in their houses by way of a perfume: the colleges and schools were shut up, to prevent the communication of the disorder; and the most pressing applications were made to the government of France, for immediate and substantial assistance, before the avenues of the city should be absolutely shut up. On the third of August, a mob affembled demanding bread, which was given to them. On the fourth, the officers of the fort of St. John, waited on the magisfirates, to acquaint them, that their soldiers were in want of corn; and if not supplied, would perhaps enter the city, and take it by force; the answer which they received was, that if the troops attempted to enter Marseilles, the magistrates, at the head of the citizens, would oppose them. On the 7th of August, the chamber of trade of Provence, permitted the sheriffs to have a conference with some of their agents, at the distance of six miles from the city. Precautions were taken to speak at a distance. An agreement was made, that a market should be established in that place, and a double barrier erected. Another market was to be fixed upon a highroad, two leagues from Marseilles, in a different direction. A rendezvous for boats was likewise named, in a creek amongst the islands in the harbour of Marseilles. In all these places, the guards were appointed by the province, and paid by the city. On the 9th of August, it was found, that most of the physicians and surgeons had fled. It was thought necessary to select a house to which the sick might be carried. The house of convalescence was pitched upon for that purpose. But it was an object of the greatest difficulty to remove the sick. Horses, harness, and carts were all equally wanted. It became necessary to go into the country to seek them, and when they were found, no person would consent to serve as a porter in removing the dead–Exorbitant wages were offered with little effect. An immense number of cooks and sick nurses were likewise wanted, and it was not without the greatest exertions, that the (Page 109) magistrates could obtain persons for these employments. Three pits were dug without the walls of the city. They were fifty feet in length and twenty four feet deep, and the dead were buried in quick lime. Another large hospital was fitted up under the vaults of a rope yard, by the chevalier Rofe [Rose], at his own expense; and he caused large ditches to be dug for burying the dead. The two hospitals were entirely filled in less than two days; but the patients did not remain there long. The distemper was so violent, that those who were brought into the hospitals at night, were cast into the ditches next morning. In every house where it entered, no person escaped the infection, and it seems that few or none survived it. On the 12th of August, two of the most eminent physicians of Montpelier were dispatched by the regent of France to the assistance of the citizens. The magistrates of health, the judges of the city, the rectors of all the hospitals and other charitable foundations, the commissaries who had been appointed for the different quarters of the city, but a few days before, with an immense number of people of all ranks, fled in the greatest hurry from Marseilles. The very sentinels who had been posted to prevent the flight of others, deserted, while the captains of the militia, and their soldiers ran away by whole companies. The shops, houses, magazines, churches and convents were shut up. The public markets were empty, and nothing was any where to be seen, but the dying or the dead. Marseilles was supposed at this time to contain about one hundred thousand people. Carts and porters were kept in constant readiness to carry off the dead; but the difficulty of providing these augmented every day. Persons employed in that service very seldom lived more than forty eight hours. It is said that by only touching the body with an iron hook, at the end of a pole, the distemper was communicated. Fifteen livres or about three dollars per day was the hire offered, and it was refused by the very beggars. At last, the magisfirates applied to the officers of the gallies, and obtained from them a supply of hands, selected from the criminals, who were promised their pardon upon condition of exerting themselves; but they did their work (Page 110) with so much slowness and laziness, says our author, that it was enough to make one mad. The slaves were in want of every thing, and in particular of shoes, which it was impossible to get for them, as there was none in the city, nor any shoemaker, to manufacture them. These unfortunate beings, when they entered a house, to carry off the dead, hardly ever failed to plunder it, so that the perpetual danger of robbery was added to the other calamities of the citizens. The slaves were likewise unskillful as well as unwilling carters. They frequently overturned the carts, and broke the harness of the horses; a loss which was irreparable, for neither saddler nor cartwright was left in Marseilles. Besides, no tradesman would touch the carts or harness which were employed in that service; and the peasants in the territory belonging to the city, had carefully concealed their carts.
Multitudes of women, who were giving suck, died of the plague; and their infants were found some dead; and others dying in the cradles. An hospital and a convent, which were found empty, by the death or flight of their former possessors, served as an asylum for these novitiates in wretchedness. They were supplied with soup, and goats milk. Thirty or forty of them perished every day; yet there were never less than twelve or thirteen hundred of them surviving at one time. On the 21st of August, the number of the dead at once increased so prodigiously, that the magisfirates found it impracticable to get them carried out of town, to be thrown into the pits. The quarter of St. John and some other parts of the old town, were, from the height of the ground and the narrowness of the streets, almost inaccessible to any wheel carriage. They were inhabited by the poorest classes of the people, who were worst lodged and worst fed, and therefore died fastest. The bodies, in heaps, blocked up the passages of the streets. It was to be apprehended, that if they were suffered to lie above ground, the infection would spread with augmented rapidity. The marquis dePille [dePelle] and the magistrates, requested a meeting at the town house, with the officers of the gallies. This assembly came to the resolution of interring the dead bodies, belonging to the (Page 111) higher parts of the town, in the vaults of the church yards in the neighbourhood. Quick lime and water were to be thrown upon them, and the vaults, when full, were to be closely cemented up. The bishop of Marseilles and the clergy opposed this measure; but the necessity of the case superseded every objection. On the 23d of August the magistrates began this task. The clergy had bolted the doors of their churches, which were broke open. In the mean time, the misery of the inhabitants augmented every day and almost every hour. Amongst other necessaries, linen was exhausted, and in the midst of this mass of wretchedness, the populace, from famine, despair, and madness, had become so turbulent, that it was found requisite to raise gibbets in all the public places of the city. From the 23rd of August to the end of September, a thousand persons were computed to perish every day. The galley slaves, who bad been called to assist the citizens, began to die like the rest. The shopkeepers had locked up their doors, so that the people could not buy, on any terms, the common necessaries of life. On the 27th, the board of trade published an order, for all shopkeepers and tradesmen, to set open their doors, within twenty-four hours, on the pain of death. Commands of this kind had little weight. Desertion, wherever it could be accomplished was universal.
On whatever side the spectator cast his eye, nothing was to be seen but heaps of putrefaction. The streets, the public markets, the square of the play house, the harbour, and every other place, was strewed with dead bodies. In the original narrative, from which this abridgment is extracted there are many circumstances related, of a nature so shocking that to repeat them would be an act of inhumanity to the reader. Thousands fled on board the ships in the harbour, from a conceit, which proved very foolish, that the contagion could not reach them, when upon the water. The streets were heaped not only with dead bodies, but with furniture and clothes of persons infected, which were incessantly cast out of the windows. The dogs and cats were every where killed, and served to augment the mass of corruption. (Page 112) Ten thousand dogs were at one time computed to be floating in the harbour.
If you met any one in the streets, he looked as if half dead, and as if the distemper had affected his understanding. Many wandering about fell through weakness and never rose again. Some, to put an end to their sufferings cut their own throats, or jumped out of high windows or into the sea. It was impossible for the hospitals to contain the crowds of patients who thronged into them. The instant that a person was observed to be infected, he became an object of horror to his nearest relations. He was either left deserted in the house, or driven out of it. This was the treatment of wives to their husbands, and husbands to their wives, of children to their parents, and of parents to their children. The hospitals were so far from being capable to contain the sick, that numbers could not even get access to the doors, on account of the vast crowds that lay on the pavement around them. This was the situation of Marseilles at the end of August. By the third of September, the surviving magistrates found the town house almost empty. Five hundred persons belonging to it had died. Amongst these were three hundred and fifty of the city guards. The religious orders likewise suffered extremely
The bishop was distinguished by the most active and intrepid benevolence. On the 6th of September, there remained, after every exertion, above two thousand dead bodies in the streets. A fresh supply of galley slaves was obtained with difficulty. From this time, to the end of September, the disease raged with unabated fury. In the month of October, it began to abate without any visible cause. The sick began to be cured. In November, the contagion continued to decrease, and by the 1st of December, the danger was in a great measure at an end. It was not, however, entirely ceased till the month of March. We are not informed as to the exact number of deaths; but they are estimated at not less-than fifty or sixty thousand.
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