The Arsenal des Galères (lit. French for Galleys Arsenal) is a former military arsenal located in Marseille, France. It was built by Colbert in the second half of the 17th century to house and arm King Louis XIV's galleys, but was only fully operational for less than a hundred years, galleys rapidly losing their role in naval warfare to ships.
Until 1748, the Arsenal housed convicts sentenced to forced labor. It was located on the eastern and southern shores of the Old Port, and although almost nothing remains of it today, its location still marks the city's urban planning.
History of the galleys In Roman times, Marseille already had an arsenal of galleys. In his war against Caesar, Pompey sent seven galleys to Marseille as reinforcements, to attack Caesar's fleet of 17 galleys, 11 of which were decked.Cesar, Julius. La Guerre civile [The Civil War] (in French), 1, 36-39 and 1, 56-57. The Marseille arsenal was home to 10 galleys, several of which were on deck. The arsenal also housed a "weapons manufacturing" area. This military enclave was located on the south bank of the Lacydon, at Plan Fourmiguier (from today's Quai des Belges to the former careening basin).
In 1296, Charles II of Naples, then later Charles VIII (1495) and finally Louis XIV, through Colbert (second half of the 17th century), successively rebuilt or redeveloped the arsenal, to accommodate and arm the "king's galleys" - from Naples or France. Marseille was an important French war port on the Mediterranean Sea. The galley arsenal was occupied on a discontinuous basis. In its last period, it was operational for less than a hundred years, when Louis XV abolished the galleys (September 27, 1748), which had lost their role in naval warfare to ships in the early eighteenth century.
Until 1748, the arsenal housed convicts sentenced to forced labour, the galley slaves. It was located to the east and south of the Old Port, and although almost nothing remains of it today (the Capitainerie, and an old discotheque from the 1960s, the "Arsenal des Galères", allowed visitors to observe the cells carved out of the rock of Notre-Dame de la Garde hill, and the access channel and galley basin were filled in during the 1910s), its location still marks the city's urban planning.
Dating from the mid-sixteenth century, Stolonomie, the oldest known treatise on galleys, deploys a nautical vocabulary specific to the ports of Marseille and Toulon.Johannes Georgius Fennis. The "stolonomie" and its maritime vocabulary from Marseilles - critical edition of a 16th-century manuscript and historical study of technical terms from Levant. APA-Holland Universiteits Pers. Amsterdam. 1978. (Read online, in French)
Early installations
Arsenal of the Counts of Provence No trace has yet been found of the arsenal dating back to Roman times. At the end of the 13th century, the Counts of Provence, kings of Naples, created a war port in Marseille. Charles I d'Anjou established an arsenal where galleys were built. These were actually tercenaux,Lexicographical and etymological information on "arsenal" in the Trésor de la langue française informatisé, on the website of the Centre national de ressources textuelles et lexicales. It is said un tercenal, des tercenaux. i.e. sheds where masts, ropes, sails, pulleys, oars and artillery were stored.
Some forty galleys took part in battles against the King of Aragon's fleet. The Provençal fleet was commanded by an admiral, such as , who also served under Charles II of Naples or (or Cornuti), killed at the naval battle of Malta on July 8, 1283. He was independent of the Admiral of Sicily, and acted under the direct orders of the King.
In 1296, Charles II created a special admiralty in Provence and, at the request of his , the city of Marseille granted him the shipyards of Plan Fourmiguier, an area at the far end of the Vieux-Port, on the site of today's Quai des Belges. The new admiral was Richard de Lamanon, keeper of Marseille's arsenal and galleys. The Admiral of Provence was responsible for appointing the captains of the galleys and exercising civil and criminal authority over all the men in the fleet. This organization continued until the end of Charles II's reign.
The city of Marseille struggled to regain the use of the Fourmiguier plan. This was achieved in 1320, when the fustiers (carpenters) resumed their activity on the site. King Robert the Wise ordered the creation of new tercenaux to the east of the Rive-Neuve quay for the manufacture of galleys, in order to continue the reconquest of Sicily, lost after the Sicilian Vespers.
King Charles IV of France, planning a new crusade, had galleys built in Marseille, probably on the tercenaux belonging to his cousin King Robert. These buildings were abandoned in the middle of the 14th century.
Arsenal of kings Charles VIII and Louis XII Following the union of Provence with the Kingdom of France, and the death of Charles III of Provence, the last Count of Provence, on December 11, 1481, Charles VIII, King of France, wanted to assert his rights over the Kingdom of Naples. He had a new arsenal with six terracenals built in the southeast corner of the port. In August 1488, he wrote to promote the construction of several galleys in Provençal shipyards. In 1494, as Charles VIII sailed overland to southern Italy, a Provençal fleet of six galleys joined him in Naples.
In 1512, Louis XII ordered the construction of twelve additional tercenals, of which six were built. The arsenal of Charles VIII and Louis XII fell into disrepair, as shown by Jean Roulx's report on his installation in 1570 as keeper of the Marseille arsenal.
The Arsenal in the 16th and early 17th centuries
In 1536, under the reign of Francis I, Marseille had 23 galleys in its port. In September 1533, Catherine de Medici made the journey from Florence (more precisely, from the port of Ostia) to Marseille on the galley of the pope, her uncle Clement VII, to marry the Dauphin, the future Henri II. The peak in the number of galleys was reached during his reign, as he attached great importance to naval power. In 1548, a record 42 galleys were built in the port of Marseille.
Shortly after the king's death and the end of the wars, the decline resumed, and by 1561 only 13 galleys remained, between those sent for reform and those given to the powerful. Galleys were fragile, high-maintenance vessels. It was more economical for the King to lease them to owners, such as the Valbelle family, captain of the Galleys from father to son. In 1578, the Grand Prieur Henri d'Angoulême was able to state in his remonstrances that, of the 18 galleys stationed in Marseille and Toulon, only a couple were fit for sea. Under Henri IV, the decline continued due to a lack of funding, so much so that when the king married Marie de Medici, foreign galleys belonging to the Pope, the Duke of Tuscany and the Knights Hospitaller brought the princess to Marseille on November 3, 1600.
As soon as he came to power, Richelieu relaunched galley construction. At the beginning of 1624, the galleys were transferred from Marseille to Toulon, to better fight the barbary pirates threatening the Îles d'Hyères. After a brief return to Marseille, the galleys moved back to Toulon as a plague epidemic ravaged Marseille in 1649.
Prisoners' hospital Shortly before the galleys were transferred from Marseille to Toulon, a prisoners' hospital was opened. It was set up in 1646 on the initiative of a Provençal gentleman, Gaspard de Simiane, sieur de la Coste, knight of Malta, renowned for his piety and charity, and the bishop of Marseille, . They approached the Duchess of Aiguillon, niece of Cardinal Richelieu, who financed the project. The king offered the land occupied by four tercenaux dating back to the time of Charles VIII, and undertook, under letters patent of July 1646, to cover the operating costs of this royal hospital for convicts.
The hospital was located in the southeast corner of the port, on the Quai de Rive-Neuve, near the present-day . It had 175 double beds. Its staff included a doctor, a surgeon, six apothecary boys and five nurses. Management of the hospital was entrusted to four administrators. The first administrators were Henri d'Armand, Treasurer of France, Pierre de Bausset, Lord of Roquefort, Gaspard de Simiane de la Coste, Knight of Malta, and Charles Moulas, Esquire. Two new administrators were appointed each year. The hospital was later incorporated into the arsenal created under Colbert.
Galley surgeons The first shipboard surgeons are mentioned from 1540 onwards on the King's galleys. The Marseille galleysCamous, C. (2011). Marseille au temps « joyeux » des galères [Marseille in the "joyous" days of the galleys] (in French). Autres Temps Editions. had hospital structures modelled on those of the Maltese galleys, with a prisoners' hospital, a crews' hospital, a botanical garden and an anatomy school.
The galleys were "France's biggest rotting ground for men", with only one man in two ever leaving alive. There were an average of 300 galley slaves on each galley, with 52 to 64 shoals of 5 galley slaves chained to each shoal, day and night, for 2 to 3 months, which was the average length of a campaign.Zysberg, A. (1983). Marseille au temps des galères : 1660-1748 [Marseille at the time of the galleys: 1660-1748] (in French). Marseille, éditions Rivages.
As for the galley surgeon, he was a Mediterranean civil servant appointed by competitive examination to a very small corps. He sailed only six months a year in summer, and stayed ashore in winter.
François Chabert: a galley surgeon He was appointed surgeon to the galleys in 1689, and became Master Sworn Surgeon of the city of Marseille in 1689, and surgeon general of the galleys and their hospitals in 1703.Brisou, B & Sardet, M. (2010). Dictionnaire des médecins, chirurgiens et pharmaciens de la Marine [Dictionary of naval physicians, surgeons and pharmacists] (in French). Service historique de la Défense. He served for 50 years. In 1689, he began writing observations on practical surgery, which were published in 1724.
Master Antoine Moulinneuf: a galley surgeon Born in La Rochelle in 1668, his personal and professional life is best known through the abundant correspondence he preserved. Fatherless from an early age, a surgeon-major had him embark with him "as surgeon" on the Hasardeux, Mr. Colbert de Saint-Mars's vessel, during the campaigns of Cape Vert et La Mérique and Algiers (1683). On March 12, 1685, after being examined by two surgeons, he was appointed surgeon on the Renommée galley.
In 1690, he moved to the Atlantic coast and embarked on the Heureuse, under the command of Captain Chevalier de Blicourt-Tincourt, but the squadron took 35 days to reach Cherbourg, arriving too late to take part in the battle that Tourville won over the Anglo-Dutch on July 7, at the naval battle of Béveziers, which pitted a French fleet against an Anglo-Dutch fleet on July 7, 1690 during the War of the League of Augsburg. However, he did take part in the Teignmouth landing on August 5.
Taking his profession to heart, he overstepped the boundaries of his surgeon's status and "did" medicine, proposing a remedy for dropsy - the term used to describe generalized oedema at the time. But the faculty complained to the Intendant Général des Galères, who dismissed him despite the fact that he had been serving for 10 years on the Renommée, with glowing service records mentioned by his captain.