ABSTRACT
Jean-Baptiste Bertrand, a doctor during the 1720 plague, described the city as standing on the Mediterranean side of a range of low hills, and added that the harbour was nearly a mile in length but less than a half mile in width. In Bertrand’s day, Marseille sprawled in a half-circle around the port but, a century earlier, it had lain huddled along the western edge of the port. Change within early modern cities had an impact on the larger society, and many of the forces transforming early modern life first appeared in cities. By 1720, the medieval walls of Marseille had been torn down and the city had been substantially enlarged. Commercial success stimulated industrial growth, and manufacturing flourished, although Marseille was always more a mercantile than an industrial city. The first sugar refinery appeared at Marseille in 1671; its owner was a wholesale merchant and shipowner who had surplus capital.
