[1] 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

[14] 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.

[15] The hospital was located in the southeast corner of the port, on the Quai de Rive-Neuve, near the present-day Cours Jean-Ballard [fr].

[21] 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).

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.

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.

He was reinstated on the galley La Vieille Réale, which no longer sailed, and was used as a depot, infirmary and home for sick and injured convicts.

He joined his ship in Cadiz, where the galley squadron stayed for two years (1702-1703), built up a good Spanish clientele and returned to Marseille.

On November 9, 1711, he had the attestation given by Fagon, the First physician to the king, and all his captains' eulogistic certificates registered with the Parliament of Aix, and enjoyed a certain degree of peace of mind, on condition that he treated only dropsy.

As soon as the first works were commissioned, Arnoul realized the inadequacy of this project and planned to extend the arsenal beyond the southeast corner of the port, along the Quai de Rive-Neuve, by expropriating the Capuchin convent.

Construction work, entrusted to André Boyer, architect of the Bâtiments du Roi, continued from 1686 to 1690, with the section built in 1665-1669 being known as the "old park" (fr: vieux parc).

Opposite this entrance gate stands a large pavilion topped by a clock and placed in the axis of the rue Pavillon to which it gave its name.

To the north was the galley hospital, a lumber yard, the steward's quarters and the king's garden, containing rare plants and cages of exotic animals.

Above this gateway, Jean-Baptiste Grosson [fr] noted that a cartouche read the proud praise of the Sun King: Hanc magnus Lodoix invictis classibus arcem condivit hinc domito dat sua jura mari (lit.

In 1688, Louis XIV had a medal engraved with the motto Assertum maris mediterranei imperium (in Latin) ("Mastery of the Mediterranean Sea is assured").

In 1673, Madame de Sévigné described to her daughter, the Countess of Grignan, "La Réale, working, and the banners and cannon shots".

The general died the following year at the age of 46, and only two months later, Louis XV signed the ordinance of November 27, 1748, merging all galley personnel into the royal navy.

[32] There were also 300 master builders and journeymen hired on a year-round basis, plus 2,000 to 2,500 irregular seasonal workers and laborers employed to build and maintain the galleys, which required extensive tooling and wood storage.

The only convicts to die of the plague were the famous "corbeaux" or gravediggers who, at the request of the aldermen, were charged with removing the corpses to the mass graves.

On January 5, 1750, La Tour sent the Minister a memorandum in line with the wishes of the people of Marseille, which did not prevent the galleys from being transferred to Toulon.

[49] At its meeting of February 11, 1781, the municipal council accepted the principle and appointed a commission chaired by mayor Joachim-Elzéard de Gantel-Guitton [fr], lord of Mazargues, to draw up a report on the conditions of the sale.

To the south-east of the vacated land, a new square was laid out, then known as Place Ernest Reyer, bordering on the construction of the grand theater, which after its fire in 1919 became the municipal opera house.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Canal de la Douane had a number of drawbacks: bad smells and difficulties linking the two banks.

[55] The only remaining vestiges of the Arsenal are a building on cours d'Estienne d'Orves, known as La Capitainerie, which has been listed as a monument historique since August 4, 1978,[56] and, officially, the Mosquée de l'arsenal des galères [fr] in Marseille, transferred to the southern part of the city, now at 584 avenue du Prado, listed as a historic monument since July 15, 1965.