Origin and history
The church of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel, known as the Grands-Carmes, is located in the 2nd arrondissement of Marseille, on the hillside of Carmel, a site occupied since the 6th century BC. This hill, integrated with Hellenistic ramparts (200–49 B.C.), was also the scene of the assault of Julius Caesar's troops. The excavations carried out between 1981 and 1985 confirmed this ancient occupation, revealing traces of a human presence long before the foundation of Massalia.
The Order of the Carmelites, the first of the four begging orders to settle in Marseilles, first settled in the Aygalades around 1238, in ermitic caves, before founding an unfinished convent. In 1285, they obtained permission to settle intramurally on the present Cartes hill, close to the populations to be evangelized. The building of the convent and its church, partly financed by a legacy of Guillaume André in 1361, was rebuilt in the seventeenth century because of its disrepair. The first stone was laid in 1603 by Bishop Frédéric Ragueneau, and the presbytery was completed in 1619.
In the 17th century, the church became a place of intense Marian devotion, especially during the plague epidemic that struck Provence. In 1629, the consuls of Marseilles offered the Carmelites a silver lamp to burn in front of the statue of the Virgin, committing themselves to annually finance the oil needed. The bell tower, whose first stone was laid in 1640, was financed by the brotherhood of Notre-Dame du Saint-Sepulcre and Baron Jehan de Marelhan, who built his tomb there. In 1655, a silver statue of the Virgin, considered a masterpiece, decorated the church.
The French Revolution marked a dramatic turning point for the convent. Closed in 1790, his religious were expelled, and Father Rolland, former prior, was hanged with three companions in February 1790. The church, spared by the inhabitants of the neighborhood, was transformed into a decade-old temple under the name of Saint-Étienne, then of Saint-Lazare in 1800, before returning to its original term in 1802. The bells, lamp and silver statue are melted, while an inscription commemorates the Marseilles battalion of 1792.
In the 19th century, parish priest Louis Decanis, appointed in 1862, undertook an ambitious restoration of the church, commanding plaster statues at the workshops in Leuven and Munich, as well as a tomb of the Holy Sepulcher carved by the house Virebent in Toulouse. In 1870, to avoid the requisition of the bells, he offered a machine gun financed by parishioners. After his death in 1882, a partial collapse of the dome and bell tower in 1897 led to their reduction, the sanctuary being masked by a wall.
Inside the church, a unique nave vaulted in the middle of the hangar, houses ten richly decorated side chapels. The master altar in golden wood, carved in 1733 by Antoine Duparc and Jean Gottlieb Courlaffski, is surmounted by a ciborium installed in 1874. The 18th century woodwork, works by Albert Duparc, once framed eight paintings by Michel Serre representing the life of the Virgin, four of which remain after the bombings of 1944. The pulpit, attributed to the Puget school, celebrates the prophet Elijah, mythical founder of the Order of Carmelites.
Ranked a historical monument in 1983 for its interior and inscribed for its facades, the church also preserves a 1640 organ buffet, attributed to the Eustache family, now empty. Before 1776, it housed the burials of noble families such as the Lenche or Valbelle, who had disappeared during the Revolution. The place remains a center of popular devotion, especially for corporations such as shepherds, couriers or coopers, who celebrated their employers' holidays until the 19th century.
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