A brief Journal of what passed in the City of Marseilles, while it was afflicted with the Plague, in the Year 1720

In Short

Pichatty de Croissainte’s A Brief Journal is an official, day-by-day account of Marseilles during the devastating plague outbreak of 1720. As the city’s legal advocate, Croissainte logs the arrival of suspected ships, the fatal miscalculations of authorities, and the rapid collapse of public order as infection spreads. The journal documents the heroic, desperate measures taken by civic leaders to bury the dead, maintain food supplies, and enforce quarantines. It survives as a rare, immediate historical document capturing civic administration under extreme duress.

The Story

The narrative opens in May 1720 with early warnings reaching Marseilles that pestilence is active in the ports of Syria and Palestine. Standard maritime quarantines are established off the coast, but suspected cases soon leak into the city's infirmaries. By July, municipal officials desperately try to manage both the contagion and public panic. Fearing economic ruin, authorities write to European ports insisting the infection remains contained within the lazarettos. Brief lulls in deaths prompt citizens to mock the precautions, accusing doctors of causing false alarms. However, by late July, a sudden cluster of fifteen deaths in the impoverished street of Lescalle shatters all denial.

As August begins, the magistrates attempt desperate remedies, including lighting massive public bonfires along the city walls to purify the air. These measures fail, and the pestilence sweeps through every quarter with terrifying speed. Normal society disintegrates immediately. Thousands flee through the gates, deserting their posts. Millers, bakers, masons, scavengers, and even physicians abandon the city. Mothers leave infected infants crying in cradles, while families throw their dying kin into the streets to preserve themselves. Fear stifles all basic human empathy and duty.

Faced with total ruin, a small core of officials—led by the Marquis de Pilles, the city sheriffs, and later the military commander M. de Langeron—exert absolute authority. To clear the overwhelming number of corpses rotting in the heat, the sheriffs press sturdy beggars and eventually galley-slaves into service as gravediggers. Officials personally lead these dangerous work details through narrow streets. When traditional pits outside the walls prove insufficient, Sheriff Moustier forces open locked churches to fill their vaults with bodies, water, and quicklime. At the coastal esplanade of La Tourette, a thousand putrefied, unrecognizable corpses lie exposed; the intrepid Chevalier Rose conceives the idea to breach ancient Roman ramparts and drop the decaying remains directly into the hollow bastions.

Throughout the autumn, the city fights a dual battle against pestilence and impending famine. With surrounding regions barricading their borders, Marseilles faces starvation. The municipal government establishes heavily guarded, isolated frontier markets to trade for grain without personal contact. Convalescent hospitals are organized, abandoned monastical sites are repurposed to feed hundreds of orphaned infants with spoon-meat and goat's milk, and strict martial law is imposed to execute looters and deserters. By late November and early December, through rigorous isolation measures, royal financial support, and sheer administrative willpower, the contagion finally ebbs. On December 10, 1720, the journal concludes as no new patients enter the hospitals, leaving the surviving magistrates praised as the deliverers of their desolate city.

How It Unfolds

The warning signs arrive News of plague in Levantine ports prompts maritime quarantines, but initial infections quietly reach the local infirmaries. Officials try to maintain commerce while keeping suspected victims isolated.

Denial and sudden outbreak Citizens dismiss early warnings as false alarms, but a fatal outbreak among the poor in the street of Lescalle forces officials into crisis management. Bonfires are lit along the city walls in a futile attempt to purge the air.

The collapse of civic order As deaths surge in August, widespread panic triggers mass desertions of key workers, clergy, and residents. Relatives abandon their sick, leaving infants orphaned and corpses piling up in public thoroughfares.

Desperate measures for the dead The magistrates impress galley-slaves and beggars to collect putrefied bodies, using quicklime in church vaults and breaching ancient Roman ramparts to bury a thousand decaying corpses at La Tourette.

Fighting famine under blockade Neighboring towns isolate Marseilles, forcing officials to create strict, non-contact border markets and secure royal grain supplies to prevent mass starvation alongside the contagion.

The tide turns Under military leadership and strict public health ordinances, new hospitals open, streets are disinfected, and infection rates drop, culminating in zero new hospital admissions by December 10.

The People

• Pichatty de Croissainte: The author, Counsellor, and King's Attorney who records the crisis and drafts strict municipal decrees forcing deserters back to work under threat of death.
• The Sheriffs (including M. Moustier, M. Estelle, M. Audimar, and M. Dieudé): Civic leaders who personally lead cart crews of galley-slaves, breach locked churches for mass graves, and risk their lives daily on the front lines to clear infected corpses.
• The Marquis de Pilles: The presiding municipal leader who coordinates the city's early defense, balances public order with logistical demands, and manages emergency communications with royal authorities.
• The Chevalier Rose: An intrepid citizen officer who devises the critical engineering solution to dispose of a thousand putrefied bodies at La Tourette by breaking into hollow ancient bastions.
• M. de Langeron: The military commander appointed to enforce rigorous order, command troops, establish strict gate checkpoints, and oversee final disinfection protocols as the plague wanes.
• The Bishop of Marseilles (Henry de Belsunce): A devoted religious leader who remains in the infected city, ministers to the sick despite losing his household, and organizes street altars when churches are closed.

In Its Own Voice

"Already the Publick, recovered from their Fright, begin to explode as useless the Trouble the Sheriffs had given themselves, and all the Precautions they had taken..."

Before the full outbreak hits, the townspeople mock early quarantines and accuse medical staff of creating unnecessary panic.

"There is no Pity stirring in the Time of a Plague, the Fear of catching the Contagion stifles all Sentiments of Charity, and even those of Humanity..."

The text describes the complete breakdown of family ties as panic causes people to abandon their dying spouses and children in the streets.

"'Tis a Miracle that they have not all perished, by exposing themselves to Dangers so great, that the forty Soldiers of the Gallies, who accompanied them, have all perished, except four, by their Sides."

The author highlights the extraordinary mortality rate among those tasked with clearing corpses, underscoring the extreme physical danger faced by the surviving leaders.

What It's Really About

A Brief Journal is fundamentally a study of governance and human behavior under catastrophic stress. It explores how quickly the thin veneer of civilization, law, and familial affection dissolves when individuals face mortal fear. Beyond the horror of contagion, the text centers on the struggle between civic duty and individual self-preservation. Croissainte highlights how logistics—bread production, waste removal, corpse management, and financial credit—form the true backbone of human survival. The journal argues that when institutional frameworks crumble, only transparent, resolute, and self-sacrificing leadership can prevent total societal extinction.

Why Read It Today

This work offers a raw, unfiltered historical lens into how an 18th-century European city managed a public health emergency long before modern medicine. Readers fascinated by history, logistics, and crisis management will appreciate its granular detail and clear, unvarnished delivery. Reading it feels like sitting in an emergency operations center during a total collapse; the tone is factual, urgent, and remarkably free of literary exaggeration.

The primary difficulty for modern readers lies in its formal 18th-century legal syntax, archaic capitalization, and repetitive administrative entries. Because it is an official record rather than a polished novel, it focuses heavily on civic decrees, supply tallies, and names of local officials. However, what stays with you is the chilling depiction of psychological breakdown—the terrifying speed with which neighbors turn on each other, balanced against the incredible physical courage of a handful of leaders who refused to abandon their post.

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