La Ciotat is a French commune located in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, 31 kilometers east of Marseille. Its inhabitants are called the Ciotadens and the Ciotadennes. La Ciotat is one of only two municipalities. La Ciotat Bay joined the Club of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World in 2019.
La Ciotat is in the middle between Marseille and Toulon. A former shipbuilding centre, now it is a nice resort. It is often associated with Lumière Brothers and their first films.
Located at the bottom of a crescent bay, the city, leaning against the Bec de l’Aigle faces the sea. It is dominated by a vast limestone plateau, bordered to the west by high cliffs falling directly onto the sea, which extends to the north by Cape Canaille. The latter, the Soubeyranes cliffs, exceed 390 meters, which places them at the head of the highest in France and among the highest sea cliffs in Europe. Between the Grande Tête and the Bau Rous, on the territory of La Ciotat, a marker overhanging the sea indicates the highest point of the cliffs, the plateau and the commune, that is to say 394 m 2.
History
La Ciotat, meaning “the city”. The first establishment installation on the sea route dates back to ancient navigators 5th century. At that time, the city acquired a great prosperity thanks to fishing and trade. The activity of the port contributes to the economic development of the city.
Middle Ages
The town appears as a hamlet of 200 inhabitants dependent on Ceyreste. The monks then held considerable power over the territory. In full economic boom, thanks to its maritime traffic, the town of La Ciotat gradually marked its desire for autonomy.
In 1429, serious quarrels concerning the guard of the “common” lands broke out between La Ciotat and Ceyreste. The delegates of the two communities then found a solution: the division of the territory of Ceyreste, split into two distinct and independent communities.
From then on, La Ciotat developed rapidly: it built its Fort Bérouard, its ramparts, its church and managed its own business. Italian families from Genoa settle down. La Ciotat soon has 10,000 inhabitants.
Two other forts complete the defense of the square: to the east, near the Porte de la Tasse, the small fort Saint-Martin and fort Saint-Antoine, located at the time at the site shipyards.
1720 and the plague
The plague epidemic, which ravaged Provence in 1720, spared La Ciotat thanks to the courage and organization of the Ciotadens. In order to protect themselves from the scourge, the city closes its doors to foreigners. When the troops of the Marseille garrison wanted to take refuge in town, it was the Ciotadennes who prevented them from doing so.
The city’s port is then transformed into a trade warehouse: subsistence goods and especially wheat, destined for Marseilles and Provence, then pass through the city, thus preserving the region from starvation.
The parish church, Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, preserves two precious testimonies of the plague of 1720: a painting by Michel Serre on which is represented the boat which brought the plague, leaving from La Ciotat bay, without rescue, towards Marseille, as well as a view of Cassis at the time of the plague.
The Revolution and the First Empire
Shortly before the French Revolution, unrest rose. In addition to the fiscal problems present for several years, the harvest of 1788 had been poor and the winter of 1788-89 very cold. The election of 1789 General States had been prepared by those of the States of Provence 1788 and January 1789, which had contributed to emphasize class political opposition and cause a stir. It was at the time of writing the notebooks of grievances, at the end of March, that an insurrectional wave shook Provence. A fruit riot occurs in La Ciotat on March 26,. If it is ultimately limited to a gathering with shouts and threats against the wealthy, she manages to get the removal of a tax, the stake, temporarily. It is then restored, but at a lower rate. Initially, the reaction consisted in gathering the workforce of the constabulary on the spot. A bourgeois guard is created to mitigate future uprisings. Then legal proceedings are instituted, but the sentences are not carried out, the taking of the Bastille as the disturbances of the Great fear causing, by measure of appeasement, an amnesty in early August.
In 1800, the rebellion gradually died out with the appointment of the new mayor of La Ciotat, Bernardin Ramel, by the first consul Bonaparte. The return of the priest and priests at the rectory, removing the Republican calendar in 1 st January 1806, the restoration of old street names in 1808, well mark the end of the revolutionary era.
However, the proliferation of British attacks ended up ruining La Ciotat. Gradually, the population decreases and becomes poorer.
At the time when the Empire collapsed, La Ciotat was very weak.
Industrialization
The shipyards develop the xix th century. In 1835, the Ciotaden Louis Benet teamed up with the Vence maritime engineers to build metal-hulled ships at La Ciotat (and powered by steam). In 1851, the Messageries Nationale chose the La Ciotat shipyards to build the ships of their fleet. In 1870 yards ciotadens employ three thousand five hundred workers, workers for which was built in 1853 a first of housing estates of France.
La Ciotat was the setting of one of the very first projected motion pictures, L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat filmed by the Lumière brothers in 1895. After several private showings, the fifty-second long film was given a public screening on December 28, 1895, in Paris, the first recorded commercial public showing of a motion picture. According to the Institut Lumière, before its Paris premiere, the film was shown to invited audiences in several French cities, including La Ciotat. It was screened at the Eden Theater in September 1896, making that theater one of the first motion picture theaters.
Another three of the earliest Lumière films, Partie de cartes, l’Arroseur arrosé (the first known filmed comedy), and Repas de bébé, were also filmed in La Ciotat in 1895, at the Villa du Clos des Plages, the summer residence of the Lumière Brothers. In 1904 the Lumiere Brothers also developed the world’s first colour photographs in La Ciotat
In 1907 Jules Le Noir invented the game of pétanque in La Ciotat, and the first tournament was held there in 1910. The history of the game is documented in the Musée Ciotaden.
Tourist places
Calanque de Figuerolles
Mugel Park
Green Island
Soubeyranes cliffs
Secular monuments
vestiges of the old fortifications: forts Bérouard and Saint-Antoine
door dating from 1628
Palace of the Lumière brothers (who shot several films there) and large living room (Listed as a Historic Monument)
houses xvii th, Focaccia streets and Bee
former hotel Grimaldi-Régusse (Join the Historical Monuments) – this hotel was built in the xvii th century on behalf of shipowners and traders, Grimaldi; the pediment of the door is of ornamental type (Louis XIV period)
old vestibule, staircase and roof (Listed as a Historic Monument), 6 rue Adolphe-Abeille
19th century old town hall, Renaissance style, surmounted by a bell tower: on the facade, commemorative inscription of Lamartine’s stopover in La Ciotat (the old town hall now houses the town museum)
octagonal tower, vestige of the former Ursuline convent;
former Eden-Concert, oldest cinema in the world (Listed as a Historic Monument)
Gare district: site of the shooting of one of the first films in the world, The Arrival of a train in La Ciotat station, in 1895 by the Lumière brothers
ruins of fort Saint-Pierre on Green Island (La Ciotat)
Religious monuments
Chapel of Sainte-Croix, way of Sainte-Croix. The oldest chapel in La Ciotat, built outside the city, it was one of the first lookouts before its construction, before the construction of the current semaphore. Property of the White Penitents, it sheltered for a long time a hermit who ensured the role of watchman and could emit signals. Sold as national property in 1790, the chapel which included two rooms and a courtyard was transformed into a shed.
Church of Our Lady of the Assumption (1603), quai Ganteaume. The church was built from 1603 to 1626 by enlarging an old chapel. As the work has not been completed, there are two spans missing on the west side. The Romanesque building measures 44 meters in length, 25 meters in width, 22.5 meters in height. The facade degraded by erosion and the interior of the church were restored from 1971 to 1975. A marble statue evoking Our Lady of Bon Voyage comes from the former Capuchin convent which was on the site of the La Licorne clinic. The wall frescoes were created in 1972 by the local painter Gilbert Ganteaume.
Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde Chapel (1610), Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde Road. Built, also outside the city, by the Blue Penitents, it was consecrated in 1613. Decorated with votive offerings from grateful sailors, a traditional pilgrimage takes place there every year on December 8.
Salle Saint-Jacques, chapel of the White Penitents (1618), place du Théâtre. Decreed national at the time of the Revolution, it was used for the primary assemblies from 1790 then became communal room. Poorly maintained, it was decided to demolish the ruined parts and in 1882, the walls razed, to build a theater there. The place has become a multi-purpose municipal hall.
Chapel of the Blue Penitents (1626), esplanade of May 8, 1945. About 46 meters long and 9 meters wide, its style is significant of the architecture of the Counter-Reformation. The octagonal bell tower was built between 1633 and 1650. The interior decoration of certain windows bears the dates 1693 or 1694. Owned by the hospice and then national, the first mayor of La Ciotat, Toussaint André Besson, was elected there on February 12, 1791. Disused, the chapel restored from 1980 and become an exhibition space, was classified as a historic monument in March 1992.
Sainte-Anne chapel, chapel of the Black Penitents (1630), place Esquiros. Built from 1630, it was not completed, under the name of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, until around 1659. In debt, the Black Penitents sold it in December 1693 to the Fathers Servites, enriched by the sale of water from Fontsainte, who enlarged it and dedicated it to Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs but lasted, unable to cope with the maintenance of the building, to leave La Ciotat even before the Revolution. Decreed a national property, it was sold in 1791. It was then converted into a prison, then bought and the brotherhood of Sainte-Anne settled there.
Chapelle des Minimes (1633), place Guibert. The chapel, 32 meters long and 6 meters wide, is flanked by two collaterals which today house the synagogue and the dance academy which opens onto the former courtyard of the convent. During the Revolution it was the seat of the Antipolitics club. Returned to worship in 1822, the disused chapel was returned to the city in 1948.
Chapel of Saint Joseph, Chapel of the Black Penitents (1698), Place Esquiros. It was built for the Black Penitents from May 1697 to April 1698 about fifty meters from their first chapel (Sainte-Anne) on land adjoining the rampart of the Porte de Cassis. What remained of the brotherhood gave way in 1819 to the congregation of Saint Joseph.
Chapel of the Youth Work (1872), boulevard Michelet. Built between 1866 and 1871, it measures 26 meters in length, 9 meters in width, 14 meters in height. The stained glass windows, commissioned in 1867, are the work of glassmaker Alphonse Didron.
Chapelle Saint-Jean (1935), avenue Bellon. Modern Style, it measures twenty meters long and eight meters wide.
Culture heritage
the cinema
At the end of the xix th century, industrial Lyon, the Lumière brothers, will play a leading role in the history of cinema with, in 1895 one of the first films ever made, The Arrival of a train station in La Ciotat, followed by a few others that are said to have been made in their Ciotadean villa, the Clos des Plages castle: the sprinkler sprinkled, the baby meal. The Lumière brothers also took the first color photographs in the Gulf of La Ciotat.
In La Ciotat there is also the oldest cinema in the world still in existence, L’Eden, opposite the new port of the city. Its rehabilitation via a support committee chaired by Bertrand Tavernier is carried out, the new cinema was inaugurated on October 9, 2013 as well as a Lumière- Michel-Simon museum space (the actor having finished his days at La Ciotat).
the bowls
La Ciotat also claims the invention of pétanque: in 1910, at the Provençal playground of the Pitiot brothers, the spectators’ chairs had been removed. But a friend of the owners, Jules Lenoir, who was trapped in rheumatism and found it difficult to stand, was allowed to play seated at a fixed post, “feet teased” in the middle of a circle drawn on the ground. This was immortalized by a plaque affixed on the ground of the “Star ball” where the pétanque was born.
Miscellaneous
The municipal park of La Ciotat, the Parc du Mugel, located on the Anse deu Petit Mugel, is classified as one of the Notable Gardens of France by the French Ministry of Culture. Sheltered by the massive rock called “Le Bec D’Aigle” (the eagle’s beak), 155 meters high, it contains both a botanical garden of tropical plants and a nature preserve of native Provençal plants, covering the hillside below the rock.
The town has an annual film festival in early June called the ‘Cinestival’, and usually revolves around a specific topic. It also has two other annual film related festivals, with a scriptwriter festival in April and an associated film conference ‘Berceau du cinema’ around two weeks after Cinestival.
Beach
La Ciotat has an artificial sand beach because of its rocky location. The beach is located downtown and is at walking distance from local market, the ship yards and the main bus station. The beach faces the Alps mountain regions on one side and the uphill commercial area on the other side. Most hotels, restaurants and bars in La Ciotat are located on the same street.
Festivitiesand events
One of the most important manifestations is Once upon a time in 1720. This historic celebration takes place over three days in the pedestrian zone on the edge of the beaches (until 2010, it took place in “Port-Vieux” and the city center). It commemorates the sad period of the Plague of Marseilles which struck Provence in the xviii century and the courage of Ciotadens and Ciotadennes fighting against the foreigners wanting to take refuge in one of the only cities having avoided this epidemic.
The show, which took place for the first time in 2002, is the work of an Association law of 1901: La Ciotat, once upon a time, volunteers, from the city or elsewhere, who work all year to prepare for this weekend of historical reconstruction.
At the end of September, the Algerian community of Mers El Kébir de La Ciotat paid tribute to Saint Michel during a procession dedicated to him.
La Ciotat in Literature
Lamartine in July 1832 and Stendhal in May 1838 stopped at La Ciotat. La Ciotat, Figuerolles and Cap Canaille are mentioned in 1928 and 1931 in the interpretation that Raymond Queneau tries of the images of his dreams. The beginning of his novel Les Enfants du limon (1938) takes place in La Ciotat. During the summer of 1953 Henry Miller visited Michel Simon at La Ciotat.
La Ciotat in the arts
After a stay in the summer of 1906 at La Ciotat, Georges Braque and Othon Friesz painted, in the style of Fauvism, many paintings whose titles evoke the city. The painter André Masson stayed there in the 1930s. During his stays at La Ciotat around 1945-1946, the sculptor Baltasar Lobo produced, in a tower above the “Blue Waves”, the drawings from which he would draw inspiration for the series of his Maternities and his Bathers. A work by Nicolas de Staël from 1952-1953 (oil on canvas, 50 x 61 cm) has the title Mediterranean (La Ciotat) . A lasting work by Guillaume Bottazzi produced as part of Marseille-Provence 2013, European Capital of Culture, is part of the urban landscape of La Ciotat.