Rue Saint-Ferréol

This guide to Rue Saint-Ferréol in Marseille traces the arrival of the Grand Saint-Antoine in 1720, a plague ship from the Levant carrying a fortune in silk and cotton bound for a fair in Beaucaire. It follows the pressure that pushed the ship's cargo ashore early despite quarantine rules, and the toll that followed for a city of under one hundred thousand people. A memorial column carved from stone pulled from an old abbey crypt once stood at the head of this street, topped by a bronze figure called the Genius of Immortality.