The struggles for power in Provence cluster clearly in the more recent periods: of 54 dates, 20 fall in the early modern period and 23 in the contemporary era, against only 11 for Antiquity and the Middle Ages combined. Salyan revolts, usurpations at Arles, but above all factional struggles at Aix and Marseille, then the electoral shifts of the twentieth century: the common thread is rivalry for control of local power, embodied by figures such as Gaspard de Pontevès, comte de Carcès, Casaulx or the comte d'Alais.
This map traces these internal conflicts, from the revolts against Rome to the 1993 and 1995 elections that tipped Provence to the right, taking in the factional wars that tore at Aix, Marseille and Toulon under the Ancien Régime.
What the corpus attaches to this theme
Places most present : Marseille, Provence, Aix, Arles, Avignon, Italie, Sisteron, Toulon
Figures most present : Raimond Bérenger V, Charles Ier d'Anjou, Gaspard de Pontevès, comte de Carcès, Guise, Casaulx, Comte d'Alais, Hugues de Baux, Reine Jeanne
Antiquity
90 BC
Revolt of the Salluvii, punished by the army of C. Cecilius
83 BC
New revolt, spreading to the Celtic tribes of the Transalpine region and to the north of Spain, put down by Valerius Flaccus
15 March 44 BC
Assassination of Caesar in the Senate, followed by thirteen years of wars down to Actium
408-411
Arles falls for a time into the hands of a usurper, another Constantine
475
Orestes, master of the soldiers and former secretary to Attila, drives out Julius Nepos and makes his own son Romulus Augustulus, fourteen years old, emperor
535
Execution of Amalasuntha, providing the pretext for the Gothic war
Middle Ages
734
Maurontus calls in Andalusian forces, hostility met by Charles Martel
736
Revolt of Maurontus and first repression by Charles Martel, who seizes Arles and Marseille
870
Charles the Bald installs Boson, his brother-in-law, as duke of Vienne in place of Duke Girard
May 1246 to the end of 1250
Almost continuous absence of the count for four and a half years, favouring the formation of an opposition
26 July 1252
Compromise granting Marseille wide autonomy
30 March 1282
Uprising of the Sicilian Vespers
1343
Death of Robert, Naples becomes a battleground of intrigues
Early modern period
1493
Civil war in Marseille between governor and seneschal, settled by the merger of the two offices in favour of Philippe de Hochberg
1588 to 1589
The lieutenant general La Valette establishes Pertuis as the seat of the royalist Estates and parlements, facing the Leaguers who control Aix
October 1591
Casaulx becomes first consul of Marseille, start of the Marseille dictatorship
5 January 1594
The Parlement d'Aix, the first of the rebel parlements of the kingdom, still a Leaguer body and not reunified, recognises Henri IV
June 1594
Effective merger of the royalist Parlement, then established at Manosque after residing at Pertuis and Sisteron, with the Leaguer Parlement of Aix, which returns to Aix
early January 1596
Secret instructions from Henri IV to Étienne Bernard to secure Casaulx's rallying, offers conveyed and left unanswered
17 February 1596
Assassination of Casaulx by Libertat at the Porte Réale of Marseille, ending the Marseille dictatorship
27 May 1596
Epernon obeys the royal summons to leave the province, end of the civil war
19 September 1630
Day of the Cascaveù: riot in Aix driving out the consul Forbin and the intendant Dreux d'Aubray, led by the president de Coriolis against the edict of the Élus
October 1647
Edict of Fontainebleau, duplicating the offices of parlementaires, triggering the war of the Semestre
1651
Polarization in Aix between Sabreurs and Canivets, at the height of the anarchy of the Fronde
2 March 1660
Louis XIV enters Marseille in person through a breach in the ramparts
1730
The Parlement d'Aix refuses to register the royal declaration on the constitution Unigenitus
May 1774
Death of Louis XV, end of Maupeou's experiment in enlightened despotism
12 January 1775
The crowd in Aix acclaims the Messieurs of the Parlement, reinstated and recalled by Louis XVI
May 1788
The third estate, gathered at Lambesc, once again demands reform of the provincial Estates
30 January 1789
Speech by Mirabeau calling on the Provençal nation to assert its rights
spring 1789
Election period: political enthusiasm and popular unrest over the high cost of living
end of March 1789
Outbreak of violent and confused riots across all of Provence, around the voting assemblies
19 August 1789
Bloody popular unrest in Marseille, rebels released at Mirabeau's call
Read the period: Early modern period
Contemporary period
March 1789
First wave of anti-noble revolts in rural Provence
14 September 1791
Vote for the annexation of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin to France
10 August 1792
The people of Marseille are at the forefront of the assault on the Tuileries
September 1793 to September 1794
The Terror punishes federalism in Provence
summer 1795
Massacres of prisoners at Fort Saint-Jean and then at the Château de Tarascon
1814
Fall of the Empire
June 1815
At the news of Waterloo, an explosion of royalism in Marseille and a second White Terror
late April 1832
The Duchess of Berry lands near Marseille
June 1848
June Days in Marseille, in the wake of those in Paris
2 December 1851
Coup d'État of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte: Provence becomes the principal centre of republican insurrections in France
1870
The Provençal popular masses acclaim the proclamation of the Republic and the war of national defence
30 November 1871
Execution of Gaston Crémieux at Fort du Pharo in Marseille
1885
The Bouches-du-Rhône elect the socialists Clovis Hugues and Antide Boyer
1892 to 1893
Marseille, Berre and La Ciotat, then Toulon, gain socialist mayors
24 August 1914
An article in the newspaper Le Matin triggers the "affaire du 15e corps"
1936
The Popular Front reaches its greatest electoral extent in Provence
1945 to 1950
The post-war context, the affair of the 15th regiment and suspicions of collaboration weighing on certain regionalisms, blocks the regional claim in France
autumn 1947
Major strikes in Provence, including the dramatic day in Marseille on 12 November
September 1958
General de Gaulle comes to Marseille and rallies the socialist leadership to a yes vote in the referendum
May-June 1968
The events of May 1968 upend the universities of Aix and Marseille
March 1986
Death of Gaston Defferre, mayor of Marseille and national political figure
1993 and 1995
The elections accentuate the political shift of Provence towards the right
1997
State of Provençal political life somewhat rebalanced: the point where the Que sais-je? by Agulhon and Coulet stops