A picture I took last Sunday as we were walking in Marseille. It's in the same street where I took the cloth lines and within 15 minutes from the appartment.
According to Wikipedia, it was constructed between 1671 and 1749. It has four ranges of arcaded galleries in three storeys surrounding a space with a central chapel surmounted by an ovoid dome. It was first used as an almshouse (new word for me!).
In the seventeenth century the repression of beggars was conducted with great brutality in France. Guards called Chasse-gueux ("beggar-hunters") had the task of rounding up beggars: non-residents among them were expelled from Marseille, and natives of Marseille were shut up in prison. Often the crowd would take the side of the beggars during such arrests. The almshouses served as workhouses for the beggars. Children were found jobs as domestic servants, cabin boys or apprentices with seamstresses or bakers.
Today La Vieille Charité houses a couple of museums, a library and a school of advanced studies in social sciences.
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