Noailles, Marseille — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Noailles?

The Capuchins left only names. Their order settled in 1665 on land Catherine de Médicis had bought in 1579, where the marché des Capucins stands now, and when the convent was declared national property in 1791 the friars were expelled and the buildings sold off, leaving the market and the rue Longue-des-Capucins to carry the name. Two theatres keep working.

The théâtre Mazenod has been open since 1934 and is one of the oldest stages in the city, while the Daki Ling occupies what was an Augustinian monastery of 1258 turned into warehouses in the 16th century. One museum shut and one is private. The Galerie des transports told the story of Marseille's urban transport from inside the Gare de Noailles until the tramway reopened, and the Hôtel Saint-Louis keeps a small display of photographs and documents that only its guests can see.

What is the history of Noailles?

The street came before the quartier. The rue Noailles was cut at the same time as the Canebière in 1666, between the cours Saint-Louis and the gate in the ramparts, and it was first called rue des Nobles for the families who lived on it. One tenant gave it the lasting name.

The galley builder Jean-Baptiste Chabert put up a private house there in 1679 and let it to Jacques de Noailles, a galley lieutenant, whose name stuck to the street, to the square beyond it, to the gate and finally to the quartier itself. Aristocratic until the Revolution, it turned bourgeois after. The hôtel de Manse and the hôtel Mirabeau, built by Jean-Antoine Riqueti de Mirabeau when he sold his house on the place de Lenche, stood among the 17th-century blocks pulled down when the widening began in 1859.

The street kept its name for another lifetime. Only in 1927 did the rue Noailles become a section of the Canebière, and the quartier that had grown up behind it kept the name the street gave up.

Where is Noailles?

Noailles fills the block bounded by the Canebière, the boulevard Garibaldi and the cours Lieutaud, the rue Jean-Baptiste Estelle and the rue Saint-Ferréol, in the middle of Marseille.