Marseilles (321), third city and first seaport of France, on the shore of the Gulf of Lyons, 27 m. E. of the mouth of the Rhône; has extensive dock accommodation; does great trade in wheat, oil, wine, sugar, textiles, and coal, and manufactures soap, soda, macaroni, and iron; there is a cathedral, picture-gallery, museum, and library, schools of science and art; founded by colonists from Asia Minor in 600 B.C., it was a Greek city till 300 B.C.; after the days of Rome it had many vicissitudes, falling finally to France in 1575, and losing its privilege as a free port in 1660; always a Radical city, it proclaimed the Commune in 1871; a cholera plague devastated it in 1885; six years later great sanitary improvements were begun; Thiers and Puget were born here.