Pierre Maurel (entrepreneur)

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Pierre Maurel (from 1650 Pierre Maurel de Pontevès ; born October 29, 1601 in Aix-en-Provence , † August 28, 1677 there ) was a French businessman and large landowner. During his lifetime he was referred to as Croesus of Provence .

family

Pierre was born into a well-to-do cloth merchant family, but his father, who came from the port city of La Ciotat and had settled in Aix-en-Provence shortly before the birth of his first son, died very early. His parents, François (approx. 1560–1602) and Sibille, née Trouillas (* approx. 1566), married on November 13, 1583. He was the youngest of four siblings. His two older brothers were called Antoine (approx. 1585–1677) and Blaise (* approx. 1586), his sister Ne (* approx. 1600). Pierre himself married several times and had 18 biological children with three wives: from his first marriage to Claudette Saurat (approx. 1610–1639) three sons were born, with his second wife Suzanne de Laurens(* approx. 1620), whom he married on June 18, 1640, he had a son and two daughters and with his third wife Diane de Pontevès d'Amirat (* approx. 1620), whom he married in 1645 six boys and six girls each.

Life and work

Hotel Maurel de Pontevès
Château de Pontevès

Nothing is known about Pierre's education, but he quickly achieved good social status. In 1630 he and his brother Antoine were appointed Provençal Postmaster General (Maitre des courrier de la generalité de Provence) in Aix-en-Provence . With this postal monopoly , he quickly understood how to conduct important commercial transactions that benefited the family's cloth business. Already at this time the name Croesus of Provence became common . Pierre still had ambitious plans. First he was appointed auditor of the Court of Auditors in 1639 , which significantly upgraded him socially because he rose to the nobility . He married his second wife, who belonged to the respected nobility, in 1640 at exactly this time. She died soon afterwards, but left him with three children. His third wife also had a noble background. Pierre Maurel was appointed judge .

For the growing family and social position, he needed a residence that took this into account. To this end, he acquired a building site on the Cours Mirabeau near the Archbishop's Palace between the Rue du Quatre-Septembre and the Rue Frederic-Mistral and built his city ​​palace there , east of it for one of his sons. These were the first two of the four buildings on the Place des Quatre-Dauphins, which is now perceived as an urban unit . Both buildings were richly decorated, both outside and inside. Just his own palace, designed by the architects Jean Lombard (1580–1656) and Pierre Pavillon (1612–1670), the impressive entrance portal with the two flanking mirror-image atlases by the builder Jacques de la Fosse (1621–1674) and his Freund, the painter Jean Daret (1614–1668), cost 45,000 livres . Architecturally, the palace refers to the transition from Mannerism to Baroque . The city palace has been under monument protection as a monument historique since 1990 and, with its many cultural features, is listed in the Base Mérimée .

But Pierre Maurel was not yet satisfied with his property in Aix. He felt that owning a castle was befitting . In 1650 he bought the abandoned and half-ruined Château de Pontevès from a nephew of his third wife for 159,000 livres in order to prepare it for himself. Since then he has called himself Pierre Maurel de Pontevès . In 1653 he was appointed Tresorier des Etats de Provence (Treasurer). In this important position he was able to give the country large advances and thereby render it valuable service. Until his death, the Château de Pontevès was not nearly restored. He left a fortune of over 2 million livres to his large number of heirs. In his will, he left his palace in Aix to the state as the seat of the criminal court of the Bouches-du-Rhône department .

In the municipality of Pontevès , from which his third wife came, he fulfilled some of the wishes of its residents: In addition to the partial restoration of the castle, he built an oil mill in 1662 , participated in the construction of several houses and removed old fortifications . The construction of the Saints-Gervais-et-Protais church in 1668 also fell precisely at this time. Maurel's financial participation is considered certain.

literature

  • Inès Castaldo: Pierre Maurel de Pontevès, le "crésus de Provence". In: Provence historique. Vol. 57, issue 230, 2007, ISSN  0033-1856 , pages 383-390 ( PDF ; 68.6 kB).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Description on the board at the entrance to the Tribunal de Commerce (the Hôtel d'Espagnet or Hôtel Maurel de Pontevès )
  2. ^ Armorial general de la France, Volume 2 . De l'Imprimerie de Jacques Collombat Chez Prault Pierre, 1738, page 570 (French)
  3. ↑ Hôtel d'Espagnet ou Maurel de Pontevès: For details , Base Mérimée; accessed on January 22, 2018
  4. ↑ Monument historique: Hôtel d'Espagnet ou Maurel de Pontevès , Base Mérimée; accessed on January 22, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Maurel, Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maurel de Pontevès, Pierre (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French businessman and landowner
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1601
PLACE OF BIRTH Aix-en-Provence
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1677
Place of death Aix-en-Provence