April 30, 2012
Adapting

I start the morning preparing for an 11:00 a.m. meeting with Fabrice Busconi, a real estate agent I made an appointment with the Thursday of my arrival in Marseille, and confirmed by e-mail. It is pouring rain, but not unpleasant.

Not to be late, I am there at ten minutes of eleven. Fabrice has not yet gotten into the office. I am told to come back in fifteen minutes. I stop to have something to eat at a cafe down the street and return at ten minutes after: Fabrice has not arrived. Madame Pautasso, the lady fielding calls leaves a message on his cellphone, and I prepare to wait.

Fortunately, Fabrice comes in at 11:25 a.m. The traffic into the Vieux Port and the Canabiere is always horrendous, and no one is ever on time. However, I am delighted to see Fabrice, who sets about explaining to me the nuances of renting and buying apartments in Marseille.

To start with renting apartments, the real estate broker gets one month's rent as his fee, and the landlord asks for a month's rent as a security deposit in addition to the first month's rent in advance. The contract is made for a year's duration, but the renter has the option of cancelling it two months in advance, at no charge. As in the United States, provided the property has not sustained any damage during the rental period, the deposit will be returned.

My thought is that I might rent for a while, then buy an apartment. Fabrice has no problem with this, and having explained how the rental market works, proceeds to give me an overview of what is available currently that I might be interested in. He shows me several apartments for sale, two of which have terraces with views, something I would want. The prices are quite affordable. He tells me not to open a bank account until I am ready to purchase, as not every bank will offer a mortgage on every property. Then he refers me to his collegue, Marguerite, in the next office, to talk to me about rentals.

The first thing Marguerite asks me is whether I pay taxes in France. When I say, "No", and that I intend to keep paying my taxes to the United States, she tells me that she cannot help me. Foncia only works with individuals who file their income taxes in France. Setting aside why this is, I ask what I might do in this case. She refers me to a colleague who works with foreigners in search of rentals. I relay this news to Fabrice, who tells me that colleague is reliable, although in the end, he may not be necessary to the process if I return to Marseille in September (as I plan to do) and find something I like. If a seller agrees to sign the French equivalent of a letter of intent, the buyer has three months to obtain a mortgage. If no mortgage is obtainable, there is no obligation on the buyer's part. If a mortgage is obtained, the letter of intention is converted into a contract of sale which is finalized and a closing date set.

Fabrice has suggested that I familiarize myself with two neighborhoods where I might enjoy living, Place Sebastopol, which requires that I take the Metro, and the Ballon des Auffes, which I can walk to. The Ballon des Auffes is a hill below which is an area where makers of ropes, at one time Provencal, later Spanish and Italian, lived. Fonfon's, a restaurant known for its boullaibaise, is at the base of the Ballon des Auffres. I walk down the winding staircase to a creek filled with brightly-colored fishing boats. Fonfon's is a few steps away. I have been told that it is wise to reserve in advance, but the 37 Euro price of boullaibaise for one, puts me off, and I walk back up the stairs. Not far away in the Sofitel is a restaurant with a splendid view of the harbor, Les Trois Forts. I have been told it is wonderful, but dining alone in an expensive restaurant is not something I enjoy, so again, I move on.

What I want to see is the ruin of the Abbaye Saint Victor, which Joseph Garibaldi depicted in one of the paintings I saw at the Palais des Arts. It was originally built in 450 A.D., as a monastery and convent by John Cassian, an abbot who endorsed the Semipelagian heresy, a belief that man's wlll can work without God's grace to bring man to God. Semipelagianism was a sort of compromise between the thinking of Saint Augustine, who argued that God's grace along with man's will, lead men to salvation; and Pelagius' view that man alone can save himself. Saint Augustine's view is central Roman Catholic theology: so after John Cassian's was declared heresy, and after the Saracens destroyed the abbey in the seventh or eighth century, no rebuilding was done for centuries. However, in the first half of the eleventh century, Saint Wilfred rebuilt the monastery, which quickly recovered its former renown. While the abbey suffered numerous vicissitudes over the following centuries --the theft of its library volumes by commendatory abbots; the dissolution of the monastery in 1739; the French Revolution-- the church was made a minor basilica by Pope Pius XI in 1934. It is all that remains of the abbey complex. Interestingly, Blessed Guillaume Grimoard became Abbot of Saint Victor in 1361 and Pope Urban V at Avignon in 1362. He was not a Cardinal when elected and had no idea of his nomination when he was called to Avignon. He died in 1370 and was subsequently beatified.

The church is really three buildings in one, with pre-Christian tombs of children below the crypt, where Saint Victor, a soldier in the Crusades, is buried, and the basilica above. The crypt contains the statue of Notre Dame of the Confession, a statue carved in dark wood, and known as a Black Virgin. The statue is the object of veneration by the Marseillais, who carry her in candle-lit procession on Candlemas Day, which falls in February. Above, in the basilica, two recesses in the church contain relics of numerous saints, mostly obscure: Margaret Mary Alacoque and Rose are the only ones I recognize.