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To contain the 1720 Marseille plague, the French regency built a continuous dry-stone wall across the Provençal hills with guard posts at 100-metre intervals. How long was the wall?
The Mur de la peste was 27 km long, 1.8 metres tall, with guard posts at 100-metre intervals. Built in eleven months (September 1720 – August 1721) by approximately 1,000 conscripted Comtat labourers. Total cost about 35,000 livres. The cordon held: the plague did not escape Provence. About 6 km of intact wall and several restored guard posts survive in the Parc naturel régional du Luberon.
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The Twenty-Seven Kilometre Dry-Stone Wall the French Built Across the Provençal Hills to Contain a Single City's Plague The Mur de la peste was a dry-stone wall approximately 27 km long, with guard posts at 100-metre intervals, built across the limestone garrigue of the Comtat Venaissin between September 1720 and August 1721. It enforced the cordon sanitaire that kept the Marseille plague from spreading north into the French interior.
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