Marius Michel Pasha

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Blaise-Jean-Marius Michel, Comte de Pierredon (1819-1907), also known as Michel Pasha, was a French architect.

He was born in Sanary, near Toulon, Provence, in 1819. He became an officer in the French Navy, and was shipwrecked it the eastern Mediterranean. As a result of this accident, he wrote to the French Emperor Napoleon III, suggesting a network of lighthouses along the coasts of the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon, who was seeking to advance France's influence over the Ottoman Empire, put the proposal forward, and in 1855 Michel was put in charge of building lighthouses along the Bosphorus by the Sultan Abdul Mejid.

Returning to Sanary in 1872, he became Mayor, using part of his fortune to rebuild the harbour and the town church. In 1879 he returned to the Ottoman Empire, charged with rebuilding the harbour of Constantinople to modern design. In return, he obtained the honorary title of Pasha from Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz. He was further created a Chevalier of the légion d'honneur by the Republic in 1880, and Comte de Pierredon by Pope Leo XIII in 1882.

As mayor of Sanary, he planned to turn the nearby area of Tamaris into a fashionable modern resort. Michel died, however, without seeing his project fulfilled, and Tamaris was never built.