The current Croix de Provence was built between 1871 and 1875 on the initiative of Father Meissonnier, the parish priest of Rousset, to thank heaven for sparing Provence during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and ward off the scourge of smallpox. It was inaugurated with great pomp and solemnly blessed in the presence of 3,000 persons by Monsignor Théodore-Augustin Forcade, the Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, on May 18, 1875. It was financed by funds collected from parishioners, and the names of the 22,000 subscribers and the 104 donor parishes are still preserved in a copper heart set in the metal part of the monument.