It is, however, only after an uphill walk lasting a full quarter of an hour that one reaches these houses.
About twenty years ago, owing, no doubt, to deficient means of communication, there was no town that had more completely retained the pious and aristocratic character of the old Provencal cities.

Plassans then had, and has even now, a whole district of large mansions built in the reigns of Louis XIV.

and Louis XV., a dozen churches, Jesuit and Capuchin houses, and a considerable number of convents.

Class distinctions were long perpetuated by the town's division into various districts.

There were three of them, each forming, as it were, a separate and complete locality, with its own churches, promenades, customs, and landscapes.
The district of the nobility, called Saint-Marc, after the name of one of its parish churches, is a sort of miniature Versailles, with straight streets overgrown with grass, and large square houses which conceal extensive gardens.