Plassans, when it had shut itself up, would say to itself, "I am at home," with the satisfaction of some pious bourgeois, who, assured of the safety of his cash-box, and certain that no noise will disturb him, duly says his prayers and retires gladly to bed.

No other town, I believe, has so long persisted in thus incarcerating itself like a nun.
The population of Plassans is divided into three groups, corresponding with the same number of districts.

Putting aside the functionaries--the sub-prefect, the receiver of taxes, the mortgage commissioner, and the postmaster, who are all strangers to the locality, where they are objects of envy rather than of esteem, and who live after their own fashion--the real inhabitants, those who were born there and have every intention of ending their days there, feel too much respect for traditional usages and established boundaries not to pen themselves of their own accord in one or other of the town's social divisions.
The nobility virtually cloister themselves.

Since the fall of Charles X.
they scarcely ever go out, and when they do they are eager to return to their large dismal mansions, and walk along furtively as though they were in a hostile country.

They do not visit anyone, nor do they even receive each other.