common interests which unite them together. On Sundays only, the masters
make themselves spruce and foregather apart. On the other hand, the
labouring classes, which constitute scarcely a fifth of the population,
mingle with the idlers of the district.

It is only once a week, and during the fine weather, that the three
districts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town repairs
to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the nobility venture
thither. Three distinct currents flow along this sort of boulevard
planted with rows of plane-trees. The well-to-do citizens of the new
quarter merely pass along before quitting the town by the Grand'-Porte
and taking the Avenue du Mail on the right, where they walk up and down
till nightfall. Meantime, the nobility and the lower classes share the
Cours Sauvaire between them. For more than a century past the nobility
have selected the walk on the south side, which is bordered with large
mansions, and is the first to escape the heat of the sun; the lower
classes have to rest content with the walk on the north, where the
cafes, inns, and tobacconists' shops are located. The people and the
nobility promenade the whole afternoon, walking up and down the Cours
without anyone of either party thinking of changing sides. They are only
separated by a distance of some seven or eight yards, yet it is as if
they were a thousand leagues away from each other, for they scrupulously
follow those two parallel lines, as though they must not come in contact
here below. Even during the revolutionary periods each party kept to
its own side. This regulation walk on Sunday and the locking of the town
gates in the evening are analogous instances which suffice to indicate
the character of the ten thousand people inhabiting the town.

Here, amidst these surroundings, until the year 1848, there vegetated
an obscure family that enjoyed little esteem, but whose head, Pierre