country estate
La Souleiade
Dr Pascal's sun-drenched estate just outside Plassans, the principal setting of the cycle's final novel, Le Docteur Pascal. The property takes its name from the Provençal word for the place where the sun beats down — a long terrace under plane trees, a stone threshing-floor, vegetable gardens, and the old stone house where Pascal has lived and worked for decades. His study contains the great archive: the dossiers on every member of the Rougon-Macquart family, written in his own hand, the scientific record of heredity that is also the family's secret history. La Souleiade is refuge, laboratory, and, at the end, a place of grief and of new life.
Le domaine ensoleillé du docteur Pascal en lisière de Plassans, décor du Docteur Pascal. Son étude abrite l'archive familiale — les dossiers héréditaires des Rougon-Macquart. La Souleiade est refuge, laboratoire et lieu de deuil.