city
Plassans
A fictional provincial town in the south of France, modelled closely on Aix-en-Provence (where Zola grew up). The ancestral home of the Rougon family and the setting of three novels — La Fortune des Rougon, La Conquête de Plassans, and Le Docteur Pascal. Zola describes it as a sleepy, sun-baked town divided into three quartiers — the aristocratic Saint-Marc, the bourgeois new town, and the working-class old quarter. Its gossip, its small ambitions, and its yellow-walled calm make the Rougons' scheming all the more vivid: here a man can seize power with forty-one armed neighbours and a lucky night. The aire Saint-Mittre — a disused cemetery on the edge of town — is where Silvère and Miette meet in secret, and where Silvère is ultimately executed beside the tombstone of Marie. The asylum at Les Tulettes is a few miles outside Plassans; Adélaïde Fouque will spend her last decades there.
Ville provinciale fictive inspirée d'Aix-en-Provence. Berceau des Rougon et décor de trois romans. L'aire Saint-Mittre, ancien cimetière en lisière de la ville, est le lieu de rencontre secret de Silvère et Miette, et le lieu de l'exécution de Silvère.