The bells of the Roure Palace and the bell tower spirit

The bell tower is the visible sign of the village or town; this is what we see from further away above the flat roofs, this is what we recognize first of all on the horizon, and it is also the sound of its bells that strike our ears and our heart, when we approach at certain times of this human group, from which we come … That is why I think, we call the Spirit of steeple this love of the native country, of the Fatherland taken in the original and only truly profound sense of the word, of the land of our fathers.

The parochial spirit, of course, has some drawbacks and some ridiculous, but which are the natural ransom of its value and its utility … It is the salutary reaction of the Being who does not want to become an anonymous grain of sand on the grindstone of centralizing uniformity.

"If I had not owned an old country house between pines and olive trees, in view of the belfry of my beautiful and dear country of La Ciotat, I would not have written anything that I wrote and that you have read. indulgence to love a little. "