Protecting the port from the fury of the ocean, in the heart of the Barre district, is a small strip of land on which the shipowners built their houses in the 17C. In 1749 a terrible tidal wave occurred, in which 200 houses were flattened and two-thirds of the strip of land was engulfed. Rue Mazarin, the main road in this district, still has some wealthy residences such as St Martin’s at no. 13; from the Belvedere tower the master could follow the movement of ships without budging from his house.