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 Fourteen olive oil mills (the remains of one of which can be seen behind the Mairie), four flour mills and 10 tanneries provided employment.
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Silk-weaving was the most important industry - 12 factories in 1846 employed some 300 women. But disease and other problems in the Var caused a crisis and the factories were closed down.
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St Martin's Chapel dates from the IXth century and the romanesque village church, St Pierre, from 1266, but it is the sanctuary of Notre Dame de Grâces on Mont Verdaille, built in 1519, and the monastery of St Joseph, dating from 1660, on a nearby hill, the Bessillon, which have generated religious fervour throughout the centuries and even today draw thousands of pilgrims from all over France.
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The queen of France, Anne of Austria, is said to have prayed for the intercession of Notre Dame de Grâces that she might bear a son, and 23 years later that son, Louis XIV, came with his mother to give thanks at the sanctuary. Stone shrines were set up to guide pilgrims to the sacred places and can still be seen along the country lanes.
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