Following the ‘great salt routes’ from the salt works at Hyères and then Nice, the mule convoys linking the Mediterranean to Piedmont invariably stopped at Saint-Martin before taking the Fenestres pass.
This manna brought prosperity to the village between the 15th and 18th centuries.
It was the Gubernatis family who ran the salt business in Saint-Martin. This activity made their fortune and this ‘palace’ symbolises their social success.