Fig. 15—The shady arcades and sunny streets of Lugano in the Swiss area of Italian languages recall the typical aspects of Italian cities.
Fig. 16—The basin of Lake Geneva is an ancient domain of French language in Switzerland.
Fig. 17—Basel in German Switzerland recalls German cities. The Marketplace and the Government House (on left) are seen in this view.
It should not be taken for granted from what has been said that the cause of French in Switzerland is related to Catholicism. The case of Fribourg is an isolated one. At Bienne, another of the cities on the linguistic divide, the growth of French has an entirely different origin. This city is the center of an important watch-making district. The growth of its native industry favored rapid increase in its population. But the new citizens were drawn principally from the mountainous region of which Bienne is the outlet. The French-speaking highlanders swelled the ranks of the city’s French contingent to such an extent that, from numbering one-fourth of the population in 1888, it had grown to one-third in 1900. The German-speaking farmers of the plains surrounding Bienne, however, were never attracted by the prospect of factory work. At present Bienne’s population is believed to be equally divided between the two tongues.