The little village of Torre Pellice, on a small mountain railway leading into one of the main valleys of Piedmont, offers the strange contrast of being peopled by inhabitants whose language is French, while their customs are Italian, and their religion Protestant. The austerity of their manners recalls at first impression the natural gravity of mind observable among French-speaking Swiss who belong to the same faith. Ampler acquaintance with the simple mountaineers will draw out their pride of being descendants of Protestants whose religious views antedate Luther’s preaching by fully three centuries.
History and geography have concurred in the preservation of religious and linguistic individuality in the three Valdese valleys. Their inhabitants are sons of twelfth and thirteenth century heretics known by the names of Albigenses, Lollards, Cathars or Vaudois, against all of whom the persecution of the Roman church was directed. Massacres and forced conversions uprooted heresies everywhere in Europe except in the high valleys of Piedmont. Here the arduous character of the region afforded defense against the organized bands sent to conquer early adherents of reformed doctrines. The narrow gorges became the theater of bloody affrays in which victory would sometimes favor the attacking foreigners and sometimes the besieged. No definite conquest of the mountain zone was ever made by the Catholic armies. The surname of Israel of the Alps, bestowed locally on the village of Torre Pellice, is a memorial of this period of religious struggle.
An episode in this long contest, which is not unrelated to the current prevalence of French, took place in 1630. The operations of the army sent by Richelieu in that year were followed by an epidemic of plague to which thousands of natives succumbed. Many of the community’s religious leaders were carried off by the dread disease. Their places were taken by pastors and preachers who came from Geneva or the Protestant towns of France. From this period on religious services were carried on in French. The influence of the language spread beyond the rough mountain sanctuaries to which it was at first confined. In such retired valleys cultural influences generally emanate from the church, a fact observable particularly in the mountainous portions of Asia. Today along with the memory of former struggles the language, which was partly a result of their bitterness, has survived. To the highlander of western Piedmont, French is the symbol of successful resistance against religious oppression. He clings to it and will not tolerate Italian in its place. His mountain villages are in fact the nursery of hundreds of teachers of French employed in Italian schools.
The Franco-Italian linguistic boundary starts at Monte Rosa and extends south, past Gressoney, into the valley of the Doire Baltée, to the town of Settimo Vitone. French has always predominated in this region. It is at present the vernacular of the well-to-do inhabitants and is taught in schools concurrently with Italian. Thence to the west the linguistic boundary passes south of Grand Paradis Peak and attains the political boundary at the sources of the Orco river. Linguistic and political boundaries coincide in the next 27 miles, the line passing through a mountainous and scantily settled region.
North of Suse, linguistic and political lines diverge from each other. The former crosses the Doire Ripaire at about five miles east of the town. It then extends in a southerly direction to Pérouse on the Ghison river and traverses the Pellice where the river leaves the highland. The Po is attained near Monte Viso and the political frontier. From the latter peak the line reaches Sampeyre, beyond which it crosses the Stura at Vinadio. The Franco-Italian boundary is reached once more at a few miles east of Lantosque. From here on to the sea Italian speech invades French territory.
The structure of the Alps has contributed powerfully to the peopling of a part of the basin of the Po by a Celtic-speaking race. In Turin the name of the Taurins, a Celto-Ligurian tribe, has been preserved to this day. Alpine valleys converge towards the east and diverge towards the west. Human migrations have, therefore, been more intense from west to east than in the opposite direction. Western Piedmont thus passed under French influence after the Middle Ages. At that time the counts of Savoy obtained possession of the country around Suse and Turin. Later they added all of Piedmont to their domain. The upper valley of the Doire Ripaire was part of the French kingdom until the treaty of Utrecht in 1715.
From the Mediterranean northward, the last section of the Franco-Italian linguistic boundary traverses French soil and coincides roughly with the crest of the eastern watershed of the Var. This region is known administratively as the Département des Alpes-Maritimes. Linguistic unity within its boundaries has been determined mainly by the relief of the land.[49] Practically every one of the high Alpine valleys debouches into the Var. Connection between the sea and the mountain districts is obtained through the channels of this basin. Intercourse among the inhabitants of the département has thus been reflected towards France rather than Italy. The langue d’oc prevails in the entire Var system, but Genoese dialects of Italy, or the “si” languages, appear immediately to the west. The linguistic divide can, therefore, be located between the valley of the Var on the one side and those of the Roya and Bévéra on the other. It should be made to pass, according to Funel,[50] at the very point in La Turbie where Augustus, a Roman emperor, erected a monument to mark the boundary between his domain and Gaul. The inhabitants of the eastern section of this line appear, however, to be content with French nationality in spite of their Ligurian dialects. At the time Of the rectification of this frontier in 1860, their French leanings were proclaimed in a referendum which set forth their desire to acquire citizenship under the French tricolor.
