That the area of French speech has receded during our era cannot be doubted. There was a time when French was spoken on the left bank of the Aar, from its headwaters to below Berne. At three different periods of history the German language made notable strides in Switzerland. Its earliest forward move occurred between the fifth and ninth centuries. Another advance took place between the eleventh and the thirteenth. The language made further progress during the religious struggles of the Reformation. Each of these periods was followed by partial regain of lost territory by French language. But the French gains fell short of the Germanic advances. Since the eighteenth century very little variation in the line has been recorded. A slight advance of French in the nineteenth century can be traced. In the minds of Pan-Germanists a significant proof of the progress of French is seen in cases of the replacement of the word “Bahnhof” by “gare” at railroad stations--as for example along the mountainous tract between Viège and Zermatt. They also complain of the introduction of French words and expressions in the German spoken by Swiss citizens. To the tourist’s eye the advance of German in the Swiss villages of the Grisons Alps is indicated by the red-tiled roofs in the midst of gray shingled roofs. This is noticeable in the Albula valley where Romansh was formerly the only language of the natives. Now the old Romansh dwellings with their low roofs, white walls and narrow windows are disappearing before the wooden houses of the German settlers. According to the census of 1910 there were 796,244 inhabitants of Switzerland who spoke French. This was about one-third of the country’s total population. Of this number, 765,373 were dwellers in French Switzerland, which comprises the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, a portion of the cantons of Valais and Fribourg and the Bernese Jura. The remainder were scattered in the German and Italian districts of the Republic. Notable colonies of French-speaking Swiss in the midst of the area of German speech are found at Berne and Basel. In all, three of the twenty-two cantons are of French speech. Fribourg and Valais contain French-speaking majorities.[44] The canton of Tessin with its 140,000 inhabitants is Italian in language. In Berne the majority of the city’s population speak German, only 120,000 inhabitants out of a total of 600,000 using French.