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.