divisions. North of the line, roofs usually have a slope of forty-five degrees and are made of flat tiles or slate; to the south, they slope at thirty degrees and are made of rounded tiles. North of the line, agricultural practice – three plantings a year and use of the plough – differed from practice in the south: biennial plantings and use of the araire (a primitive, wheel-less plough that could easily be dismantled). Customary law prevailed in the north and Roman law in the south.
No one knows exactly why this divide exists. It may reflect the influence of Frankish peoples from the north and Burgundians from the east, or it may reflect the more lasting establishment of Roman rule in the south. (Occitan is closer than French to Latin.) 12 It may even be evidence of much older tribal territories. Later studies showed that eyes and hair were generally darker south of the line. They also suggested that southerners were less educated and more likely to refuse to fight for their country.
A study of aerial photographs and place names has identified a possible frontier zone comparable to the Welsh Marches, covering most of the former province of La Marche and corresponding to the ‘Croissant’ where dialects have elements of both Oc and Oïl. This limes may once have separated Ligurian tribes from Celtic invaders and, later, Romans from barbarians. A major Roman road, the ViaAgrippa, from Lyon to Bordeaux via Clermont and Limoges, follows the language divide quite closely. Like most Roman roads, it was almost certainly built on a much earlier route.
This line can still be followed on the ground. In 2005, I cycled along sections of the Oc–Oïl–Croissant frontier for a total of about fifty miles, between towns and villages identified as linguistically distinct by the 1873 expedition. For almost twenty miles, the line follows a narrow ridge on a road that is barely used by modern traffic but forms an obvious route through the landscape. Elsewhere, the Oc–Oïl divide runs through areas that are still unpopulated or covered by forests on treacherous, marshy terrain used mainly for military training. Curiously, where the two languages once came together, in linguistic ‘islands’ of mixed Oc and Oïl along the valleys of the Dronne and the Vienne, there is now a noticeable preponderance of bilingual Franco-British towns and villages (notably Aubeterre), in which local forms of pidgin French are evolving.
By using the 1873 data, it is possible to find the point at which Oc, Oïl and Croissant intersected. This watershed of three language groups is one of the most obscure and significant locations in the historical geography of France. It lies on a tiny road north-east of Angoulême where the Braconne Forest ends abruptly and opens out onto the plains and valley of the Charente. By chance, the landscape has arranged itself in a textbook illustration of the north–south divide: the Croissant is marked by the forest, the northern, Oïl side by a wheat field, and the southern, Oc side by a vineyard.
*
S UCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS would try to erase this north–south line or rather, pretend that it didn’t exist. One of the lasting innovations of the Revolution, in January 1790, was to carve the country into départements . The départements were to be of roughly equal size so that everyone would be able to reach the legal and administrative centre in a day. Nearly all the départements were named after physical features: mountains (Basses-Alpes, Cantal, Vosges, etc.), rivers (Dordogne, Haut-Rhin, Vendée, etc.), or geographical location (Nord and Côtes-du-Nord). Later, as the empire grew, southern Savoy became ‘Mont-Blanc’, the Swiss Jura became ‘Mont Terrible’ and Luxembourg became ‘Forêts’. Only one city had a département to itself: Paris, which was described in the parliamentary debate on départements as ‘the most beautiful city in the world’, ‘the fatherland of arts and sciences’, ‘the capital
No one knows exactly why this divide exists. It may reflect the influence of Frankish peoples from the north and Burgundians from the east, or it may reflect the more lasting establishment of Roman rule in the south. (Occitan is closer than French to Latin.) 12 It may even be evidence of much older tribal territories. Later studies showed that eyes and hair were generally darker south of the line. They also suggested that southerners were less educated and more likely to refuse to fight for their country.
A study of aerial photographs and place names has identified a possible frontier zone comparable to the Welsh Marches, covering most of the former province of La Marche and corresponding to the ‘Croissant’ where dialects have elements of both Oc and Oïl. This limes may once have separated Ligurian tribes from Celtic invaders and, later, Romans from barbarians. A major Roman road, the ViaAgrippa, from Lyon to Bordeaux via Clermont and Limoges, follows the language divide quite closely. Like most Roman roads, it was almost certainly built on a much earlier route.
This line can still be followed on the ground. In 2005, I cycled along sections of the Oc–Oïl–Croissant frontier for a total of about fifty miles, between towns and villages identified as linguistically distinct by the 1873 expedition. For almost twenty miles, the line follows a narrow ridge on a road that is barely used by modern traffic but forms an obvious route through the landscape. Elsewhere, the Oc–Oïl divide runs through areas that are still unpopulated or covered by forests on treacherous, marshy terrain used mainly for military training. Curiously, where the two languages once came together, in linguistic ‘islands’ of mixed Oc and Oïl along the valleys of the Dronne and the Vienne, there is now a noticeable preponderance of bilingual Franco-British towns and villages (notably Aubeterre), in which local forms of pidgin French are evolving.
By using the 1873 data, it is possible to find the point at which Oc, Oïl and Croissant intersected. This watershed of three language groups is one of the most obscure and significant locations in the historical geography of France. It lies on a tiny road north-east of Angoulême where the Braconne Forest ends abruptly and opens out onto the plains and valley of the Charente. By chance, the landscape has arranged itself in a textbook illustration of the north–south divide: the Croissant is marked by the forest, the northern, Oïl side by a wheat field, and the southern, Oc side by a vineyard.
*
S UCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS would try to erase this north–south line or rather, pretend that it didn’t exist. One of the lasting innovations of the Revolution, in January 1790, was to carve the country into départements . The départements were to be of roughly equal size so that everyone would be able to reach the legal and administrative centre in a day. Nearly all the départements were named after physical features: mountains (Basses-Alpes, Cantal, Vosges, etc.), rivers (Dordogne, Haut-Rhin, Vendée, etc.), or geographical location (Nord and Côtes-du-Nord). Later, as the empire grew, southern Savoy became ‘Mont-Blanc’, the Swiss Jura became ‘Mont Terrible’ and Luxembourg became ‘Forêts’. Only one city had a département to itself: Paris, which was described in the parliamentary debate on départements as ‘the most beautiful city in the world’, ‘the fatherland of arts and sciences’, ‘the capital
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