Joseph-Marie Trèves
A priest from Émarèse who stood up for farmers and the French language
In a photograph taken in Aosta on 22 March 1925, ten men pose in front of the Petit Séminaire. They have just founded the Jeune Vallée d’Aoste (Young Aosta Valley). Among them are a nineteen-year-old student, Émile Chanoux, and a priest in his fifties, the abbé Joseph-Marie Trèves. This priest devoted his life to the living conditions of the people of the Aosta Valley and to the defence of their culture.
A childhood in Émarèse
Joseph-Marie Trèves was born in 1874 in Émarèse, a small mountain village. His family was of modest means and life there was hard. Even so, his parents encouraged him to study. In 1889 he entered the seminary in Aosta.
A priest who took action
Trèves was ordained in 1897. He did not confine himself to his religious role. He took part in the life of his community in several ways.
Living conditions. He wanted to improve the lot of farmers and workers. For him, material well-being and spiritual life went together.
Schooling. He believed that education was the key to progress. He promoted literacy and vocational training for young people in the Aosta Valley.
Culture. He was attached to local traditions and to the French language, then threatened by the policy of Italianisation. He saw the language as an essential part of the valley’s identity.
Chanoux’s elder
Trèves meant a great deal to the young Émile Chanoux, who would become the leading figure of the Aosta Valley autonomist movement. He shaped Chanoux’s thinking on autonomy and on the identity of the valley. Through him, the abbé had an indirect influence on the region’s political future.
Death in 1941
Joseph-Marie Trèves died in 1941, three years before Chanoux. He therefore saw neither the Liberation nor the autonomy of 1948. Yet one of the demands of the Jeune Vallée d’Aoste is reflected in it: the special statute puts French on an equal footing with Italian.
