Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne has been the capital of the Maurienne Valley since the 6th century. After Saint Thècle reported from Alexandria (Egypt) the relics of St. John the Baptist which are the three fingers represented on the arms of the city, as well as on the Opinel knife blades, the town was raised to the rank of diocese by Guntram, grandson of Clovis I.

In 753, Grifo went to Italy to join the King of the Lombards, Aistulf, the most powerful opponent of his half-brother, the King of the Franks, Pepin the Short, but he was killed at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne by the men of Pepin.

The oldest possessions of the Counts of Savoy were the counties of Maurienne, Savoy proper (the district between Arc, Isère, and the middle course of the Rhone), and Belley, with Bugey as its chief town.

The Duchy of Savoy, which had been a French-speaking province under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, was invaded by Revolutionary France, but restored to Piedmont in 1815. It became part of France in 1859, after the Second Italian War of Independence.

The Aix-les-Bains—Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne railway line opened in 1857.

In the early 1900s, the technological advances of Swiss hydroelectric power were originally the subject of intense stock market speculation on hydroelectric companies, which benefitted the Maurienne Valley with industrial facilities, while tourism took off.

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