
"Barcelonnettes," as the emigrants from the Ubaye Valley were called by Mexicans, founded the first department stores in Mexico City and made fortunes in the textile manufacturing and retail industries.
In the second half of the 19th century, young men in the Ubaye Valley— in the northernmost and least populated quarter of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence départment—did something the French rarely do: they emigrated en masse to the New World.