The Counts of Gruyere Part 4

Informed of these royal and imperial commands, the Sire de Beaufort declared he would die rather than give up his wife or emerge from his Gruyere asylum, and prayed the seigneurs of Berne to write to the king in his favor. Before the grave a.s.semblage of the Confederation of the Diet at Baden, Count Michel magnificently declared that as for him he would protect the refugees at all costs, and left the matter to the justice of the delegates. The Diet as stoutly declining to dissolve a legalized marriage, defied the summons of the king and the emperor and ordered the pursuit of the lovers to cease. The two counts of Gruyere and of Beaufort were so gratified by this support that when the emperor prepared to invade Switzerland they offered to join the Confederate army in the defence of their country. With the pa.s.sing of this threat of invasion Count Michel lost his last opportunity of military distinction.

The remainder of his reign was one long struggle with the net of financial embarra.s.sment which now encompa.s.sed him. The youthful impression of magnificence gained at the French court, the vanity of his extraordinary beauty, the favor of the dazzling Francois I, the actual independence of his imperial princ.i.p.ality exalted his imagination to a pitch of pretension utterly beyond his capacity of either leaders.h.i.+p or organization. He was fertile in imagination, persistent and indefatigable, but he had unfortunately inherited no trace of the firmness or judgment displayed by the long line of his ancestors, while from the intriguing de Vergy strain, he derived a treacherous and feeble duplicity, which lost him the confidence of the sovereigns he served and the cities with which he was allied. Although maintaining an apparent friends.h.i.+p with Berne and Fribourg, whose monetary a.s.sistance he constantly demanded, he succeeded by a complicated system of loans and partial payments of interest in possessing himself of a long line of chateaux-forts extending from Gruyere to the Pays de Gex. As he was the acknowledged head of the still existing league "de la Cuiller," his acquisition of this formidable line of fortresses only too clearly indicated his design of restoring the supremacy of the n.o.bles in Switzerland, and by a brilliant dash for liberty at once to obliterate the power and the embarra.s.sing financial claims of Berne and Fribourg.

His friends had already begun to collect ammunition, and apparitions of armed bands were reported to Berne, when a warning from the French amba.s.sador that a project was on foot to threaten their liberties and to reestablish the exiled duke of Savoy, caused the authorities to send word to the baillis in the several departments to watch Count Michel and find out the secret of his intentions. When he was summoned to appear at Berne to account for these suspicious occurrences, Count Michel forthwith abandoned his far-reaching and unpracticable scheme, and sent a request to the council asking for time to prepare the doc.u.ments to establish his innocence. Vanished now were his splendid hopes of reestablis.h.i.+ng the n.o.blesse under his leaders.h.i.+p, and crushed under the enormous debts which he had incurred in the acquisition of the now useless fortresses, he was forced to make a supreme effort to preserve himself and his domain from utter and imminent ruin. His long attachment to Francois I, although rewarded by the very considerable dignity of the royal Order of St. Michael, had been far less profitable in substantial results, for his old master, according to his custom, had failed to pay either the salaries of his positions at court or the pensions alloted to Gruyere according to the terms of the Perpetual Peace. To the arrears of these pensions and salaries, Count Michel added the expenses of his various expeditions with the French armies and the pay of the soldiers who had so disgraced him at Cerisolles. The sum of these claims, drawn up in an interminable doc.u.ment and presented to Francois I's son and successor Henri II, amounted to no less than 1,700,000 francs. King Henri, who had by no means forgotten the sort of service rendered by these soldiers, was irritated at the fantastic sum of Count Michel's claims, and after a long delay offered half of the arrears of the pay of his soldiers but rejected the other demands, declaring that as a knight of the Order of St. Michael the count was a French subject and had no right as a Confederate to the pensions granted by the terms of the Perpetual Peace. This offer Count Michel indignantly refused, threatening to send back the Order of St. Michael, and appealing to the Diet to confirm his undoubted status as a Confederate. Berne and Fribourg and at length the Diet ratified this claim and sent messengers to the king recommending its recognition, but a.s.signed the greatly reduced sum of 60,000 francs as the amount of the pensions due. The king replying that he would in no case alter his decision, the Berne authorities, with a singular consideration for their unfortunate debtor procured the additional recommendations of all the cantons; but the king still insisted that as Chevalier of St. Michael, the count was bound to come to Paris to present his claims before the tribunal of the order.

The count, however, as persistently refused to go to Paris "to be mocked by the King," and defiantly proposed that the latter should be summoned to personally appear before the Diet. A less extravagant demand, a less obstinate refusal, would have surely obtained a better recognition from the monarch who "never broke his word," but failing to persuade either the king or his claimant, the Confederates were forced to abandon their intervention and Count Michael got nothing at all. Ill and despairing, he now abandoned the administration of his hopelessly involved estates to his brother Francois, who with the aid of an appointed council vainly essayed to bring order out of confusion. In an open a.s.sembly the people were asked to guarantee a new loan on the promise of the cession of all the Gruyere revenues at a fixed date. Irritated but still faithful to their ruler they consented, but the delay thus obtained only postponed the inevitable disaster. Berne and Fribourg now announced their intention of a.s.suming the debts of the entirely mortgaged domain and dividing it between them. The unhappy people of Gruyere prepared to witness the dispossession of their ruler and the dismemberment of their beloved country when Count Michel played his last card, marrying through the good offices of his uncle Claude de Vergy, (who had now succeeded his father as marechal of Burgundy) the widow of the Baron d'Alegre, Madeleine de Miolans, a daughter of a once ill.u.s.trious Savoyard family.

To her devotion and that of his de Vergy's relatives, who spared nothing but the necessary funds to avert his impending ruin, Michel owed a short reprieve from the execution of his creditors. Four months' delay was granted his wife in which to raise the interest due on the loans; but although journeying to Paris and soliciting every influence to procure the required sum, the countess of Gruyere failed in her efforts. The poor lady now saw the end of her dream of rehabilitating the fallen fortunes of the man she had so unwisely married. How potent was the charm of the bankrupt hero who could still inspire her unlimited devotion was still better proved by the affection of his half brother Francois. Modest, dignified and charitable, as his brilliant senior was wasteful and rash, Francois' loyalty was unaltered by any disgrace of misfortune. But in the very climax of his ills Count Michel lost this invaluable brother and friend. In a letter to his implacable executors he thus poured out his grief:

"Sirs, this letter is to inform you that in addition to all the misfortunes and adversities, illnesses and otherwise, which it has pleased G.o.d to send me, it has been His good pleasure to take from me my brother Francois d'Aubonne who died yesterday morning at eleven o'clock at Gruyere. The sorrow and grief which I suffer, dear Sirs, you cannot imagine, at thus losing my second self and the brother who has rendered me constant loyalty and service. Therefore, to you who are my chief masters, fathers and friends, I confide my sorrow, praying you as good fathers, friends, lords and ancient protectors of my house to console and a.s.sist me as has. .h.i.therto been your good pleasure."

"Fanfarront" no longer, but helpless as a child in the face of the ills he had wrought, Count Michel sent his courageous wife on her many futile errands in his behalf, while he waited alone at the chateau for the inevitable end. Writing again and again to Fribourg and Berne, declaring that his illness gave him no peace and that the slightest effort to think redoubled his pains, he found no better occupation for one of his solitary days than to re-read his treaty with Fribourg.

"Magnifique Monsieur l'Avoyer, and honored lords, to your good graces I affectionately commend myself.

"While I was sitting the other day, overwhelmed by the sufferings of my poor body, I began to re-read my treaty of Combourgeoisie with your city, to distract the ennui of my malady, when the countess' little dog who had been gamboling about me dragged off, while I was not looking, the ribbon and seal, which greatly annoyed me. I send you back the paper, therefore, asking you to be as good as to affix another seal, by which you will greatly oblige him who in heart and affection, Magnifique Monsieur l'Avoyer, is entirely your good citizen and servant."

The four months' respite had now pa.s.sed, and the countess with her devoted sister presented herself before the Diet to make a last effort to procure a postponement of the sentence of dispossession. In silence the deputies listened to her tearful appeal, when realizing that no answer was possible and unwilling to listen to the fatal decree, the countess and her sister requested permission to retire. Respectfully conducting the weeping women from the chamber, the delegates then formally authorized the transference of Gruyere to the cities of Berne and Fribourg. At ten o'clock in the evening of this same fatal day, Count Michel, followed by a single faithful domestic, mounted his horse and rode away from Gruyere. The shadows of a November night, the sighing winds, the falling leaves, were the fitting accompaniment of this tragic departure. Significant also was it that with the fall of the house of Gruyere, the last remaining feudal sovereignty, the old chivalric order forever pa.s.sed from Switzerland. With the extinction of the power of Savoy, and the establishment of the inclusive league of cantons and cities representing the new and united nation, the little princ.i.p.ality of Gruyere was in any case doomed to the acceptance of the prevailing form of government. But although hastening by his extravagance the fall of his house, Count Michel had various difficulties for which he was not personally responsible. With the repeated enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of his people from their feudal contributions and taxes, his revenues had already been seriously reduced, and the long legal process and armed resistance necessitated by his grandfather's struggle with the rival de Vergys, had exhausted a large part of the acc.u.mulated capital. Thus only a rigid system of retrenchment would have sufficed to preserve the financial integrity of Gruyere. For such an administration Count Michel was utterly unfitted both by character and training, and he precipitated his own inevitable ruin, when, yielding to his unbounded and unrealizable ambitions, he essayed to reverse the course of events and restore the power of feudality in Switzerland, at the very moment of its disorganization. His refusal to accept any portion of his claims on the French crown, his rejection of the proposition to sell, while it was yet time, any part of his estates, were examples of his immoderate and unreasoning pride. But another cause, the machinations of the powerful and envious de Vergys, singularly conspired to hasten the final dismemberment of the coveted province. Causing first the exhaustion of the Gruyere revenues, through the forced and loveless alliance with the ruling and legitimate line, the de Vergy strain produced in Michel a changeling heir, who was empty of heart as he was bankrupt in purse.

Thus as the old order of feudalism, yielding to the progress of free thought, free speech and free faith, in the whole extent of Europe crumbled and fell, then was fulfilled in the already democratic Switzerland the old prophecy of the fool Chalamala, that "the Berne Bear would some day eat the Grue in the caldron of Fribourg." To Berne in the final division was allotted the mountainous regions of Gessenay and chateau d'Oex, while Fribourg took possession of the lower pasture lands, the city and the chateau, and the chateau itself they converted into the seat of government. In the deserted castle where for six centuries Count Michel's vigorous forbears had pacifically ruled with their vigorous sons, the last pitiful illegitimate child of the line was discovered by the Bailli of Fribourg. Sent with her mother, an old domestic of the chateau, the little Guillauma was brought up in the _hospice_ and supported, like her mother, at the expense of the city.

Thus finished in utter disgrace the ill.u.s.trious line of pastoral kings.

At the chateau of Oron, where the countess of Gruyere had fled after the decree of dispossession, her despairing husband joined her. In the cold of the November weather, the empty chateau, without servants, heat or supplies, was only a temporary refuge, although the council of Berne mercifully sent the countess a small sum of money for her immediate necessities. The paternal patience of the calculating Berne authorities was solicited by their equally hypocritical victim, in the following humble appeal sent by Count Michel upon his arrival at Oron.

"Since it has pleased G.o.d so to chastise and afflict me that I am compelled to depart from your Excellencies and to follow the path He has pointed out to me, I praise Him in that His punishment is meted out to me in mercy and not according to my sins; my absence and inability to serve you as I have all my life desired being of equal affliction with my loss. I have always had such confidence in your great kindness and humanity, that I am a.s.sured that your magnificences will have compa.s.sion on me and my wife, who is departing to solicit you as humbly as possible to pardon my not appearing before you, as my heart is so desolate that I can say or do naught to help in these circ.u.mstances. Therefore, may it please you to listen to her proposition and to grant as great a degree of honor and welfare as is possible to your child."

Although Berne had permitted the temporary residence of the deposed count at Oron, and had granted to the countess the revenues of a small piece of land, the refugees soon left the "logis" which they found "_si froid et si mal fourni de vivres_," and repaired to Burgundy and the protection of their powerful de Vergy relatives. For many years the dispossessed princeling was destined to pursue his adventurous career in the various kingdoms of Europe. With his immediate necessities supplied by his wife's income, in the accustomed luxury of the chateaux of his relatives he quickly recovered his old pose of an independent and only temporarily deposed potentate, and proceeding to Paris in his character as Chevalier du Roi, was able to obtain a surprising degree of recognition. Welcomed by Catherine de Medici as a Catholic among the Catholics, he was present as a councilor of the King's Order at the private and preliminary trial conducted by the queen mother of the a.s.sa.s.sin of his old general and commander the Duc de Guise. King Charles IX may possibly have granted a part of Count Michel's claims upon the French crown, and was in any case so much influenced by his representations that he wrote to Berne and Fribourg recommending his reestablishment in his estates. When informed by the council of the respective cities of the conditions of his dispossession, King Charles made no further effort on his behalf. The still undiscouraged adventurer then repaired to Flanders to the palace and protection of his powerful aunt the Seneschale of Hainault. From Hainault as a base of supplies, he journeyed about Flanders and Belgium, finding temporary sympathizers and supporters in various notabilities with whom he consulted as to the best method of recovering his estates, or at least wresting them from the hands of Berne and Fribourg. The Cardinal de Granvelle, who was intimately known to the king of Spain, and the Belgian amba.s.sador to the Spanish court were solicited to represent his claims for recognition as a good Catholic to his Spanish majesty. To his suggestions that Gruyere would be a valuable addition to the Spanish territories, no more attention was paid than to his desire to be decorated with the Order of the Toison d'Or and to be received as a colonel in the Spanish army. For Philip II, enlightened by the cardinal as to the character of the pretendant for his favor, had no wish to tempt him from the service of France, and still less to embroil himself with the Swiss Confederation by intriguing with a dispossessed bankrupt for the recovery of his lost estates. Deserted by the kings of France and Spain, the count, since the death of his faithful wife, old and alone, proceeded to the court of the emperor. A new friend, the Alsatian Count Bollwiler, was solicited to arrange for him another advantageous matrimonial alliance, while the Emperor Maximilian II was so moved by the recital of his woes that he sent a letter to Berne and Fribourg requesting that in view of the count's advanced age and many adversities, he should be permitted to repurchase and enjoy his lost princ.i.p.ality for the brief remainder of his days. A long memorial from the count accompanied the emperor's letter and announced that with the aid of his new and powerful friends, he would soon be in a position to buy back Gruyere. He ended with an appeal for compa.s.sion on his bald head and his white beard.

With respectful attention to the august request of of the emperor, Berne and Fribourg replied that no provision had been made for the repurchase of Gruyere, and detailed the conditions by which they had acquired the property. The emperor thereupon declined to renew his recommendations, and after this final defeat, Count Michel, deprived of his last hope of royal or imperial a.s.sistance, the neediest and loneliest of adventurers, lived a hand-to-mouth existence with the faithful domestic who had followed him since the day he had departed from Gruyere. Nursing always the same chimera of some day returning triumphant to his lost province, he pursued his peregrinations, finding a final refuge in the Burgundian chateau of Thalemy, belonging to his cousin Francois de Vergy, where he died at last in March of the year 1576. On a day in May a messenger from Burgundy announced his decease to his uncle the protonataire Dom Pierre de Gruyere. With tolling of bells the news was proclaimed, and a month later, before a great throng of people from all parts of the country, a memorial service was held in the church at Gruyere. "_Desolatione magna desolata est Grueria, ploratus et ulleratus auditi sunt in Grueria, et in omnibus finibus eius._" With such a text the last Gruyere prelate celebrated the honors due to the last count of his line. "Desolate with a great desolation," in truth were the people who, bitterly weeping, lamented the loss of their happy independence, preserved through so many long centuries under the kindly rule of their beloved counts. A halo of melancholy romance had gathered through the popular traditions about the figure of Count Michel, so that he has strangely become the typical representative of the beauty, strength and valor of his far worthier predecessors. Conflicting reports about the place of his death and entombment, strange tales of his reappearance, have made him a second Boabdil, unburied, always returning to the beloved home of his youth. An hallucinated exile in life, his ghost, hallucinated, ever returning, haunts his lost and lovely Gruyere.

CHAPTER X

GRUYeRE WITHOUT ITS COUNTS

Nearly four hundred years have pa.s.sed since the fall of its counts, but the merciless march of democracy, although changing the government of Gruyere has left the people strangely unaltered. In spite of the injunctions of the Lutheran Bernois, they still danced and sang, and until the dawn of the present century still spoke their musical patois.

The chateau, long used as the residence of a prefet of Fribourg, was offered for sale when in the middle of the 19th century the prefecture was transferred to Bulle. For a long time left to decay, it was finally doomed to demolition, when for the same sum offered by a housebreaker of Vevey, it was happily purchased by M. Bovy of Geneva. His brother, a painter and pupil of Ingres, devoted the remaining strength left to him after a disabling paralysis, to the restoration of the chateau, and in this enthusiastic service exhausted the family fortune. His friends and companions in Paris gathered about him, and to the beautiful frescoes with which he adorned the walls of the Hall of the Chevaliers were added the landscape vignettes of the salon. Thus several Corot canvases are strangely found in this out of the way corner in the Swiss mountains, a lovely tribute of the great modern master to the long past glories of Gruyere. In the jousting court flowers bloom bravely through the pa.s.sing seasons, the old well with its moss covered roof jewels the terrace with its emerald green; through the chapel windows the painted light streams over walls where in silver on scarlet still flies the Grue. On the clock tower, still circling, the hands mark the pa.s.sing of time and the bells in the church still ring out their summons to prayer. At Easter the "Benichons" bring the people together for their old dances and songs, and in the long "Veillees" the lads and the maids through the summer nights or in winter beside their bright fires, watch the dawning of love. The maidens, like Juliet, lean from low vine-covered windows, and with beckoning candles invite their lovers to climb. The spring pastures still blossom with marjolaine and narcissus, with cowslips and rue, the orchards still redden in autumn with ripe fruit which falls with the breeze, with tressed wheat, goats, and cows black and white; the green fertile country abounds, and as in Provence a Mireille is the poet's dream of its maids, so is "_Marie la Tresseuse_" in poems and tales the wheat weaving girl of Gruyere. The "Armaillis" still drive their herds to the mountains, still singing "_Le ranz des vaches_," the song which among all others best reveals the soul of their race. "Lioba," "Lioba,"

one should hear the refrain as it echoes from the valleys and hills, the same cry, musical, lingering, melancholy, which through century after century has been sung by generations of Gruyere herdsmen.

"Le Ranz des Vaches."

The herdsmen of the Colombettes, To milk the cows arose.

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

Come! Come! Large and small, The black, the white, the short, the tall, Starry forehead, red and gold, All the young and all the old.

Under the oak tree come!

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

Bells came first, Jet black came last, But at the stream they stopped aghast.

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

Alas, poor Pierre! what will you do?

Trouble enough you have, 'tis true.

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

At the Cure's door You now must tap, He'll tell you how to cross the gap.

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

And what should I to the Cure say?

A ma.s.s shall I beg, or will he pray To help my cows go over?

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

The Cure he, of a cheese was fain, "A creamy cheese, or your cows remain On the other side, 'tis very plain."

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

"Send us your pretty maid," said Pierre, "To carry the cheese, I speak you fair."

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

"Too pretty by far is my rosy maid, She might not return," the Cure said.

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

"What belongs to the Church We may not take, Confession humble we then should make."

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

"Go to friend Pierre, The ma.s.s shall be said, Good luck be yours, rich cheese and bread."

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

Gayly Pierre went to his waiting herd, And freely they pa.s.sed at the Cure's word.

Ha! Ha! Lioba.

The soft terminations of the romanized French are never more musical than in this famous song which, during their foreign campaigns, reduced the Swiss soldiers to such weeping longing for home that it was forbidden by their generals. Melancholy as is the repeated refrain, the couplets reveal a ravis.h.i.+ng picture of the customs and the observing satirical spirit of the Gruyerien. Is not the quip of the Cure worthy of any son of the Emerald Isle?

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOUSTING COURT]

In truth this "_verte Gruyere_" shut away from the world by its mountains as Ireland is by the sea, is like a lost island, fabled, remote, its speech Provencal, its soul purely Celt. Laughter loving, warlike and brave in the idyllic years of their prime, the Gruyeriens of to-day are still gay, caustic of wit as they are kindly at heart; and, in a changed world, as tenacious of their new republican rights as they were erstwhile valiant va.s.sals to their pastoral kings. The source of innumerable songs and legends in the rich and melodious Gruyere speech, still pastoral, this country has been celebrated in its exquisite, unchanging beauty by many poets; its romances and its national song have been the themes of dramatic and musical inspirations. Not yet has the cruel light of modern day chased the fairies, the may-maidens, the "servans" and the evil spirits from the forests and the caves. The place where the devil, joining in a coraule, drew the dancing people over a precipice is still shunned by young and old; with pride also will they point out the slope of the Gruyere hill where when the men were fighting at the _Pre de Chenes_ the women drove their goats, each bearing a lighted candle, through the darkness upon an invading horde of Bernois, who, thinking they were devils, fled in affright. For the refreshment of the good spirits who guard the herds, basins of fresh milk are still set in every mountain chalet. The origin of the Gruyere customs, like the coraules and the still observed habit of hanging wreaths on their door posts or in the oak groves, have a derivation of the most distant antiquity, in the Chaldean cradle of the race, in the myths of India and the Orient. The personified forces of Nature, the cloud wraiths of the mountains, the lisping voices of the streams, for many centuries haunting the imaginations of the people, still live in their legends, as they do in Celtic Ireland. The idyllic loveliness of the country is deliciously completed by the vines which are trained over the houses, by the flowers which grow in their windows, so that from spring to November Gruyere is a garden, ringed by blue mountains under a sky of pure blue. In the Romand country are many exquisite towns such as Romont and Rue, Estavayer, Oron and Morat--happily preserved in their unaltered mediaeval perfection. But the heart of this country is Gruyere, impregnated with the romance of the departed days of chivalry, its people affectionately faithful to the memory of their n.o.ble and beloved rulers.

As for the Celtic wit, ever present in their sayings and legends, it is characteristically shown in the following little story of the "Fountain of Lessoc."

THE FOUNTAIN OF LESSOC

It happened one day that good father Colin went to the fair at chateau d'Oex, where he successfully transacted his business, particularly at the tavern. On his return journey he stopped at the inn at Montbovon, not so much for the pleasure of drinking as to chat with his old cronies, with the result that it was midnight before he was on his way to Lessoc. A cold welcome awaited him at home. "Thou art a selfish and a drunken wight, and the donkey is dying of thirst," said Fanchon with many reproaches for his evil conduct. Greatly ashamed was Colin, and to quickly repair his error untied la Cocotte and led her to the fountain.

The night was superb, and in the water was reflected the s.h.i.+ning disk of the moon. Precisely in this silver spot, the poor Cocotte began to ease her thirst when, "Behold," said her master, "she is drinking the moon." Then suddenly the moon went under a cloud, and at the same moment Cocotte, quite satisfied, lifted her head, "Heavens!" cried Colin, "the moon has gone and my donkey has drunk her."

Not a word did he say to his wife, but all night watched over Cocotte in the stable. In the morning, up and down the village street, he drove her to help her digestion. "It matters little to me," he said to himself, "what becomes of the moon, for there is a new one each month, but I intend to take care of my good donkey." And soon all Lessoc marveled to see Colin and Cocotte, Cocotte and Colin, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing continually over the same road, one apparently frightened, the other sadly bored by the exercise. "Is your donkey ill?" asked the good mayor at last. "Woe is me, she is ruined," replied Colin, "for she has swallowed the moon and will not give her up." Whereupon the mayor, after grave reflection remarked, "If la Cocotte has not yet gotten rid of the moon, poor Colin already is rid of his senses."

At the communal council, the mayor presented at length the strange case.

"If a new moon appears," he declared, "we may be rea.s.sured, but to avoid the possibility of further accident, we will place a s.p.a.cious roof over the fountain." This wise decision was adopted to the general satisfaction, and such was the authentic origin of the elegant fountain of Lessoc.

In ancient chronicles and modern publications many similar stories are repeated, while a mult.i.tude of ballads, of legends taken from the lips of the old peasants, const.i.tute a precious and abounding doc.u.ment of the ancient Gruyere customs.

But uniquely characteristic as are these Gruyere people, the history of their country is still more extraordinary. Almost negligible in wealth or population, the little mountain province, lying midway between France, Austria, and Savoy, held in the days of its prosperity an almost unexplainably important position beside the great monarchies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Midway also between the Berne and Fribourg republics, the Gruyere counts held something very nearly approaching a balance of power between Savoy and the Confederates.