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BIBLIOGRAPHY 141

GATEWAY " 22

LACE-MAKERS " 38

FORTIFIED HOUSES--NORTH WALL " 56

THE CITY ON THE HILL " 72

TERRACE OF THE CH?TEAU " 90

CHURCH OF ST. THEODATE " 112

JOUSTING COURT " 132

THE COUNTS OF GRUY?RE

ANNO 436

On the edge of a green plain around which rise the first steps of the immense amphitheatre of the Alps, a little castled city enthroned on a solitary hill watches since a thousand years the eternal and surpassing spectacle.

Around its feet a river runs, a silver girdle bending northward between pastures green, while eastward over the towering azure heights the sunrise waves its flags of rose and gold.

In the dim hours of twilight or by a cloudy moonlight, the city pitched amid the drifting aerial heights seems built itself of air and cloud, evanescent and unreal.

Ten centuries have passed over this castle on the hill; six told the story of its sovereignty over the surrounding country, but unlike most of the ch?teaux of Switzerland it has been carefully restored and maintains its feudal character. The caparisoned steeds no longer gallop along the ancient road, the crested knights no longer break their lances in the jousting court; but in the wide street of the little city is heard a speech, and in the valleys and from the hillsides echo herdsmen's songs, which contain Latin and French words, Greek, Saracen and German, a patois holding in solution the long story of the past.

GRUY?RE

ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE

Triply woven of the French, German and Italian races, the Swiss nation discovers in its Romand or French strain another triple weave of Celtic-Romand-Burgundian descent.

While the high mountainous regions of eastern Switzerland were early scaled and settled by the Germanic tribes, the western were still earlier inhabited by the ancient Celtic-Helvetians and then civilized and cultivated by the most luxurious of Roman colonies. Resisting first and then happily mingling with their Roman conquerors, the Celtic people were transformed into a Romand race, similar in speech and origin to the French. In the heart of this Romand country was an ancient principality where the essential qualities of the beauty loving and imaginative races, Roman and Celtic, expressed themselves uniquely. A fountain of Celtic song and legend, a centre of chivalry and warlike power, this principality is known only to the outer world by the pastoral product which bears its name "Gruy?re."

Remarkable in the interest of the unbroken line of its valorous and lovable princes, and in the precious and enchanting race mixture of its brave, laughter-loving people, its supreme historical interest lies in its little recorded and astonishing political significance among the independent feudal principalities of Europe.

Here also traveled the adventurous Greek merchants from old Massilia , leaving in their buried coins and in the Greek words of the Gruy?re dialect the impress of their ancient visitation.

A country fit for mysterious rites, for the habitation of the nature deities of the Druid mythology, was Gruy?re in those early days. The deep caverns, the "black" lakes, and the terrifying depths of the precipitous defiles through which the mountain streams rushed into marshy valleys, were frequented by wild beasts and birds, and haunted in the imagination of the people by fairies and evil spirits holding unholy commerce for the souls of men. Here until the Teuton invasion the early Celts lived unmolested, when some fugitives from the once smiling cities and the cultivated plains came to join them in the refuge of their mountain homes. Strange to their half-savage brothers were these softened and romanized Celts who had tended the olives and the vines on sunny lake sides, and who in earlier days had mingled in Dionysian revels with Roman maidens with curled locks and painted cheeks. Strange their tales of the white pagan temples, and all the glories of the imperial cities left smouldering in ashes after the Teuton hordes had worked their will. The arduous pioneer life of their predecessors and the task of clearing and cultivating their wild asylum among the mountains and the marshes was now their lot. Adopting slowly the altered speech of these later romanized inhabitants and converted to the Christian faith by Gallo-Roman priests, the indigenous inhabitants finally lost all memory of the teachings of their Druid bards and the firm belief in reincarnation which sent the Celtic warrior laughing to his death; but in the traditions of the peasantry, abounding with nature myths, sorcerers still haunt their mountain caves, fairies and May maidens still flutter about their crystal streams.

One more strain, that of the heroes of the Nibelungen, the blond Burgundian giants who had forced the Romans to share with them a portion of their conquered territories, was destined to add height and virile force to the Celto-Roman people of this country. Strangely differing from their ancient enemies the merciless Teutons, these mighty Burgundians, most human of all the vandal hords, in an epic of tragic grandeur rivaling the classic tales of mythology, for a century maintained an autonomous and mighty kingdom. Gentle as gigantic, indomitable in war, invading but not destroying, their greatest monarch, Gondebaud, who could exterminate his rival brothers, and enact a beneficient code of laws which forms the basis of the Gallic jurisprudence, was their protagonist and prototype. Beside his figure, looming in the mists of history, is Clothilde, his niece, the proselyting Christian queen, who fled in her ox cart from Geneva to the arms of Clovis the Merovingian, first king of France. Enthroned at Lyons, Gondebaud issued the laws which regulated the establishment of his people in their new domains, which spread over what was later the great French Duchy of Burgundy, the whole extent of occidental Switzerland and Savoy. "Like brothers," it is related by the Latin chroniclers, they mingled with the resident inhabitants, dividing lands and serfs by lot, marrying their daughters, and quickly adopting their language and their Christian faith.

Thus the whole of Romand Switzerland was deeply impregnated with the Burgundian influence, assimilating its vigorous race type and ruled by its laws. Although the country later passed under the universal domination of Charlemagne, the character of the people was little affected by the distant rule of the great monarch, and when the Carlovingian Empire fell apart and Rodolph I, of the second Burgundian line, crowned himself king in the monastery of St. Maurice, his subjects were of the same race and customs as those of his predecessors. Differing in blood from the early Burgundian rulers, these Rodolphian kings, allied to the Carlovingian emperors and long governors of lower or Swiss Burgundy, ruled pacifically and under the beloved Rodolph II and his still better loved Queen Berthe, and their son Conrad, resisted the Saracen invasion and preserved for a hundred and fifty years the autonomy of their kingdom. Nobles with their serfs and freemen already divided the land, their prerogatives and vassalage long since established by the laws of Gondebaud. The Oberland, or Pays-d'en-Haut, Hoch Gau, or D'Ogo, in the German tongue, a country no longer wild but rich in fertile valleys and wooded mountain sides, was given to a Burgundian lord, under the title of King's Forester or Grand Gruyer; Count he was or Comes D'Ogo, first lord of the country afterwards called Gruy?re. Although Burgundian, the subjects of Count Turimbert were of different races. In the country of Ogo, called Haute Gruy?re, they were German, while in the lower northern plains, called Basse Gruy?re, they were Celtic or Celto-Roman. Between these two divisions the mountain torrent of the Sarine rushes through a deep gorge called the Pas de la Tine. For many years the Gallo-Roman peasants feared to penetrate this terrifying barrier between the rising valleys and the frowning heights, until, according to a legend, a young adventurer broke his way through the primeval woods and the rocky depths of the gorge to find out-spread before him the fertile upper plateaux of the Pays-d'en-Haut.

"It happened," so runs another legend, "that the Roman peasants who had passed the Pas de la Tine and led their herds along the course of the Sarine, wished to cut their way through the thick forest, but encountered other peasants who spoke a different language. Here peacefully they halted on the hither side of the dividing Griesbach, 'where it touched the limit of the Alamanni.'"

INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH

"Oh, King," appealed the prelates, "rise and hasten to our succour--Burgundia calls thee. These countries lately added to thy dominions are troubled by the absence of their lord. Thy people cry to thee, as the source of peace, desiring to refresh their sad eyes with the sight of their King."

The answer to this appeal was the establishment of the Rectorate of Burgundy under the Count Rudolph of Rheinfelden and his successors, the Dukes of Zearingen, who founded in the borders of ancient Gruy?re the two cities of Berne and Fribourg. Between these centres of the rising power of the bourgeoisie arose mutual dissensions and quarrels with the already hostile lords and bishops, and the country was more than ever the scene of wars innumerable.

Tasso, the poet of the Crusades, so well appreciated the valor of the Swiss soldiers that he chose their leader for the honor of first scaling the walls of Jerusalem.

"Over the moat, on a sudden filled to the brim With a thousand thrown faggots, and with rolled trees stout and slim, Before all he ventured. On helmet and buckler poured floods of sulphurous fire. Yet scatheless he passed through the furnace of flame, And with powerful hand throwing the ladder high over the wall, mounted with pride."

Again when the Christians were in want of wood for the catapults and rolling towers with which to scale and batter down resisting walls, Tasso leads this same undaunted servant of de Bouillon into the forest enchanted by the Satanic ally of the Musselmans.

"Like all soldiers I must challenge fate-- Surprises, fears and phantoms know I not. Floods and roaring monsters, the terrors Of the common herd affright not me! The last realm of hell I would invade, Descending fearless, sword in hand."

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE HOUSE OF SAVOY

In the middle of the thirteenth century the counts of Gruy?re--who had so long been oppressed by the grasping prelates of the Church--came within the orbit of another power, that of the rising house of Savoy.

After a year's imprisonment Count Rodolphe was ransomed by his people, and first among all the Romand knights swore fealty to his new overlord at the ch?teau of Yverdun. Growing in favor with Pierre de Savoy and his successors, the counts of Gruy?re became their trusted courtiers and counselors, and through many vicissitudes and many wars merited the encomium of Switzerland's first historian, that the "Age of chivalry produced no braver soldiers than these counts, their suzerain had no more devoted vassals."

Always loyal to his suzerain, Count Pierre served under the Savoy banner in the war with Hughes de Faucigny, dauphin of the Viennois, and only after the marriage of Catherine to the redoubtable Leopold of Austria had sealed a truce between the rival powers which divided and devastated the country, did he consent to join the Austrian army in Italy under Duke Leopold himself.

In the brilliant cort?ge which followed Duke Leopold to Italy, Count Pierre, accompanied by a number of his relatives, was notable by the command of a hundred horsemen and a force of archers. Mounted on horses, armored like their riders and covered with emblazoned velvets, such a force of cavalry was the strongest as well as the most imposing instrument of warfare in this time, when the knights, willing only to conquer by personal bravery, despised all arms except their lances and their swords. Contested by the warring Guelphs and Ghibellines, the city of Milan and the palace of the newly crowned German emperor himself was with difficulty protected by the imperial guard. The soldiers of Duke Leopold, arriving without the city walls, under a hail of stones and arrows, broke through the outer barricades and burst the city gates, and then Gruy?re again, at the head of his horsemen dashed through, bringing release to the imprisoned emperor and victory to the Austrian arms.

Not long was the alliance between the houses of Hapsburg and Savoy to endure. The rising powers of the cities, still more the prowess of the mountaineers, the Waldstetten, who soon after Duke Leopold's Italian campaign had vanquished him and his shining warriors at the famous battle of Morgarten, resisted with growing success the Savoyard and the Hapsburg sovereignty, and divided in ever changing alliances the fermenting elements of the tottering feudal society. The horn of the Alps, sounding the tocsin over the rocky defile of the Swiss Thermopylae, announced the approaching end of the feudal rule of the middle ages and the dawn of liberty in Switzerland.

Although at first a willing ally of Pierre de Savoy, the city of Berne, greatly enlarging its possessions by conquests and alliances and growing rapidly in independence and republican enlightenment, warred incessantly with the nobles of the surrounding country and with particular virulence attacked the counts of Gruy?re. So serious a menace did the proud city become to all the knights of Romand Switzerland, that they were driven to attempt its humiliation. All the great lords of Helvetia west and east joined the brave alliance. The banners of Hapsburg and Savoy were united in the determined onslaught upon the powerful city, and a large force from Fribourg, eager to aid in bringing her rival low, swelled the forces of the nobles in a glittering army of three thousand knights, who with their attendant vassals gayly and confidently practised feats of arms before the little fortified city of Laupen while awaiting the arrival of the Bernois.

Among them, Count Pierre de Gruy?re, refusing an enormous indemnity for losses at the hands of the Bernois and as ever faithful to his order and to Savoy, took his place with other nobles of his house. Warriors each one by training and tradition, not yet had any fear of defeat chilled their ardor or their courage, nor had they learned the wisdom of concealing their threatened attack upon the growing republic. The citizens of Berne were given ample time to send a messenger to the victorious mountaineers of Morgarten, and this was their reply: "Not like the birds are we who fly from a storm-stricken tree. In trouble best is friendship known. Tell the Bernois we are friendly and will send them aid."

The June sun was setting over the plateau when the nobles desisting from their sports drew up their cavalry, supported by a chosen band of infantry from Fribourg. Retreating before the advance of the latter, the Waldstetten, in the forefront of the Bernese army, sought, as was their custom, an advantageous position for attack. From the heights above the city, with their terrifying war cries, and with the same furious onslaught which had overwhelmed Duke Leopold's glorious horsemen at Morgarten, they fell upon the nobles in a bloody mel?e in which horses, men and valets perished in a hopeless confusion. Three Gruy?re knights were left lifeless on the battlefield and eighty-four others, who thus paid the price of their temerity in thinking to stem the already formidable confederation of citizens and free people in Switzerland. Undeterred by this defeat and continually menaced by the incursions of the Bernois, Count Pierre de Gruy?re successfully held them in check, and, no less wise as ruler than he was valorous in war, enlarged the power and extent of his domain by political and matrimonial alliances with the great Romand families of Blonay, Grandson and Oron, as well as with the warlike La Tour Chatillons of the Valais, and with the powerful Wissenbourgs and the semi-royal Hapsburg-Kibourgs of eastern Switzerland. Leaving to his nephews, "Perrod" and "Jeannod," the seigneuries of Vanel and Montsalvens which they had inherited from their father, he shared with them the rule of the people.

The "three of Gruy?re" whose acts are recorded in the dry and unpoetic parchments of the time, were united in a paternal and pacific rule under which people and country reached a legendary height of arcadian prosperity.

The ch?teau on its green hill was a fit centre of the closely mingled life of the rulers and their people. Rebuilt on its ancient rude foundations under the reign of Pierre de Savoy, it possessed the great towers and sentinel tourelles, the moat, drawbridge, courtyards, terrace and arsenal of the time, but in its enchanting situation, its intimate, inviting charm, it quite uniquely expressed the sense and love of beauty of its unknown artist architect.

Nourished on rich milk smelling of the aromatic grasses of their pastures, white and pink as the apples of their orchards; light-footed and vigorous from their mountain life, their dancing and their athletic sports, the Gruy?re people developed a beauty celebrated even in the grave pages of the historians. From their hearts warm with the sun, their fancy fed by the beauty of their ravishing country, issued songs witty and sad, and always melodious with their soft Italian vocables, a literature in Romand patois. Thus the golden age of chivalry, rhyming harmoniously with the golden age of the herdsmen, in the blue circle of the Gruy?re heights, grew to its noon day.

Then, suddenly as a tempest gathering across the sun pours quick destruction over a parterre of flowers, black horror swallowed up Gruy?re. The plague called the Black Death, born in the Levant and rushing like a destroying flood with terrifying rapidity over the borders of Switzerland, penetrated even into the mountain-encircled country of Count Pierre. The devils and evil spirits of the caverns and the forests seemed now in the imagination of the Celtic people to be the sinister authors of this mysterious and devastating curse. The youths and maidens, no longer dancing to rhymed choruses of love and joy, swung wildly in dances of death among the abandoned corpses.

"O! Misfortune, and three times misfortune, beware how you touch Berne!" the refrain of an old song too often forgotten by Count Pierre, was once more exemplified in the revenge which the Bernois wreaked upon the Gruy?re ch?teaux of Laubeck and Mannenburg, for the thefts of their herds.

On St. Etienne's day, in the dark December of 1349, the avenging Bernois took the field, and a thousand strong assembled before the walls of the twin fortresses. Reeling and shouting to the sound of fifes and drums, in a gross satire of the dance of the fanatic flagellants, they whipped themselves into a furious rage and then attacked the walls. Both donjons, although strongly fortified, fell and were destroyed. Unappeased, the Bernois were advancing towards Gruy?re when their cupidity was tempted by offers of rich indemnities by Count Pierre's messengers, with whom, together with a crowd of prisoners, they returned to Berne. Rage and despair as black as this the darkest winter of his reign, possessed Count Pierre, but milder counsels spoken by the gentle voices of his countess and the two sainted Dames de Vaud, Isabelle de Savoie-Chalons and her daughter prevailed. Like a trio of angels singing over the deathlike darkness and terror of the time, they brought peace where there was no peace; and with the august assistance of the reigning prince of Savoy and the bishop of Lausanne established another Tr?ve de Dieu between the warring cities of Berne and Fribourg, and truce between Berne and the country of Gruy?re. At last, where fire and sword, where the power of rival cities and proud knights allied, had failed, the love and high influence of these noble ladies of the middle age most wonderfully succeeded. Memorable for its beneficent and permanent effects, the treaty was unique for its high and unselfish spirit of conciliation, and the final words of exhortation which stilled the waters tossed by two centuries of storm have the sacred accent of heavenly inspiration.

"The parties in this present treaty shall in all sincerity forget all bitterness, all offence and all resentment. Secret hate shall give place to the old love, which, God helping, shall endure forever."

His brother-ruler Jeannod, as the years rolled by, became water to his wine, as gravely sad as Pierre was gay. Three wives preceded him to the grave, all childless, and after a fourth barren marriage he bestowed the greater part of his inheritance upon the church, and when a few years after his brother's death he was carried sumptuously in gold and silken sheets to his prepared resting place in the cathedral of Lausanne, a multitude of sacred lamps burning perpetually in shrines and monasteries over all the land celebrated his pious memory and his disappointments.

FOREIGN WARS

Recounted immortally in the glowing pages of Froissart, is the story of Pembroke's hopeless battle with the Spanish fleet. Confiding in the skill and valor of his soldiers and bestowing the title of chevalier on every man among them in the last hour before the combat, he gave the signal to advance. It was dawn and the tide flowed full, when, with a favoring wind, the forty great Spanish vessels, bearing the floating pennons of Castille, advanced to the sound of fife and drum in battle line upon the English fleet. Arrived at close quarters, and grappling Pembroke's ships with chains and iron hooks, they poured down from their tall towers a rain of stones and lead upon the lower and exposed decks of the English, who with swords and spears sustained the fierce attack all day until darkness fell. With the twenty-two newly-made knights who valiantly defended Pembroke's ship was Jean de Gruy?re, and when at last, grappled by four great galleons, they were boarded and every resisting arm subdued, he was taken prisoner with Pembroke. On another vessel, fighting as bravely, Othon de Grandson was also taken prisoner and with Jean de Gruy?re was transported in captivity to Spain. Dearly paying for their ambition and their new titles, they were furnished in recompense for their valor with lands in Spain by a Burgundian noble, and by industrious commercial enterprise paying their ransom and their debts, after two years regained their liberty and their homes.

Rodolphe IV, reigning count of Gruy?re, displayed in his long career no quality worthy of his generous and high spirited father, no trace of the conciliatory wisdom or devoted piety of his mother. Calculating in his marriages, he was unjust and even dishonest with his people, whom he forced to pay twice over for their exemptions and their privileges. Still dishonestly withholding the signed and purchased acknowledgement of their new privileges from his subjects, he was surprised alone at night in the castle by a doughty peasant, who forced the paper from his unwilling hands and threw it out of the window to a waiting confederate. Left in charge of the Savoyard troops who had driven the invading Viscounti from the Valais, and entrusted with the guardianship of the ch?teaux and prisoners won by the Savoyard arms, he exacted and obtained large sums for his services, although those services consisted in a complete surprise and defeat at the hands of the sturdy inhabitants of the Valais, wherein, except for the heroic defence of the very subjects he had so oppressed, he would himself have perished. From the benefits of the peace which was ultimately established in the Valais, these same loyal subjects were excluded.

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