SOVEREIGNTY OF THE HOUSE OF SAVOY
In the middle of the thirteenth century the counts of Gruyere--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.
Fortifying their influence by alliances with the kingdoms of Europe,
extending its domains over occidental Switzerland and far into Italy,
the counts of Savoy were already in a position to dispute the power of
the bishops, when Count Pierre took his place at the head of his house.
Although he had occupied for two years the bishopric of Lausanne, which
had so long been inimical to the counts of Gruyere, the spiritual
overlordship of the country of Vaud did not satisfy the genius or the
ambition of the ablest personage in a family which numbered five
reigning queens, and who, himself was marquis in Italy, earl of
Richmond in England and uncle and adviser to King Henry III of England
and of his brother the Emperor Richard. Although he lived by preference
in England where his lightest word could control the tumults of the
populace, the wisdom of Count Pierre's choice of delegates greatly
extended his Savoyard domain. "Proud, firm and terrible as a lion," "the
little Charlemagne" as his contemporaries called him, was wise also and
affable with his subjects. Brilliant in intellect, master of happy and
courteous speech, he fascinated where he controlled. The princely air of
pride and power, seen in the portraits of Pierre de Savoy, the blazing
dark eyes and mobile mouth of his Gallo-Roman ancestors, present the
truly majestic semblance of the founder of a dynasty and the eminently
sympathetic overlord of the Gallo-Roman counts of Gruyere. Such was the
great ruler and law-giver who easily supplanting his niece as head of
the house of Savoy, reduced to a loyal vassalage all the nobles of Roman
Switzerland. Not without opposition from the bishops and feudal lords
nor without jealousy from the German emperor did Count Pierre arrive at
a height where he saw only heaven above and his mountainous domain!
"From Italy through the Valais," so a chronicler of his house relates,
"at the rumor that a rival German governor of Vaud was besieging his
castle of Chillon, he reached the heights above Lake Leman. There he
surveyed the banners of the noble army, and the luxurious tents in
which they took their ease before his castle. Hiding his soldiers at
Villeneuve, alone and unobserved he rowed to Chillon, where from the
great tower he watched the young nobles as they danced and reveled in
jeweled velvets and shining armor, with the maidens of the lake-side.
Then at a given signal, he emerged to lead his waiting army to the
complete rout of the surprised besiegers."
Among these holiday warriors was Rodolphe III of Gruyere, who with his
comrades--eighty-four barons, seigneurs, chevaliers, ecuyers and nobles
of the country--were taken to the castle of Chillon where, according to
the chronical: "_Comte Pierre ne les traita pas comme prisonniers mais
les festoya honorablement. Moult fut grande la despoilie et moult grande
le butin._"
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 chateau of Yverdun. Growing in favor with Pierre de Savoy and his
successors, the counts of Gruyere 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."
The submission of Rodolphe of Gruyere having been confirmed in formal
treaty, his grandson and successor Count Pierre the Third, loyally
supported during a long and brilliant reign the banners of his overlord
against the rising power of Rudolph of Hapsburg. When Berne, allied with
Savoy, was besieged by the Hapsburg army, Count Pierre generously
supplied money to the beleaguered city and in the final battle when the
city fell, it was a Jean de Gruyere who snatched the torn and
bloodstained Bernese banner from the hands of the enemy. When asked the
name of the hero who had saved the flag, his comrades answered "_c'est
le preux de Gruyere_," and to this day the Bernese family of Gruyere
bear the title thus bravely won by their progenitor.
The role of mediator, filled with distinction by his successors, was
first assigned to Count Pierre III, who as avoyer of Fribourg at that
time allied with Austria, was empowered to arbitrate the differences
which arose between the houses of Savoy and Hapsburg.
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 (daughter of Amedee V of Savoy) 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 cortege 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 Gruyere 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 Gruyere. 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 Gruyere, 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 melee in which horses,
men and valets perished in a hopeless confusion. Three Gruyere 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 Gruyere 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 Gruyere" 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.
First to deserve the name so cherished in the legends of Gruyere of
"pastoral king," Count Pierre III saw his herds increase and valleys and
mountain sides blossom into fabulous fertility. His was the golden age
of the herdsmen the "Armaillis," of whom it was related in symbolic
legend that, "their cows were so gigantic and milk so abundant that it
overflowed the borders of the ponds into which they poured it." By boat
they skimmed the cream in these vast basins, and one day a "_beau
berger_," busy with the skimming, was upset in his skiff by a sudden
squall and drowned. The young lads and maidens sought long and vainly
for his body and wore mourning for his tragic fate. Discovered only
several days later, when amid floods of boiling cream they whipped the
butter into a mound high as a tower, his body was buried in a great
cavern in the golden butter, filled full by the bees with honey rays
wide as a city's gates. "Where," asks a living Romand writer, "is the
eclogue of Virgil or Theocritus to surpass the beauty of this legend?"
Dying full of years and honors, Count Pierre left the care of his
beloved people and his happy country to his nephews the cherished Perrod
and Jeannod, who even in the churchly parchments are known by the
nicknames affectionately given them by their uncle. Together they ruled,
although Pierre IV, the eldest and ablest, bore the title of Lord of
Gruyere. Always by the side of his uncle in all his wars and on the
bloody plain of Laupen, Perrod had already won his title of Chevalier,
and did not lack occasion to further prove his courage in a new war with
the Bernois who in one of their many incursions had advanced far among
the upper Gruyere mountains, near the twin chateaux of Laubeck and
Mannenburg, lately acquired by the Gruyere house. Accustomed to success
and confident of an easy victory, the Bernois scattered about the
valleys, leaving the flag to their leader with a few men-at-arms. But
the Gruyeriens, wary and prepared, were already massed upon the heights
over the defile of Laubeck-Stalden, whence they fell suddenly upon the
Banneret of Berne, who, thinking only to save the flag, cast it far
behind him among his few followers, and meeting alone the attack of the
enemy, died faithful to his duty and his honor. Bitterly lamenting, the
Bernois retreated with their flag, while Count Perrod and his victorious
band, returning to the castle, celebrated famously with songs and jests,
in a brave company of knights and ladies, their triumph over their
redoubtable enemies. Not so gayly did the banners of Gruyere return
homeward in the next contest with Berne, for, now allied with Fribourg
and determined to avenge their late defeat, they advanced in great
numbers and with fire and sword ravaged the country of the count of
Gruyere and attacked the chateaux of his allies, the lords of Everdes
and Corbieres. Already the chateau of Everdes was burning, the Ogo
bridge was lost, and while Corbieres was hotly besieged by the men of
Fribourg, the Bernois advancing within sight of the castle of Gruyere to
attack the outpost Tour de Treme, encountered at the Pre de Chenes a
small band of Gruyeriens. Here, until the arrival of the main force of
Count Pierre, two heroes, justly celebrated and sung in all the annals
of Gruyere, alone behind a barrier of corpses withstood the onslaught of
the Bernois. Two men of Villars sous Mont were they: Ulric Bras le Fer,
and the brave Clarimboz. So strong the arms with which they wielded the
great halberds of the time, that the handles, clotted with the blood of
their foes were glued to their clenched fists, so that it was necessary
to bathe them long in warm water to detach them. Although the Bernois
burnt the Tour de Treme and captured sixty of the defendants, Count
Pierre and his soldiers forced them to retire, and the castle and city
of Gruyere were saved. Strong men were these knights and vassals of
Gruyere to withstand and gayly to forget the bloody assaults of their
determined foes, for in the intervals of war alarms they passed a
holiday life of jest and song. Within the circle of their starlit
heights, they nightly watched the brandon lights on peak and hilltop;
and while the sentinels in every tower scanned the wide country for a
sign of the approaching foe, within they made merry in the banqueting
hall. In the long summer afternoons, tourneys in the jousting court, or
tribunals held in the same green enclosure alternated with generous
feasts out-spread on the castle terrace for the enjoyment of the people.
Often Count Pierre would mount his horse and ride among the mountains
where he administered justice before the doors of the chalets, adopting
the orphans who were brought to him, giving dots to the daughters of the
poor, and sometimes taking part in the wrestling contests of the
herdsmen--their brother in sport--their father in misfortune. During all
the years of the fourteenth century the feudal society of Switzerland,
although so fiercely attacked by the rising bourgeoisie power, blazed
like the leaves in autumn in a passing October glory with the snows of
winter seemingly still afar. At Chambery, the court of Amedee VII of
Savoy, called Le Comte Vert from the emerald color of the velvet in
which he and his courtiers were clad, the brother rulers of Gruyere took
part in all the fetes and tourneys. Present when the great order of the
Annonciata was instituted, and again, when the emperor of Germany was
received at banquets served by knights on horseback, they sat at tables
where fountains of wine sprinkled their rubies over gilded viands in
vessels of wrought gold.
But at Gruyere the young brother rulers held a little court which for
intimate gayety and charm surpassed all others. Gallic in its love of
beauty, loving life and all its loveliest expressions, it was a court of
dance and song--the heart of hearts of Gruyere, itself the centre and
the very definition of Romand Switzerland. Often intermarried, the
Burgundian counts preserved in its perfection the blond beauty of their
ancient race, surpassing in athletic skill the strongest of their
subjects, and with the same bonhomie with which their conquering
ancestors had mingled with their vassals, they exemplified in their
kindly rule the Burgundian device: "_Tout par l'amour, rien par la
force._" The people doubly Celt in origin, added to the Celtic ardor
the quick imagination, the gift of playing lightly with life, and a high
and passionate idealism expressing itself in an unequaled and valorous
devotion to their rulers, together with an arcadian union of simplicity
and finesse, the individual mark of their sunny pastoral life.
The chateau 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.
Within were the high hooded fireplaces of the time, blazoned with the
silver crane on scarlet of the Gruyere arms, armorial windows and walls
brilliantly painted with lozenges or squares of blue and scarlet. In the
great Hall of the Chevaliers, Count Pierre and his brother Jeannod held
their revels among a familiar company of their cousins of Blonay, Oron,
Montsalvens and Vanel, _preux chevaliers_ all, assembled at Gruyere
after long days at the chase. There, also, were the daughters of the
house, brave in jewels and brocades, and answering to the names of
Agnelette and Margot, Luquette and Elinode, who took their part in the
fair company dancing and singing through the long summer nights. Or
Chalamala, last and most famous of the Gruyere jesters, would preside
over a _Conseil de folie_, with his jingling bells and nodding peacock
plumes, recounting with jest and rhyme the legends of the ancient heroes
of Gruyere. Only Count Perrod was forbidden to wear his spurs, having
one day torn the pied stockings of the fool. "Shall I marry the great
lady of La Tour Chatillon?" he had asked his merry counselor. "If I were
lord of Gruyere," was the reply, "I would not give up my fair mistress
for that ill-featured dame."
Devoted Catholics as were the Gruyere people, their religion was a
source of comfort and protection, but even more a reason for rejoicing
and for the innumerable fetes in honor of their favorite saints, for
which the little city was almost continually decorated. Passion plays
and mysteries culminated at Easter in a wild carnival week in which
priests and people sang and danced together in masks and parti-color
from dawn to starlight. In the fete called _Jeu des Rois_, a parade in
costume was led by a crowned king in scarlet robes, accompanied by his
fool, by his knights and his minstrels. Music and dancing and feats of
arms were followed by a religious ceremony, and at night-fall after the
play, the king's banquet, where white-bearded magi offered him gifts of
gold and silver goblets, of frankincense and myrrh, finished the revel.
[Illustration: LACE-MAKERS]
Or again on the first Sunday in May all would assemble for the sport
called _Chateau d'Amour_ of ancient Celtic origin. In the midst of a
green field or in the square before the _Hotel de Ville_, a wooden
fortress was erected, surrounded by a little moat and with high towers
and a donjon. Maidens and more maidens, smiling and flower-crowned and
with white arms outstretched, poured down a rain of arrows and wooden
lances from the battlements, or oftener pelted their lovers the
assailants with showers of roses. Then at a given signal, in a sudden
escalade, the besiegers broke over the walls, each to receive a kiss and
a rose as prize of victory. Then besiegers and besieged together burned
the fortress, and the day ended with bacchic libations and with dances.
Meeting by moonlight nights to sing their love songs and rhymed legends
in the city square, the Gruyere people better loved their dances, the
long Celtic Korols (or Coraules), when, singing in chorus in wild
winding farandoles, they went dancing over vales and hills, day in and
day out until human strength could bear no more. Such was the famous
dance quaintly recounted in ancient French by a Gruyere chronicler.
"It happened one day that the Count de Gruyere returning to his castle,
found thereby a great merry-making of young lads and maidens dancing in
Koraule. The same Count, greatly loving of such sport, forthwith took
the hand of the loveliest of the maidens and joined the company.
Whereupon, no one tiring, they proceeded, dancing always, through the
hard-by village of Enney up to Chateau D'Oex in the Pays-d'en-Haut, and
wonderful was it to see the people in all the villages they passed
joining in that joyous band. Seven hundred were they when they finished,
having danced continuously for three days over the mountain leagues
between Gruyere and Chateau D'Oex, and great was the fame of Count
Perrod and his dancing in this _Grande Coquille_."
Such was life in this idyllic country, the beloved _Grevire_ of the
melodious Romand speech, where "the houses are high with roofs leaning
far towards the ground, where the plums are so ripe they fall with the
breeze, where there are oats and tressed wheat, cows black and white and
rich cheese, black goats, too, and horned oxen--and beautiful maids who
would wed."
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 Gruyere 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 Gruyere 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
Gruyere. 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.
Sprung from the carnival dances, where the masked Death forcing the
terrified maidens to his embrace led them to the cemeteries to celebrate
the memory of the dead, the priest countenanced these masks as religious
rites and taught the superstitious people that their gifts would ease
the souls of those sent suddenly unshrived to hell. With solemn phrase
and syncopated notes, the _danse macabre_ wound through the darkened
street around the shadowed crucifix up to the chapel door, where in
hideous masks, and dancing still, the hallucinated people, cast their
gold before the altar. "And as the coins, tin, tin, fell in the basins,
so, ha, ha, hi, hi! the poor souls laugh in purgatory." So, taught by
the priests and prelates ignorant as themselves, the sadly altered
Gruyere people incessantly danced and prayed, sometimes giving
themselves to the strange lascivious customs to which the whole country
was abandoned, and sometimes joining in the cruel persecution of the
Jews, accused of poisoning their fountains and their streams. Nothing
was lacking in the reign of terror which overwhelmed Gruyere in the last
years of Count Pierre's reign. Fires and earthquakes succeeded to the
plague, and in the midst of their terrors their implacable enemies, the
Bernois, attacked them.
"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
Gruyere chateaux 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 Gruyere 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 Treve de
Dieu between the warring cities of Berne and Fribourg, and truce between
Berne and the country of Gruyere. 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."
Although by this pact Count Pierre's private wars were ended, the old
warrior, unaffrighted by the anathema of excommunication, launched by
Pope Clement VI against the foes of the archbishop of Sion, joined the
barons who invaded the Valais at the instance of his father-in-law the
lord of La Tour Chatillon. But this was his last war and during the
remaining twenty years of his reign he and his people lived together,
happily free at last from danger of invasion or attack. Dying at eighty,
Count Pierre ended a reign, shared peacefully with his uncle and
brother, of over sixty years. Strong and tenacious of character,
hospitable and courageous as all his acts declare, he was the exemplar
of all the traits which have united to express the typical Gruyere
prince, and under him his pastoral domain blossomed into its climax of
idyllic prosperity. Loyal knight and brilliant comrade of his suzerain,
compassionate and kindly master, by his high unflagging gayety, his
frank and affectionate dealings with his adoring subjects, he was the
very soul and leader of the astonishing _epopee_ of revel and of song
which has made his reign celebrated in the history of Gruyere.
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.