FOREIGN WARS
Rodolphe IV, eldest son of Count Pierre, although sole inheritor of the
title and authority of count, had two younger brothers Pierre and Jean,
who perpetuated the strongly contrasted traits of the elder Pierre and
Jean. But in the second generation the roles were changed. Pierre was
the religious brother, and became prior of Rougemont, while Jean, even
more eager for martial glory than his father, went far from home to join
the English armies of Edward III and the Black Prince in their wars with
Charles V of France. Count Rodolphe, surpassing his predecessors in the
brilliancy of his alliances, married two grand-daughters of Savoy, and
through his second countess, Marguerite de Grandson, was related to the
distinguished family whose soldiers following Pierre de Savoy to
England there established a noble line of Grandisson. These Grandissons
were intimately related with the kings of England through the Savoyard
Queen Eleanor. The glorious progress of the English armies, the fame of
Crecy, the capture of the King of France resounding through all Europe,
inflamed with chivalric ardor, young Othon de Grandson, and in his
company Jean de Gruyere, to set out in the spring of 1372 for England.
Warmly received at Windsor, they were present at the fete of St. George,
and assigned a place in the naval forces of Lord Pembroke, sailing
shortly after with his fleet for the western shores of France. Bravely
and confidently enough the English set out for the scene of their
earlier and easy conquests, but the Black Prince, stricken with mortal
disease, no longer led their armies; Spain under Pedro the Cruel was
allied with the already disaffected English possessions in Brittany, and
when Pembroke sailed up to the harbor of La Rochelle he was attacked by
an overwhelmingly superior Spanish fleet.
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 Gruyere, 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 Gruyere 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 Gruyere, 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
chateaux 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.
How greatly Count Rodolphe was lacking in the noble and humanitarian
qualities which had so generally characterized the counts of Gruyere,
was shown in his dealings with his young relative Othon de Grandson. The
comrade of his brother, Jean de Gruyere, in his French campaigns and in
his long captivity in Spain, Othon de Grandson was later doubly related
to Count Rodolphe, as brother-in-law of his first wife Marguerite
d'Alamandi, and as nephew of his second countess, Marguerite de
Grandson. The tragic hero of an unjust drama of prosecution which
divided in opposing camps the nobles of Romand Switzerland, Othon de
Grandson was falsely accused of complicity in the poisoning of Count
Amedee VII of Savoy, and although declared innocent by a royal French
tribunal, was again implacably accused by his rival in love, Count
Estavayer, on his return to his estates. Calling God to witness that his
accuser lied, he consented to defend and prove his innocence in a trial
of arms, where, in the presence of his suzerain and of his council and
knights assembled, he fell mortally wounded at the feet of his opponent.
No effort was made by Count Rodolphe to defend his relative, while
Rodolphe le Jeune was not only an unprotesting witness of his undeserved
and tragic fate, but the purchaser with his father's assistance of the
confiscated Grandson estates. Again, although selling the newly acquired
chateaux of Oron and Palezieux to increase their revenues, the two
Rodolphes, in total disregard of the rights of the new owners, attempted
to retake them by force of arms, and except for the immediate
intervention of the count of Savoy, would have plunged the newly
pacified country into a general war.
An enchanting legend regarding the first wife of Count Rodolphe
illuminates the dismal story of his inglorious reign. Marguerite
d'Alamandi has been confused in the tradition with Marguerite de
Grandson, the second wife of Rodolphe. It is Marguerite d'Alamandi, and
not the other Marguerite who is the heroine of the tale which has been
elaborated into a moving little drama by a poet pastor of the eighteenth
century, and which beautifully preserves the customs and the atmosphere
of that distant time.
Countess Marguerite of Gruyere, so runs the story, was so sadly
afflicted that she had borne no heir, that she had no longer any joy in
her fair castle, no comfort with her beloved lord. Vainly journeying to
distant shrines, as vainly invoking the aid of sorcerers and magicians,
she went one day, clad as one of her poor subjects, to pray in the
chapel at the foot of the Gruyere hill. There, as the November day was
closing, poor Jean the cripple, well known through the country, came
also to tell his beads. Very simple and kindly was poor Jean, with
always the same blessing for those who gave him food or mocked him with
cruel jeers. Perceiving in the shadow a poor woman sadly weeping, he
gave her all his day's begging, a piece of black bread with a morsel of
coarse cheese, repeating his usual blessing, "May God and our Lady grant
thee all thy noble heart desires." That evening, again clad in her
jewels and brocades, the Countess Marguerite, at the close of a feast
laid for her husband's comrades after a day at the chase, offered each
knight a bit of this bread and cheese, with a moving story of poor Jean
and a prayer that all should wish what her heart so long and vainly had
desired. Nine months later, so concludes the tale, a fair son and heir
was born to the happy dame. On the walls of the Hall of the Chevaliers,
among the painted legends of the house, poor Jean and Countess
Marguerite live in pictured memory; and a room next the great kitchen of
the chateau, called by the cripple's name, has been pointed out for many
generations as the spot where, fed on the fat of the land, he enjoyed
the bounty of the countess during the remainder of his days.
Rodolphe le Jeune, the long awaited heir of this story, did not live to
inherit the rule of the domain whose fame his father had so sadly
stained. Brilliantly educated at the court of Savoy, and later the
councilor of the countess regent, he emulated his uncle's heroic example
and joined the English armies under Buckingham in France, there winning
praise and the offer of the chevalier's accolade. But he failed to
fulfil the promise of his youth and died prematurely, leaving his young
son Antoine, the last hope of the family, to succeed to his grandfather.
Count Antoine's overlord, the youthful count of Savoy, confided the
education of his vassal and protege to a venerable prelate of Lausanne;
but heeding nothing of his pious instructions the young ruler wasted his
revenues in extravagant hospitality, lived gaily with his mistresses,
and celebrated the weddings of his two sisters with famous feasting and
generous marriage gifts. Unlike his predecessors, who shared the rule of
Gruyere with brothers or sons, he reigned alone, and gave himself wholly
to the ambition of maintaining the pleasure-loving reputation of his
house. More than ever under Count Antoine was Gruyere a court of love.
The numerous and beautiful children of his mistresses filled the castle
with their youthful gayety and charm, and his two splendid sons,
Francois and Jean, proudly acknowledged by their father and legitimized
with the sanction of the pope, took their place among the young nobles
of the country as heirs of the Gruyere possessions. Again the gay
Coraules of flower-crowned shepherds and maids wound over the valleys
and hills. Again minstrels and chroniclers recorded and sang the lovely
traditions of their pastoral life.
"Gruyere, sweet country, fresh and verdant Gruyere
Did thy children imagine how happy they were?
Did thy shepherds know they lived an idyll?
Had they read Theocrite, had they heard of Virgil?
No, no! as in gardens the lilac and rose
Grow in innocent beauty, their days drew to a
close."
So in a fond ecstasy of recollection, sings a Romand poet, and thus in
the famous lines of Uhland is related the Coraule of Count Antoine.
_The Count of Gruyere_
Before his high manor, the Count of Gruyere,
One morning in Maytime looked over the land.
Rocky peaks, rose and gold, with the dawning were fair,
In the valleys night still held command.
"Oh! Mountains! you call to your pastures so green,
Where the shepherds and maids wander free,
And while often, unmoved, your smiles I have seen,
Ah! to-day 'tis with you I would be."
Then afloat on the breeze, there came to his ear,
Sweet pipes faintly blowing--still distant the sounds----
As across the deep valley, each with his dear,
Came the shepherds, dancing their rounds.
And now on the green sward they danced and they sang,
In their holiday gowns, a pretty parterre,
With oft sounding echoes the castle walls rang,
To the joy of the Count of Gruyere.
Then slim as a lily, a beauteous maid,
Took the Count by the hand to join the gay throng.
"And now you're our captive, sweet master," she said,
"And our leader in dancing and song."
Then, the Count at the head, away they all went,
A-singing and dancing, through forest and dell.
O'er valleys and hillsides, with force all unspent,
Till the sun set and starry night fell.
The first day fled fast, and the second dawned fair,
The third was declining, when over the hills
Quick lightning flashed whitely--the Count was not there!
"Has he vanished?" they asked of the rills.
The black storm clouds have burst, the streams are like blood
By the red lightning's glare, and dark night is rent,
Oh, look! where our lost one fights hard with the flood,
Until a branch saves him, pale and spent.
"The mountains which drew me with smiles to their heights,
With thunders have kept me, their lover, at bay.
Their streams have engulfed me, not these the delights
I dreamed of, dancing the hours away.
"Farewell, ye green Alps! youths and maidens so gay,
Farewell! happy days when a shepherd was I,
Stern fates I have questioned have answered me nay,
So I leave ye, with smiles and a sigh.
"My poor heart's still burning, the dance tempts me yet,
So ask me no longer, my lily, my belle!
For you, love and frolic, but I must forget,
Take me back, then, my frowning castel."
No attacks from feudal lords or from rival cities threatened Gruyere
during the reign of Count Antoine, which came to its end in undisturbed
tranquility. The kindly and _complaisant_ father, brother and lover
essayed as he grew in years to correct some of the follies of his youth,
and according to the opinion of Gruyere's principal historian married
the mother of the children he had already legitimized. A pious and
lamenting widower, he instituted many masses and anniversaries for the
repose of the soul of his wife, the Countess Jeanne de Noyer of blessed
memory; and erecting a chapel to his patron St. Antoine in the parochial
church of Gruyere caused to be painted therein the kneeling portraits of
himself and his countess, in perpetual testimony of his devotion to the
rites of matrimony and religion.
[Illustration: FORTIFIED HOUSES--NORTH WALL]