THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF GRUYERE
The three sons of Count Jean II not strangely reflected the conditions
of their birth and the widely differing characters of their mothers.
Francois, only son of his second marriage, which was founded on a real
preference and esteem, possessed the kindly and charitable nature of his
mother and the firm character of his distinguished Gruyere ancestors.
Jean, the illegitimate son of Luce d'Alberguex, was lovable and
valorous, but lacking in firmness or dignity of character. Michel, the
heir of Gruyere, and the child of Count Jean's loveless marriage with
Marguerite de Vergy, while personifying in their perfection the physical
beauty and charm of his line, was like the fair fruit of a decaying tree
hollow at heart, and was only too well fitted by his fantastic
pretensions and his frivolous weakness of character for the tragic role
which was assigned to him in the fall of his house.
"_Vela, Michel li preux li beaux
Fleur de tous autres damoiseaux._"
a couplet describing the romantic figure of the last count of Gruyere,
is still rhymed by the people and still finds its place among their
records. Imposing in height as his great forerunner Francois de Gruyere,
his features were of a beautiful regularity and nobility, his manner had
that princely pride and simplicity which was the greatest charm of
Francois I of France. At the French court, as in all Switzerland, he was
renowned as "the handsomest knight of his day." With the extinction of
the court at Chambery, where his predecessors had received their
education in chivalry and where they had so faithfully and honorably
served the dukes of Savoy, the young Michel was sent to the still more
brilliant court of France. Blazing with the beauty of the great ladies
who ruled the adored and adorable young king, the resort of painters and
poets, the rendezvous of all the noblesse of France, this court at its
highest pitch of pageantry and pride was a dazzling school for the young
_damosel_ of Gruyere. Here in the white and gold dress of the "_Enfants
du Roi_," and next as king's _Pannetier_, he passed eight years of his
youth, patterning his ideals only too faithfully upon the young
sovereign he served. On his return to Switzerland fresh from this
experience in France, he joined the league of young nobles called "_de
la cuiller_," from their vow to make a sweet morsel of the rebel
republicans of Geneva. In highwaymen raids in company with his mad
cousin de Beaufort of Coppet and Rolle, he defied the formidable
seigneurs of Berne, and was only saved from their chastisement by their
regard for his father. After these escapades, he departed for Italy to
the court of the emperor Charles the Fifth, who at first treated him
with extraordinary confidence, but when he demanded to be appointed
prince of the empire and gentleman of the bed-chamber, the emperor
refused. Passing only enough time at Gruyere to receive the vows of
fidelity from his subjects and to make a tour of his estates, he
proceeded by way of France to carry out a mission of the emperor in
Flanders. At Paris where the emperor halted on his way to deal with his
rebellious Flemish subjects, Count Michel was so pleasantly entertained
in the round of fetes and _divertissements_ which celebrated the
imperial visit, that he postponed again and again the adjustment of the
important differences with Fribourg which had been left in abeyance at
the death of his father. His mission to Flanders was so carelessly
executed that he soon lost the confidence of the emperor who, openly
declaring that "he thought little of him," sent him away from Turin. On
his return to Paris after another brief visit to his country Count
Michel received a better welcome from Francois I, who invested him with
the Order of the King and with the Collar of St. Michael. No better
example of the personal charm of Francois I is to be found in history
than his influence over his Swiss allies. Assuring the ambassadors of
Berne, when they visited Paris with the hope of being released from
their military service, that the disastrous results of his Italian
campaigns were due only to the derangement of his finances, he promised
personally to lead them in his approaching invasion, beguiled them with
fair words and promises, even engaging to place the crown diamonds in
their custody as gage of their pay, and professing that he was "_l'ami
de coeur_" of the Confederates bound them for weal or woe to his
cause. At the battle of Sesia when Bayard fell before the armies of the
emperor and the traitorous Constable of France, it was the Swiss who
saved the existence of the French forces. At the disastrous defeat of
Pavia, losing half of their soldiers, they fought with a desperate
courage for the lost cause of the still beloved king, who at the moment
of surrender could salute the Swiss guard and say to his captor: "If all
my soldiers had fought like these, I would not be your prisoner but you
would be mine."
In the complications which arose from Berne's renewed demands for the
recognition of their authority over Gruyere, Count Michel became a
figure of international importance. When his domain was threatened with
invasion, he declared that he had received it from God and his fathers,
and would not submit. The Fribourgeois, in the interests of the Catholic
party, were against Berne, and declared they would support him to the
full extent of their power. Six other Catholic cities also ranged
themselves with Fribourg, and war seemed so imminent that the matter was
taken before the Diet, when, with the aid of the French ambassadors and
a summons from the emperor Charles V to respect the independence of his
imperial fief, Count Michel was able to retain the freedom of Gruyere,
but compelled like his father to admit Berne's authority over his
possessions in the Pays de Vaud. In the support which Francois I gave to
Count Michel, he followed not so much his predilection for a courtier
whom he had invested with the Order of St. Michel as his habitual policy
of conciliating the Swiss, whose support was indispensable to him in the
war he had again declared against the emperor. In December of the year
1543, Count Michel at the invitation of the king joined the French army
before Landrecies, where with a small force of cavalry armed and
equipped at his own expense he was fortunate enough to assist his old
master in relieving the siege of the city.
But this was the only fortune which fell to the Gruyere banner during
the various campaigns in which he was engaged. "Fanfarront" and proud,
the new and richly embroidered flag he commanded represented the
symbolic and hitherto honorable "Grue," in a guise as "fanfarront" as
Count Michel himself. Assuming the title of prince, and for his
poverty-stricken little domain the powers and independence of a royal
principality, he was not content to furnish the two thousand men
required by the king, but rashly undertook to double the number. Still
more rashly he left the levee of these troops to a delegate, who hastily
assembled a motley and disreputable collection of untrained men from all
parts of the country, with a few ignorant peasants from Gruyere itself
who were in no way fitted to sustain the valorous reputation of their
country. Detained by the quarrels which against all advice he
continually pursued with Geneva and Berne, he delegated his command of
these troops to the same untrustworthy agent who had collected them, a
certain Sire de Cugy of Vaud. At a critical moment in the battle of
Cerisolles this helpless band of peasants not surprisingly took to their
heels and seriously endangered the victory of the French. The other
Swiss soldiers sustained their old reputation with prodigies of valor,
but upon the Gruyeriens were lavished every epithet of contempt. The
pitiful episode was the object of many royal witticisms. To the king
who "supposed that they were of the same stuff as the Confederates," his
chronicler du Bellay replied that "it was folly to disguise an ass as a
charger"----"Why pay these cowards," asked the king in return, "who fled
like _Grues hier_?"
How important the little Swiss province was considered among the great
kingdoms of Europe, was again shown in the multitude and variety of
observations in the contemporary memoirs upon the conduct of the men who
untruthfully called themselves Gruyeriens. A comment of Rabelais in his
Pantagruel, adds to the general reproach. "It has always been the custom
in war, to double pay for the day when the battle is won. With victory
there is profit and somewhat for payment; with defeat, it is shame to
demand reward, as did the runaways of Gruyere after the battle of
Serizolles." Thus Rabelais mocked the last Gruyere soldiers as Tasso
praised the first, and an undeserved stigma was set on the banner which
had been carried unstained through six centuries of warfare at home and
abroad.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. THEODATE]
With a persistency which deserved a better reward, Count Michel now
determined to redeem his disgrace, and joined the French armies in the
prolonged attempt to relieve the city of St. Dizier, besieged by the
imperial forces. But fortune on this occasion was unfavorable to the
French and no glory was gained and no rehabilitation of the unfortunate
Gruyeriens. In a third campaign under the command of the Duc de Guise,
Count Michel was again with the French before Boulogne, and a witness of
the peace of Crepy which was signed at the moment when that city fell
into the hands of the English. Thus although putting forth every effort
to restore the ancient reputation of his house, the unlucky Count Michel
was forced to return without laurels to Gruyere where, during the last
peaceful years of the reign of Francois I, no further military service
was required of him. But the Bernois still tormented him for recognition
of their sovereignty over the disputed seigneuries of Palezieux, and
continued to lend him money, thus gradually and surely laying their
hands on his long coveted possessions. With a like calculating
generosity, Fribourg accepted mortgages on such portions of his property
as were not already mortgaged to Berne, while Count Michel, like a
butterfly caught in the closing net of its captors, lived gayly in the
lingering sunshine of this false prosperity. A romantic imbroglio in
which his cousin de Beaufort was involved afforded him congenial
distraction, and again served to attract the attention of the king of
France and the emperor to the affairs of Gruyere. Passing their
brilliant youth together at the court of Francois I, where the young
sire de Beaufort was also "_Enfant du Roi_," the comrades were also
associated in the mad escapades of the "_Lique de la Cuiller_,"
against the Geneva republicans, and when de Beaufort carried off the
beautiful Marie de la Palud, it was to Gruyere that he fled, riding
madly across country to ask Count Michel's protection. The mother of the
runaway beauty--a certain Countess de la Varax, was determined to
recover her daughter and as a bourgeoise of Berne, denounced the
ravisher to the city authorities, but when informed by the countess of
Beaufort that she had been married by bell and by book, and had Count
Michel's promise to intercede in her favor, they declined to prosecute
her or her husband. Fribourg also took the side of the lovers, and sent
a letter in their behalf to the king of France. But the Countess de la
Varax had already secured the support of both emperor and king, who,
thinking the matter of high political importance, sent pressing letters
by their ambassadors to Berne and Fribourg and, later, to the Diet of
the Confederation, commanding that de Beaufort should give up his bride.
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 assemblage 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 passing 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 embarrassment which now encompassed 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 principality exalted his imagination to a
pitch of pretension utterly beyond his capacity of either leadership 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
friendship with Berne and Fribourg, whose monetary assistance 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 nobles in
Switzerland, and by a brilliant dash for liberty at once to obliterate
the power and the embarrassing 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
ambassador 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 documents to
establish his innocence. Vanished now were his splendid hopes of
reestablishing the noblesse under his leadership, 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 document 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 assigned 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 assembly 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 assuming 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 illustrious 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 God 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 assist me as has hitherto 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 passed, 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 passed 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 principality
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 enfranchisement 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 accumulated 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 illustrious 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 God 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 assured that your magnificences will have compassion
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 circumstances. 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
assassin 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 ambassador 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 principality 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 compassion 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 assistance, 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.