The Counts of Gruyere Part 5

Feudal by race and by the independence of their little princ.i.p.ality, they were so trusted by the Confederates and so powerful with Savoy, that they repeatedly acted as arbitrators in their mutual quarrels, and by this high influence were sharers and at times framers of the treaties with the neighboring kingdoms, and admitted to the diplomatic councils of Europe. They were not only valorous in the defence of their country but by the Latin charm of their race were adored by their subjects, and held in great favor by the dukes of Savoy, themselves allied by many inter-marriages with all the crowns of Europe. So important was the little Gruyere to the French kings and the emperors of Germany that, as has been related, they occupied themselves with its internal affairs, attempting to intervene in such matters as runaway marriages and the rival claims for succession. But the att.i.tude of its rulers towards royal and imperial mandates was so independent, their maintenance of their feudal sovereignty was so tenacious that they preserved the high and happy ideals of their house, and were the last of the Swiss n.o.bles to yield to the march of democracy.

Their long rule, extending through six centuries of internal wars, during times when oppression was the prerogative of their order, was stained by no single act of cruelty. In the peculiar charm of their race, in the unique influence of their position in Europe, as in the unbroken length of their rule, the counts of Gruyere were the most important of all the n.o.ble Swiss families. t.i.tles and aristocratic privileges have long since vanished from republican Switzerland, where liberty triumphant, the age-wrought jewel of a thousand years, shines clearly among the tumults of the warring nations. But remote among its mountains, a cherished place of pilgrimage and refreshment, the little feudal city still crowns its green hill, and in the Gruyere people the Celtic soul, undying fresh and free, still sings in their love songs and war songs, still speaks in their legends and tales of its birth in the morning of time.

APPENDIX

The traditions of Romand Helvetia have preserved the memory of the establishment of Vandal or Burgundian hordes in that part of Gaul.

Thus has arisen the belief that the once wild region traversed by the river Sarine came into the possession of some chief of these tribes who there settled with his followers. The unavowed author (Bonsetten) of a history of the Counts of Gruyere is of the opinion that it is possible that, in accordance with the customs of the Germanic tribes, that Gruerius, the hero of the popular legend, or his warriors, might have carried a Grue (crane) as a symbol of a migratory race on their helmets or shields, and that the leader himself might have adopted the name Gruerius from the emblem.

The theory, however, disagrees entirely with the tradition that the Burgundians were so fond of liberty that they bore the figure of a cat upon their banners. It is well known that the arms of Gruyere are a Grue on a scarlet field, and this circ.u.mstance alone has evidently given rise to the anonymous author's conjecture. His opinion not only has no positive proof to support it, but has no color of probability in its favor.

J. J. Hisely, author of "Le Comte de Gruyere."

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