No attacks from feudal lords or from rival cities threatened Gruyère 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 Gruyère'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 Gruyère 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.
FORTIFIED HOUSES—NORTH WALL
CHAPTER V
THE BURGUNDIAN WARS (Count François I)
he inheritance of the estates Count Antoine had so diminished by his improvident generosity was bitterly contested by the husbands of his two sisters, but the duke of Savoy did not hesitate to recognize the rights of his legitimized descendants, and François I of Gruyère and his brother Jean of Montsalvens entered without difficulty into the enjoyment of their inheritances. Count François, flower of the race of pastoral kings, presents one more historical example of the brilliant intellect, of the abounding vitality and extraordinary beauty with which nature—unheeding law—seems unwisely to sanction the overwhelming preference and inclination of unmarried lovers. A celebrated chronicler of Zurich who had seen the famous personage whom the historians describe as "the handsomest noble in Romand Switzerland," records in Latin how greatly he exceeded in his noble proportions and mighty stature the majority of mankind, and spoke also of his armor, fit for giants, which was long preserved in the château of Gruyère.