he three sons of Count Jean II not strangely reflected the conditions of their birth and the widely differing characters of their mothers. François, 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 Gruyère 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 Gruyère, 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 rôle which was assigned to him in the fall of his house.
"Véla, Michel li preux li beaux
Fleur de tous autres damoiseaux."
a couplet describing the romantic figure of the last count of Gruyère, is still rhymed by the people and still finds its place among their records. Imposing in height as his great forerunner François de Gruyère, his features were of a beautiful regularity and nobility, his manner had that princely pride and simplicity which was the greatest charm of François 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 Chambéry, 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 Gruyère. Here in the white and gold dress of the "Enfants du Roi," and next as king's Pannétier, 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 Gruyère 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 fêtes 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 François I, who invested him with the Order of the King and with the Collar of St. Michæl. No better example of the personal charm of François 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 cœur" of the Confederates bound them for weal or woe to his cause. At the battle of Sésia 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 Gruyère, 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 Gruyère, but compelled like his father to admit Berne's authority over his possessions in the Pays de Vaud. In the support which François 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 Landrécies, 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 Gruyère 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 levée 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 Gruyère 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 Cérisolles 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 Gruyèriens 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 Gruyèriens. 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 Gruyère after the battle of Serizolles." Thus Rabelais mocked the last Gruyère 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.
CHURCH OF ST. THEODATE