The view from Gruyère is most charming, and includes not only the winding course of the Sarine, and the green hills dotted with the herds,—which furnish the renowned Swiss or Gruyère cheese,—but beyond rise rocky pine-clad mountains, the most important of which is the Moléson.
The founding of the castle of Gruyère is attributed to Gruerius, a captain in the Thebaid legion, who, escaping martyrdom in the days of Diocletian, fled into the mountains. After threading his way through the dense forests which then clothed these grassy hills, he finally reached the point where the castle now stands. There, helped by other fugitive Christians, he began to clear away the primeval forest, and founded the castle and town which bear his name.
Gruyère thus became the cradle of a new race, which, constantly increasing in wealth and power, soon ruled over a vast extent of land peopled by many vassals. The Counts of Gruyère were in general good masters; and the land, carefully tilled by their dependants, grew more and more productive, until many villages dotted the country, while the tinkle of cow-bells was heard for miles around.
In the days of the Crusades, many knights passed this castle on their way to the Holy Land; and the Counts of Gruyère, assuming the cross too, joined them with the fatalistic cry, “Go we must, return who may!” (“S’agit d’aller, reviendra qui pourra!”)
In spite of their wealth and extensive possessions, the Counts of Gruyère were none too well informed, for we are told they naïvely asked their companions whether the sea they had to cross on their way to Palestine could possibly be as large as the stretch of water they had seen in making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Lucerne.
Toward the end of the fourteenth century, Margaret, Countess of Gruyère, was very sad, because, although she had already been married several years, Providence had not yet vouchsafed her a child. In her anxiety to obtain offspring, this fair Countess consulted the astrologers and other fortune-tellers who visited the castle; but as their promises afforded her very little satisfaction, she soon resorted to pilgrimages, fasting, and long seasons of fervent prayer.
All the pilgrims who stopped at the castle, on their way to and from the shrines at Einsiedlen and Lucerne, were entertained with the utmost hospitality at Gruyère, and when they departed the Countess invariably loaded them with gifts, gently begging them to intercede for her when they reached the goal of their pilgrimage.
Garbed like a nun, in the plainest of homespun dresses, the Countess diligently visited the poor and sick, helped the needy, and was so good and charitable to all that she was revered throughout the country like a saint. Besides, every night and morning, she spent hours on her knees in the castle chapel, imploring the Virgin and all the saints to grant her her heart’s desire.
One evening, when twilight was fast merging into darkness, she still lingered there on her knees, weeping bitterly because hitherto all her prayers had remained unanswered. Absorbed in sorrowful thoughts, and uttering broken words of supplication between her sobs, the Countess failed to notice the entrance of a lame beggar who had often been the recipient of her bounty.
The sound of suppressed weeping and convulsive prayer soon attracted the beggar’s attention, and peering through the gloom,—which the taper burning on the altar only seemed to intensify,—he soon descried a woman clad in rough homespun. Lame Hans, whose sorest trial was an occasional lack of food, immediately concluded that this poor woman must be needy, and catching the word “children,” he hastily drew some coarse bread and cheese out of his wallet, and laid it beside her, saying,—