The Counts of Gruyère

La Place de Gruyère From a watercolour by Colonel R. Goff Frontispiece The Château 10 Gateway 22 Lace-makers 38 Fortified Houses—North Wall 56 The City on the Hill 72 Terrace of the Château 90 Church of St. Theodate 112 Jousting Court 132 BIS SEPTEM SEACULA CURRENT MOENIA FUNDAVIT BELLO FORTISSIMUS HAEROS VANDALUS ATQUE SUO SIGNAVIT NOMINE MUROS GRUS VIXIT AGNOMEN COMITE DEDIT ADVENA PRIMO RUBEA GRUEM VEXILLA AC SCUTI PILOSI SUSTENTENT QUORUM EUTIS PARRIDA RUGIS AC ARMATA MANUS VULSIS RADICIBUS ARAE EST HUIC CELEBRIS SERVES ET LONGA PROPAGO NEPOTUM DIVES OPUM OLIVES PIETA VESTIS AURIS EXTITIT ET NOSTRIS PER PLURIMA SAECULA TERRAS PRAEFUIT GRUERIUS SEXTAE LEGIONIS VANDALORUM DUX ANNO 436 Behold now twice seven centuries.—That a Vandal hero bravest among warriors.—Founded this fortress.—This fortified city has since preserved the name of the Grue.—The stranger became the first count.—His descendants carried the Grue on their scarlet banners.—And on their hairy shields.—To the Vandal hero succeeded a long line of illustrious descendants.—Rich in fortune, rich in their piety.—These Counts won the order of the golden vest.—And for many centuries the posterity of Gruerius.—Chief of the sixteenth Vandal legion who lived in the year 436 governed our country. PROLOGUE n the edge of a green plain around which rise the first steps of the immense amphitheatre of the Alps, a little castled city enthroned on a solitary hill watches since a thousand years the eternal and surpassing spectacle. Around its feet a river runs, a silver girdle bending northward between pastures green, while eastward over the towering azure heights the sunrise waves its flags of rose and gold. In the dim hours of twilight or by a cloudy moonlight, the city pitched amid the drifting aerial heights seems built itself of air and cloud, evanescent and unreal. By the fair light of noonday, sharp and clear upon its eminence, it is like a Dürer drawing, massed lines of crenelated bastions, sharp-pointed belfreys, and towered gateways completing a mediæval vignette ideal in composition. Strange as the distant vision seems to the traveler fresh from the rude and time-stained chalets of the mountains, still more surprising is the scene which greets his arrival by the precipitous road, past the double towered gateway, within the city walls. Expressly set it seems for a theatrical décor in its smiling gayety, its faultlessly pictorial effect. Every window in the blazoned houses is blossoming with brightest flowers, as for…