ce of Orange, who, with the Orleans league,
disputed the control of France with Louis XII, prevented the threatened
intervention of the Swiss Confederates. Astonishing as was the influence
of so small a principality as that of Gruyere, containing at no time
more than twenty thousand inhabitants, it was due not only to its
intermediate situation between the republics of Berne and Fribourg and
the possessions of Savoy but to the great personal importance of its
rulers--particularly of Count Francois and his two sons Louis and
Francois, who were not only supreme in their control of the duchy of
Savoy, but were unquestionably the greatest nobles in Romand
Switzerland. Holding its sovereignty directly from the emperor, Gruyere
had long been an independent state, and by the grant of Wenceslas its
rulers were not only empowered to issue money but had always possessed
unqualified rights of justice and administration over their subjects. An
interregnum of discord was unfortunately destined to lessen the power
and diminish the prosperity of Gruyere, for Count Francois III, who had
accompanied the prince of Orange in his unfortunate invasion of Italy,
succumbed to the fatigue of the campaign, leaving the countess and her
daughter to a long and bitter struggle for the latter's rights to the
succession.

Although by the old Burgundian law, the right of female succession was
not without precedent, the general inclination of popular sentiment was
definitely against it; and while Helene by her father's will was
authorized during her life to claim the rule of Gruyere, that will
directed that his nephew Jean of the cadet branch of the family should
succeed her. But the wills of Count Antoine as well as of his son
Francois provided for the immediate and direct succession of the next in
line of that cadet branch, Jean de Montsalvens, the brother of Count
Louis, and not the young son designated by the latter. Fully foreseeing
the impending difficulties which would beset his wife and daughter when
they should attempt to carry out his designs, Count Louis could never
have imagined that the Countess Claude would assist the family which had
already disputed the right of his own line to the throne by consenting
to a marriage of her daughter with Claude de Vergy. Legitimized by the
pope, sustained by Savoy, Count Francois had by his incomparable ability
brought Gruyere to such a height of power and prosperity that, after the
first attempt to disp