d on the scene to lend the
Imperial support to the threatened principality, the Bernois consented
to recognize the independence of Gruyere but exacted and at last
obtained Count Jean's acceptance of their sovereignty over his
possessions in the Pays de Vaud. Berne's demands were no sooner
satisfied than Fribourg with an army prepared to take Corbieres, but at
this Count Jean's loyal subjects rose in a body, and the Fribourgeois,
threatened by the people of Berne, consented to arbitrate their claims
at the very moment when the valiant Count Jean was seized with sudden
illness and ended his greatly tormented existence.

"Towards the end of the month of November," a contemporary chronicler
relates, "died at Gruyere, the noble and powerful lord Jean, Count of
the said Gruyere, who before his death had suffered great troubles and
pains, as much from the change in the overlordship and government of his
country as from that of religion."

The change of overlordship had been a desolating disaster to the loyal
vassal of the good Duke Charles of Savoy, who, when Francois I despoiled
him of all but a remnant of his duchy, was sent into a poverty-stricken
exile. A less firm resistance on the part of Count Jean against the
encroaching powers of the confederated cities would have brought a like
fate on Gruyere. In an epoch of transition, when the old feudal order
was giving place to the increasingly triumphant democracy in
Switzerland, in a period embittered by cruel religious persecutions,
involved in the wars and events which altered the political and moral
aspect of Europe, he preserved to the last the integrity of his domain
and its fidelity to its ancient faith. Personifying all the virtues of
the old order of chivalry, greatly honored by his suzerain, loved and
respected at home, it cannot be denied that he was at the same time the
exemplar of its faults, and of these a great and practically licensed
immorality was the chief. From the earliest period in the history of
Gruyere, many of the illegitimate sons of its rulers were dedicated to
the church, and often rising to high places among its prelates shared in
the prevailing laxity and were naturally forced to condone and finally
to recognize the continuance of this state of affairs. With even less
attempt at concealment than had been observed by his ancestors in the
pursuance of these irregular relations Count Jean openly installed his
mistress the famous Luce d'Alberguex, at