re solicited to represent his claims for recognition as
a good Catholic to his Spanish majesty. To his suggestions that Gruyere
would be a valuable addition to the Spanish territories, no more
attention was paid than to his desire to be decorated with the Order of
the Toison d'Or and to be received as a colonel in the Spanish army. For
Philip II, enlightened by the cardinal as to the character of the
pretendant for his favor, had no wish to tempt him from the service of
France, and still less to embroil himself with the Swiss Confederation
by intriguing with a dispossessed bankrupt for the recovery of his lost
estates. Deserted by the kings of France and Spain, the count, since the
death of his faithful wife, old and alone, proceeded to the court of the
emperor. A new friend, the Alsatian Count Bollwiler, was solicited to
arrange for him another advantageous matrimonial alliance, while the
Emperor Maximilian II was so moved by the recital of his woes that he
sent a letter to Berne and Fribourg requesting that in view of the
count's advanced age and many adversities, he should be permitted to
repurchase and enjoy his lost principality for the brief remainder of
his days. A long memorial from the count accompanied the emperor's
letter and announced that with the aid of his new and powerful friends,
he would soon be in a position to buy back Gruyere. He ended with an
appeal for compassion on his bald head and his white beard.

With respectful attention to the august request of of the emperor, Berne
and Fribourg replied that no provision had been made for the repurchase
of Gruyere, and detailed the conditions by which they had acquired the
property. The emperor thereupon declined to renew his recommendations,
and after this final defeat, Count Michel, deprived of his last hope of
royal or imperial assistance, the neediest and loneliest of adventurers,
lived a hand-to-mouth existence with the faithful domestic who had
followed him since the day he had departed from Gruyere. Nursing always
the same chimera of some day returning triumphant to his lost province,
he pursued his peregrinations, finding a final refuge in the Burgundian
chateau of Thalemy, belonging to his cousin Francois de Vergy, where he
died at last in March of the year 1576. On a day in May a messenger from
Burgundy announced his decease to his uncle the protonataire Dom Pierre
de Gruyere. With tolling of bells the news was proclaimed, and a month
later, before