" 72

TERRACE OF THE CHATEAU " 90

CHURCH OF ST. THEODATE " 112

JOUSTING COURT " 132

* * * * *

THE COUNTS OF GRUYERE

* * * * *

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

On 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 Duerer drawing, massed lines of crenelated bastions,
sharp-pointed belfreys, and towered gateways completing a mediaeval
vignette ideal in composition. Strange as the distant vision seems to
the traveler fresh from the rude