he Crusades, so well appreciated the valor of the
Swiss soldiers that he chose their leader for the honor of first scaling
the walls of Jerusalem.

"Over the moat, on a sudden filled to the brim
With a thousand thrown faggots, and with rolled trees stout and slim,
Before all he ventured.
On helmet and buckler poured floods of sulphurous fire.
Yet scatheless he passed through the furnace of flame,
And with powerful hand throwing the ladder high over the wall, mounted
with pride."

Again when the Christians were in want of wood for the catapults and
rolling towers with which to scale and batter down resisting walls,
Tasso leads this same undaunted servant of de Bouillon into the forest
enchanted by the Satanic ally of the Musselmans.

"Like all soldiers I must challenge fate--
Surprises, fears and phantoms know I not.
Floods and roaring monsters, the terrors
Of the common herd affright not me!
The last realm of hell I would invade,
Descending fearless, sword in hand."

Such, according to Tasso, was the spirit of the Swiss Crusaders. Did the
banner of Gruyere float with those of Tancred, of Robert of Normandy and
of all the flower of the French noblesse over the walls of Jerusalem
delivered? No record tells of it. Many of the hundred "beaux Grueriens"
doubtless perished on the holy soil. A fraction only of the host which
in multitudes like the stars and desert sands invaded the east,
assembled for the assault upon the Holy City. Famine, thirst and
pestilence decimated the great armies upon which fell the united cohorts
of the oriental powers. Blasphemy and prostitution, the refuge of
despair, alternated in the camp of the Crusaders with fanatic visions of
visiting archangels, of armed and shining knights descending the slopes
of heaven in their defence. From such a phantasmagoria, surpassing in
the historical records all the poetic imaginations of its famous
chroniclers, only a few returned to tell the tale. Among these fortunate
pilgrims was Guillaume of Gruyere, who, once more safe among his home
mountains, ended his life with lavish gifts to the holy church of which
he was so preeminent a servant. The priory of Rougemont founded by him
upon his return, the church of St. Nicholas in the same region, near the
borders of the Griesbach, still exist in testimony of his devotion and
preserve the memory of his name and reign. Exemplifying by his deeds the
dominating