ewell, ye green Alps! youths and maidens so gay,
Farewell! happy days when a shepherd was I,
Stern fates I have questioned have answered me nay,
So I leave ye, with smiles and a sigh.

"My poor heart's still burning, the dance tempts me yet,
So ask me no longer, my lily, my belle!
For you, love and frolic, but I must forget,
Take me back, then, my frowning castel."

No attacks from feudal lords or from rival cities threatened Gruyere
during the reign of Count Antoine, which came to its end in undisturbed
tranquility. The kindly and _complaisant_ father, brother and lover
essayed as he grew in years to correct some of the follies of his youth,
and according to the opinion of Gruyere's principal historian married
the mother of the children he had already legitimized. A pious and
lamenting widower, he instituted many masses and anniversaries for the
repose of the soul of his wife, the Countess Jeanne de Noyer of blessed
memory; and erecting a chapel to his patron St. Antoine in the parochial
church of Gruyere caused to be painted therein the kneeling portraits of
himself and his countess, in perpetual testimony of his devotion to the
rites of matrimony and religion.

[Illustration: FORTIFIED HOUSES--NORTH WALL]

CHAPTER V

THE BURGUNDIAN WARS (Count Francois I)

The inheritance of the estates Count Antoine had so diminished by his
improvident generosity was bitterly contested by the husbands of his two
sisters, but the duke of Savoy did not hesitate to recognize the rights
of his legitimized descendants, and Francois I of Gruyere and his
brother Jean of Montsalvens entered without difficulty into the
enjoyment of their inheritances. Count Francois, flower of the race of
pastoral kings, presents one more historical example of the brilliant
intellect, of the abounding vitality and extraordinary beauty with which
nature--unheeding law--seems unwisely to sanction the overwhelming
preference and inclination of unmarried lovers. A celebrated chronicler
of Zurich who had seen the famous personage whom the historians describe
as "the handsomest noble in Romand Switzerland," records in Latin how
greatly he exceeded in his noble proportions and mighty stature the
majority of mankind, and spoke also of his armor, fit for giants, which
was long preserved in the chateau of Gruyere.

Becoming in his youth the favorite companion and support of Amedee IX,
during his early years in Italy, he was