to see thee is as great as thine to see me, but
I must still delay a little. Ma Mie, I recommend to thee the little
one, my horse and all the household. Recommend me to our good Aunt
Aigremont, to her sister and to M. Aigremont and the nurse, to the
maid and Perrisont. Ma Mie, please God, to give thee a good and
long life and all thy heart desires.

Written at Aubonne, the morrow of St. Catherine's day.

Louis de Gruyere,
All thine.
A Ma Mie.

The joy of this happy household, of kind relatives and devoted servants,
was soon broken by the early death of the child, their first-born son,
Georges, who was taken from his parents six years before their accession
to the rule and responsibilities of their estates. The birth of two
other children, Francois and a daughter Helene, had consoled them, and
it was a truly "_joyeuse entree_" which they made on a beautiful July
Sunday in the year 1475 to the square before the Gruyere church,
formally to take possession of their domain according to the ancient
custom of their predecessors. The herald crying out the summons of the
count, his subjects, who had collected from towns and villages and
valleys, raised their hands and swore fidelity. Count Louis, with his
hand on the holy book, promised to protect them; and the
standard-bearer, waving the silver crane, declared that their flag
should lead them against all their foes. Three months only were to pass
before this banner took the field, for the storm clouds approaching from
the neighboring kingdoms of Burgundy and France were thundering now over
Switzerland, and the bitter rivalries of Duke Charles and his cousin of
France had now reached the moment of collision on Helvetian soil.
Fortified by a renewal of his alliance with the German emperor, the duke
of Burgundy, eager to chastise the Confederates who had dared to defy
his imperial ally and who had humiliated him at Hericourt, prepared to
invade Switzerland. But Louis, the _diabolus ex machina_, who had
secretly fostered the discord between Burgundy and the Confederates,
hastily signed a nine-years' truce with Charles, and remarking with his
usual sardonic smile that his "fair cousin did not know his foes," left
him and his sister to the tender mercies of the enemies he had arrayed
against them. A clause in the treaty which preserved Louis from all
partici