Rosamond Press

Like the Nazarite mothers, Hannah and Elizabeth, the Countess of Grueyere could not borne an heir. After she was blessed by a beggar named Jean, she give birth to a son she named Jean, or John. I believe I carry on the bloodline of the Grueyere, as will my grandson, Tyler Hunt. Here is Sleeping Beauty Castle. Arise yea Knights of Rose Mountain! A child will lead you.

Jon the Nanzarite

Copyright 2013

Countess Marguerite of Gruyère, so runs the story, was so sadly afflicted that she had borne no heir, that she had no longer any joy in her fair castle, no comfort with her beloved lord. Vainly journeying to distant shrines, as vainly invoking the aid of sorcerers and magicians, she went one day, clad as one of her poor subjects, to pray in the chapel at the foot of the Gruyère hill. There, as the November day was closing, poor Jean the cripple, well known through the country, came also to tell his beads. Very simple and kindly was poor Jean, with always the same blessing for those who gave him food or mocked him with cruel jeers. Perceiving in the shadow a poor woman sadly weeping, he gave her all his day’s begging, a piece of black bread with a morsel of coarse cheese, repeating his usual blessing, “May God and our Lady grant thee all thy noble heart desires.”

That evening, again clad in her jewels and brocades, the Countess Marguerite, at the close of a feast laid for her husband’s comrades after a day at the chase, offered each knight a bit of this bread and cheese, with a moving story of poor Jean and a prayer that all should wish what[Pg 52] her heart so long and vainly had desired. Nine months later, so concludes the tale, a fair son and heir was born to the happy dame. On the walls of the Hall of the Chevaliers, among the painted legends of the house, poor Jean and Countess Marguerite live in pictured memory; and a room next the great kitchen of the château, called by the cripple’s name, has been pointed out for many generations as the spot where, fed on the fat of the land, he enjoyed the bounty of the countess during the remainder of his days.

Rodolphe le Jeune, the long awaited heir of this story, did not live to inherit the rule of the domain whose fame his father had so sadly stained. Brilliantly educated at the court of Savoy, and later the councilor of the countess regent, he emulated his uncle’s heroic example and joined the English armies under Buckingham in France, there winning praise and the offer of the chevalier’s accolade. But he failed to fulfil the promise of his youth and died prematurely, leaving his young son Antoine, the last hope of the family, to succeed to his grandfather. Count Antoine’s overlord, the youthful count of Savoy, confided the education of his vassal and protégé to a venerable prelate of Lausanne; but heeding nothing of his pious instructions the young ruler wasted his revenues in extravagant hospitality, lived gaily with his mistresses, and celebrated the weddings of his two sisters with fam[Pg 53]ous feasting and generous marriage gifts. Unlike his predecessors, who shared the rule of Gruyère with brothers or sons, he reigned alone, and gave himself wholly to the ambition of maintaining the pleasure-loving reputation of his house. More than ever under Count Antoine was Gruyère a court of love. The numerous and beautiful children of his mistresses filled the castle with their youthful gayety and charm, and his two splendid sons, François and Jean, proudly acknowledged by their father and legitimized with the sanction of the pope, took their place among the young nobles of the country as heirs of the Gruyère possessions. Again the gay Coraules of flower-crowned shepherds and maids wound over the valleys and hills. Again minstrels and chroniclers recorded and sang the lovely traditions of their pastoral life.

“Gruyère, sweet country, fresh and verdant Gruyère
Did thy children imagine how happy they were?
Did thy shepherds know they lived an idyll?
Had they read Theocrite, had they heard of Virgil?
No, no! as in gardens the lilac and rose
Grow in innocent beauty, their days drew to a
close.”

So in a fond ecstasy of recollection, sings a[Pg 54] Romand poet, and thus in the famous lines of Uhland is related the Coraule of Count Antoine.

The Count of Gruyère

Before his high manor, the Count of Gruyère,
One morning in Maytime looked over the land.
Rocky peaks, rose and gold, with the dawning were fair,
In the valleys night still held command.

“Oh! Mountains! you call to your pastures so green,
Where the shepherds and maids wander free,
And while often, unmoved, your smiles I have seen,
Ah! to-day ’tis with you I would be.”

Then afloat on the breeze, there came to his ear,
Sweet pipes faintly blowing—still distant the sounds——
As across the deep valley, each with his dear,
Came the shepherds, dancing their rounds.

And now on the green sward they danced and they sang,
In their holiday gowns, a pretty parterre,
With oft sounding echoes the castle walls rang,
To the joy of the Count of Gruyère.

Then slim as a lily, a beauteous maid,
Took the Count by the hand to join the gay throng.[Pg 55]
“And now you’re our captive, sweet master,” she said,
“And our leader in dancing and song.”

Then, the Count at the head, away they all went,
A-singing and dancing, through forest and dell.
O’er valleys and hillsides, with force all unspent,
Till the sun set and starry night fell.

The first day fled fast, and the second dawned fair,
The third was declining, when over the hills
Quick lightning flashed whitely—the Count was not there!
“Has he vanished?” they asked of the rills.

The black storm clouds have burst, the streams are like blood
By the red lightning’s glare, and dark night is rent,
Oh, look! where our lost one fights hard with the flood,
Until a branch saves him, pale and spent.

“The mountains which drew me with smiles to their heights,
With thunders have kept me, their lover, at bay.
Their streams have engulfed me, not these the delights
I dreamed of, dancing the hours away.[Pg 56]

“Farewell, 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 Gruyère 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 Gruyère’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 Gruyère 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.