Gruyère (Switzerland) -- History; Gruyère, Counts of
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 religious exaltation of his time he was allied by marriage
with a family equally illustrious for its loyalty to the church. His
wife, Agathe de Glane, was sister to Pierre and Philippe de Glane,
protectors and tutors of the young count of Upper Burgundy, who through
his mother's marriage to the duke of Zearingen shared with the latter
the rule of the united provinces under the sovereignty of the German
Empire. Son of a father done traitorously to death by his own vassals,
the young count of Burgundy was himself as basely murdered while at
prayer in the church of Payerne by these same vassals, and with him the
brothers-in-law of Guillaume de Gruyere, Pierre and Philippe de Glane.
Guillaume de Glane, son and nephew of the murdered protectors of their
young suzerain, profoundly moved by the tragedy which had befallen his
house, determined to renounce the world and commanding that not one
stone should remain of his great castle of Glane dedicated these same
stones to the enlargement of the monastery of Hauterive, where, taking
the garb of a monk, he finished the remainder of his days. Such was the
origin of the power of the great Cistercian monastery which still stands
at the junction of the rivers Glane and Sarine in the county of
Fribourg. Not content with this unequalled act of piety and
renunciation, the insatiable Bishop of Lausanne exacted the cession of
every chateau and every rood of land belonging to the family of de
Glane, part of which--through the marriage of Agnes to Count Rodolphe
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