by the jealousy of the family of de Vergy, which (through their alliance with the sisters of Count Antoine de Gruyere, had disputed the inheritance of his legitimized successor Francois) pillaged and captured the Gruyere chateaux of Oron, Aubonne and Palezieux, and Duke Charles sent a force of Burgundian and Savoyard soldiers to invade Gruyere itself. Calling his friends the Fribourgeois to his side, Count Louis met and conquered this army, capturing a banner which is still preserved in the church at Lessoc. No further hesitation was thereafter possible for the ruler of Gruyere, who was thus compelled to take sides against the duchess if he wished to preserve his country from dismemberment and the cruel and ferocious devastation which the Confederates were now inflicting upon the beautiful country of Romand Switzerland, and particularly upon the country of Vaud, the apanage of Duke Charles' marechal, Count Romont. For, fully supplied with funds by Louis, nothing could arrest the German inhabitants of Fribourg and Berne, who, in a three-weeks' campaign of murder, violence and pillage, utterly devastated and conquered the above provinces, burning the chateaux, decapitating their defenders and soiling the reputation of the Swiss soldier by inexcusable acts of cupidity and ferocity. Never was so venal and brutal a war waged at the will of a foreign and detestably traitorous king, and the coming of the great Duke Charles was awaited by all the inhabitants of the Romand country as a welcome deliverance from the hated Bernois. Postponing his Italian campaign, Duke Charles, deaf to his advisers and eager to chastise the cruel depredations of the "insolent cowherds" he so despised, started from Nancy with his magnificent army in midwinter of the year 1476 as for a brief pleasure excursion, and laid siege to Grandson which had been captured by the Bernois. After a stubborn resistance the Bernois garrison, promised pardon by a venal German volunteer of the Burgundian cause, surrendered only to suffer the same cruel fate which they had dealt to the defenders of the Savoy fortresses. But now flocking to the aid of their confederates came the unconquerable victors of the Austrian dukes, the Waldstetten; and the horn of the Alps with the same fatal clarion led the mountaineers from the heights above Grandson to their old victory over the nobles, and to the surprising defeat of such an army of wealth and kingly power as the world had not seen since Xerxes. Massed in his jeweled tents and golden chapel were the treasures of the richest potentate in all Europe; harnesses and habiliments of gold and velvet, tapestries and gemmed crowns and orders, ropes of pearls, rubies and diamonds (which still glorify the tiaras of the pope and emperors)--all these were sold for a few sous or were trampled in the snow by the ignorant shepherds and cowherds of the Alps. After such an unimaginable tragedy, Duke Charles, like a beaten child, weeping with rage and sick