Gruyere, the Fribourgeois summoned the people to be ready at the sound of the tocsin to take arms to repel them. Epidemics succeeded to these alarms, the restless people continually demanded new concessions, and finally the Bernois, openly declaring war upon Savoy, rapidly conquered the long coveted Pays de Vaud and summoned the count of Gruyere to acknowledge their sovereignty. When Count Jean stoutly rejected the demands of the Bernois, they immediately threatened the invasion of his estates; but their watchful rivals of Fribourg energetically protested, and when an ambassador of Charles V arrived on the scene to lend the Imperial support to the threatened principality, the Bernois consented to recognize the independence of Gruyere but exacted and at last obtained Count Jean's acceptance of their sovereignty over his possessions in the Pays de Vaud. Berne's demands were no sooner satisfied than Fribourg with an army prepared to take Corbieres, but at this Count Jean's loyal subjects rose in a body, and the Fribourgeois, threatened by the people of Berne, consented to arbitrate their claims at the very moment when the valiant Count Jean was seized with sudden illness and ended his greatly tormented existence. "Towards the end of the month of November," a contemporary chronicler relates, "died at Gruyere, the noble and powerful lord Jean, Count of the said Gruyere, who before his death had suffered great troubles and pains, as much from the change in the overlordship and government of his country as from that of religion."