Gruyère (Switzerland) -- History; Gruyère, Counts of
Switzerland the old prophecy of the fool Chalamala, that "the Berne Bear
would some day eat the Grue in the caldron of Fribourg." To Berne in the
final division was allotted the mountainous regions of Gessenay and
chateau d'Oex, while Fribourg took possession of the lower pasture
lands, the city and the chateau, and the chateau itself they converted
into the seat of government. In the deserted castle where for six
centuries Count Michel's vigorous forbears had pacifically ruled with
their vigorous sons, the last pitiful illegitimate child of the line was
discovered by the Bailli of Fribourg. Sent with her mother, an old
domestic of the chateau, the little Guillauma was brought up in the
_hospice_ and supported, like her mother, at the expense of the city.
Thus finished in utter disgrace the illustrious line of pastoral kings.
At the chateau of Oron, where the countess of Gruyere had fled after
the decree of dispossession, her despairing husband joined her. In the
cold of the November weather, the empty chateau, without servants, heat
or supplies, was only a temporary refuge, although the council of Berne
mercifully sent the countess a small sum of money for her immediate
necessities. The paternal patience of the calculating Berne authorities
was solicited by their equally hypocritical victim, in the following
humble appeal sent by Count Michel upon his arrival at Oron.
"Since it has pleased God so to chastise and afflict me that I am
compelled to depart from your Excellencies and to follow the path He has
pointed out to me, I praise Him in that His punishment is meted out to
me in mercy and not according to my sins; my absence and inability to
serve you as I have all my life desired being of equal affliction with
my loss. I have always had such confidence in your great kindness and
humanity, that I am assured that your magnificences will have compassion
on me and my wife, who is departing to solicit you as humbly as possible
to pardon my not appearing before you, as my heart is so desolate that I
can say or do naught to help in these circumstances. Therefore, may it
please you to listen to her proposition and to grant as great a degree
of honor and welfare as is possible to your child."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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