land."

When Count Philippe de Bresse, after a lifetime spent in envious
agitations against the ruling dukes at last succeeded to the throne of
Savoy, he splendidly atoned for his ill-treatment of Count Louis de
Gruyere and his brother by immediately investing Count Jean II with the
offices held by his predecessors; and when he magnificently celebrated
his reconstitution of the Order of the Annonciata in the chapel of
Chambery, he invested Count Jean with the order, and at the ensuing
fetes gave him a seat at his side. The gift of this order, bestowing
upon its possessor the privilege of diplomatic negotiations with the
thrones of Europe, brilliantly recognized the position already held by
the counts of Gruyere of arbitrators for Savoy and Romand Switzerland in
the continual differences which arose between them and the monarchs of
France and Austria. Although still only a duchy, Savoy had long been
related by marriage with all the kingdoms of Europe. It was triply
related to France through the wife and the sister of Louis XI and
through Louise de Savoie, mother of Francois I; it was doubly related to
the latter's great rival, the emperor Charles V, through Philibert's
wife, the able Marguerite d'Autriche, and again through the emperor's
sister-in-law, the Duchess Beatrix of Portugal, wife of Philibert's
successor, Charles III. Fortified and elated by this imperial alliance,
Duke Charles III began his unfortunate reign with a magnificent progress
through Piemont and Savoy, where, particularly in the Pays de Vaud, he
was cordially welcomed. At Geneva "the youth of the city were gayly
decked out in damask, velvet and cloth of gold, while a corps of the
most beautiful women, superbly dressed as amazons carrying lances and
shields, were led by a fair Spaniard in honor of the Duchesse." At
Vevey, bells rang, and a great procession of soldiers in parti-color
followed by others in pure white, with a hundred pages also in white,
carrying the white cross of Savoy, came out from the gates to meet him.

Presenting his suzerain with the donations of the Pays de Vaud at
Lausanne, Count Jean was also present with the bishops of Tarentaise,
Lausanne and de Bellay at the general assembly of the Savoy estates at
Morges, and at the chateau of Oron received the duke and his suite at a
splendid banquet.

The Swiss, divided by religious wars, and since the battles of Grandson,
Morat and Nancy the actual arbiters of Europe, were constantly