against the rising power of Rudolph of Hapsburg. When Berne, allied with
Savoy, was besieged by the Hapsburg army, Count Pierre generously
supplied money to the beleaguered city and in the final battle when the
city fell, it was a Jean de Gruyere who snatched the torn and
bloodstained Bernese banner from the hands of the enemy. When asked the
name of the hero who had saved the flag, his comrades answered "_c'est
le preux de Gruyere_," and to this day the Bernese family of Gruyere
bear the title thus bravely won by their progenitor.

The role of mediator, filled with distinction by his successors, was
first assigned to Count Pierre III, who as avoyer of Fribourg at that
time allied with Austria, was empowered to arbitrate the differences
which arose between the houses of Savoy and Hapsburg.

Always loyal to his suzerain, Count Pierre served under the Savoy banner
in the war with Hughes de Faucigny, dauphin of the Viennois, and only
after the marriage of Catherine (daughter of Amedee V of Savoy) to the
redoubtable Leopold of Austria had sealed a truce between the rival
powers which divided and devastated the country, did he consent to join
the Austrian army in Italy under Duke Leopold himself.

In the brilliant cortege which followed Duke Leopold to Italy, Count
Pierre, accompanied by a number of his relatives, was notable by the
command of a hundred horsemen and a force of archers. Mounted on horses,
armored like their riders and covered with emblazoned velvets, such a
force of cavalry was the strongest as well as the most imposing
instrument of warfare in this time, when the knights, willing only to
conquer by personal bravery, despised all arms except their lances and
their swords. Contested by the warring Guelphs and Ghibellines, the city
of Milan and the palace of the newly crowned German emperor himself was
with difficulty protected by the imperial guard. The soldiers of Duke
Leopold, arriving without the city walls, under a hail of stones and
arrows, broke through the outer barricades and burst the city gates, and
then Gruyere again, at the head of his horsemen dashed through, bringing
release to the imprisoned emperor and victory to the Austrian arms.

Not long was the alliance between the houses of Hapsburg and Savoy to
endure. The rising powers of the cities, still more the prowess of the
mountaineers, the Waldstetten, who soon after Duke Leopold's Italian
campaign had vanquished him and his shining warriors