st their
gold before the altar. "And as the coins, tin, tin, fell in the basins,
so, ha, ha, hi, hi! the poor souls laugh in purgatory." So, taught by
the priests and prelates ignorant as themselves, the sadly altered
Gruyere people incessantly danced and prayed, sometimes giving
themselves to the strange lascivious customs to which the whole country
was abandoned, and sometimes joining in the cruel persecution of the
Jews, accused of poisoning their fountains and their streams. Nothing
was lacking in the reign of terror which overwhelmed Gruyere in the last
years of Count Pierre's reign. Fires and earthquakes succeeded to the
plague, and in the midst of their terrors their implacable enemies, the
Bernois, attacked them.

"O! Misfortune, and three times misfortune, beware how you touch Berne!"
the refrain of an old song too often forgotten by Count Pierre, was once
more exemplified in the revenge which the Bernois wreaked upon the
Gruyere chateaux of Laubeck and Mannenburg, for the thefts of their
herds.

On St. Etienne's day, in the dark December of 1349, the avenging Bernois
took the field, and a thousand strong assembled before the walls of the
twin fortresses. Reeling and shouting to the sound of fifes and drums,
in a gross satire of the dance of the fanatic flagellants, they whipped
themselves into a furious rage and then attacked the walls. Both
donjons, although strongly fortified, fell and were destroyed.
Unappeased, the Bernois were advancing towards Gruyere when their
cupidity was tempted by offers of rich indemnities by Count Pierre's
messengers, with whom, together with a crowd of prisoners, they returned
to Berne. Rage and despair as black as this the darkest winter of his
reign, possessed Count Pierre, but milder counsels spoken by the gentle
voices of his countess and the two sainted Dames de Vaud, Isabelle de
Savoie-Chalons and her daughter prevailed. Like a trio of angels singing
over the deathlike darkness and terror of the time, they brought peace
where there was no peace; and with the august assistance of the reigning
prince of Savoy and the bishop of Lausanne established another Treve de
Dieu between the warring cities of Berne and Fribourg, and truce between
Berne and the country of Gruyere. At last, where fire and sword, where
the power of rival cities and proud knights allied, had failed, the love
and high influence of these noble ladies of the middle age most
wonderfully succeeded. Memorable f