516 PRÆTERITA-III

of the Church of St. Nicholas there, asserting that the ground assigned to it and its monastery belonged to the Abbey of Payerne.¹ Berthold IV. was on the point of attacking the monks on their own rock when the nobles of the Vaud interfered, as mediators.

Four of them-Amé, Count of Geneva, Vauthier of Blonay, Conrad of Estaveyer, and Rodolph of Montagny- compelled Berthold to ratify the privileges, and resign the lands, of the monks of Payerne, by a deed signed in 1178; the church and monastery of St. Nicholas being founded at Fribourg under their rule. And this constitution of Fribourg, whether the Dukes of Zæhringen foresaw it or not, became the fecund germ of a new social order. The “Commune” was the origin of the “Canton,” “and the beneficent æra of communal liberty served for acheminement to the constitutional liberties and legislative codes of modern society.”¹

43. Thus far M. Gaullieur, from whose widow I leased my own châlet at Mornex,² and whose son I instructed, to the best of my power, in clearing land of useless stones on the slope of the Salève,-under the ruins of the old Château de Savoie, the central castle, once, of all Savoy; on the site of which, and summit of its conical hill-throne, seated himself, in his pleasure villa, all the summer long, my very dear friend and physician, old Dr. Gosse of Geneva;³ whose mountain garden, about three hundred feet above mine, was indeed enclosed by the remaining walls and angle towers of the Castle of Savoy, of which the Doctor had repaired the lowest tower so as to serve for a reservoir to the rain rushing down the steep garden slopes in storm, -and to let none of it be wasted afterwards in the golden Salève sunshine.

“C’était une tour de guerre,” said the Doctor to me triumphantly, as he first led me round the confines of his

¹ [See Gaullieur, p. 109.]

² [See Vol. XVII. p. liv.]

³ [For whom, see Vol. XVII. p. lxi., and Vol. XXXIV. p. 493.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]