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 château 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 solicited for their alliance, and yielding to their cupidity and a widespread spirit of adventure, continually divided their forces into mercenary bands, fighting for Italy and then France in the long series of disastrous Italian campaigns undertaken by Charles VIII and his successors, Louis XII and François I. "_Point d'argent, point de Suisse_," a saying only too well merited by the conduct of these mercenary armies, originated from these French-Italian campaigns. In 1499 the Swiss, fighting with France, betrayed the duke of Milan to Louis XII. At Novara, fifteen years later, they fought for the duke, and took for themselves a large part of Piémont. At Marignan, the young François I at the head of a brilliant army of the French noblesse, furnished with all the accoutrements and artillery of modern warfare, received his baptism of fire, and Bayard won his shining immortality. There also the Swiss in a second battle of giants, although defeated, won as they had at St. Jacques the admiration of their conqueror; and just as Louis XI had tempted them by unlimited pay to join his cause, again François I induced them by promises of permanent pensions to a perpetual alliance, and to the peace called "perpetual" which afterward was maintained between Switzerland and France.
With the strictest historical justice this alliance, based on cupidity, was by the same ignoble motive made void of result. When the great Emperor Charles V, allied with the pope and England, threatened the French possessions in Italy, the Swiss soldiers compelled the French general to engage the imperial forces under the most unfavorable conditions, and in the disastrous battle of the Bicoque brought about the defeat of their allies, the loss of Milan and the evacuation of Italy. Among the 16,000 Swiss who here demonstrated the worst of their national qualities, was a force of 400 men from Gruyère under the command of Count Jean, who fought with his natural son Jean, his brother Jacques and his cousin of Blonay in the thick of the battle. The French were hopelessly outnumbered by the combined imperial and Italian armies and suffered a crushing defeat, and the Swiss soldiers whose pay had been stolen by the mother of François I returned to their own country after the battle. Confessing in truth that they were "_mal payés, mal dotés_," Count Jean also declared that the Milanese duchy would never be recovered by the French king unless he came himself to Italy to conduct the campaign. He, therefore, returned to his estates after this disheartening experience where he found the long smouldering resentment against the predatory bishop of Lausanne at the point of explosion. By threat of arms, he exacted payment for his despoiled rights from the bishop, and before a great assemblage of his nobles, communes and people solemnly enacted the cessation of all trade with the bishop's market at Bulle in favor of Fribourg, with whose authorities he also established new commercial relations. But Count Jean, who had great reason to pursue these wise measures for the rehabilitation of his already impoverished and mortgaged estates, was soon drawn into the contest which arose between the democratic and Savoyard parties of Geneva, when the former, making an alliance with the republics of Berne and Fribourg, essayed to shake off the control of Savoy. The severance of the alliance of those cities with Savoy, announced a formidable alignment of the adherents of liberty in Romand Switzerland against the ruling duchy. But before this new combination had become sufficiently consolidated to accomplish its end, there were many efforts at pacification and compromise, and the count of Gruyère most reluctantly was forced to accept the office of arbiter between Savoy and the free cities.