Rodolphe's far more virile successors, Pierre I and Rodolphe II and III, attempted with the support of the people to defy the power of the bishop, and in disregard of the act of their predecessor, to keep up the marché at Gruyère. But the power which could excommunicate an emperor did not hesitate to launch the same formidable curse upon the princes of Gruyère and they were forced to yield. The foundation of the church of St. Théodule at Gruyère and of the rich and venerated convent of the Part Dieu by his daughter-in-law, Guillemette de Grandson (widow of his eldest son Pierre) attested the unabated devotion of the Gruyère house to the Catholic religion.
In the middle of the thirteenth century the counts of Gruyère--who had so long been oppressed by the grasping prelates of the Church--came within the orbit of another power, that of the rising house of Savoy.
Fortifying their influence by alliances with the kingdoms of Europe, extending its domains over occidental Switzerland and far into Italy, the counts of Savoy were already in a position to dispute the power of the bishops, when Count Pierre took his place at the head of his house. Although he had occupied for two years the bishopric of Lausanne, which had so long been inimical to the counts of Gruyère, the spiritual overlordship of the country of Vaud did not satisfy the genius or the ambition of the ablest personage in a family which numbered five reigning queens, and who, himself was marquis in Italy, earl of Richmond in England and uncle and adviser to King Henry III of England and of his brother the Emperor Richard. Although he lived by preference in England where his lightest word could control the tumults of the populace, the wisdom of Count Pierre's choice of delegates greatly extended his Savoyard domain. "Proud, firm and terrible as a lion," "the little Charlemagne" as his contemporaries called him, was wise also and affable with his subjects. Brilliant in intellect, master of happy and courteous speech, he fascinated where he controlled. The princely air of pride and power, seen in the portraits of Pierre de Savoy, the blazing dark eyes and mobile mouth of his Gallo-Roman ancestors, present the truly majestic semblance of the founder of a dynasty and the eminently sympathetic overlord of the Gallo-Roman counts of Gruyère. Such was the great ruler and law-giver who easily supplanting his niece as head of the house of Savoy, reduced to a loyal vassalage all the nobles of Roman Switzerland. Not without opposition from the bishops and feudal lords nor without jealousy from the German emperor did Count Pierre arrive at a height where he saw only heaven above and his mountainous domain! "From Italy through the Valais," so a chronicler of his house relates, "at the rumor that a rival German governor of Vaud was besieging his castle of Chillon, he reached the heights above Lake Leman. There he surveyed the banners of the noble army, and the luxurious tents in which they took their ease before his castle. Hiding his soldiers at Villeneuve, alone and unobserved he rowed to Chillon, where from the great tower he watched the young nobles as they danced and reveled in jeweled velvets and shining armor, with the maidens of the lake-side. Then at a given signal, he emerged to lead his waiting army to the complete rout of the surprised besiegers."