Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/800

 764 F R E I B II ft G are under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Lausanne, who has his residence at Freiburg. Though the official language is French, which is generally spoken in the towns, pubhr* documents are also published in German, which holds its ground in the district of the Singine, in part of the district of the Lake, and in the commune of Bellegarde in Gruyere. In the rest of Gruyere, as well as in the districts of the Veveyse, the Glane, the Sarine, and the Broye, a patois of the French stock is the prevailing spsech. History. The history of Freiburg practically begins with the counts of Zahringen, who, under the emperors, held considerable possessions in this part of Switzerland. In 1179 Berthold IV. founded the town of Freiburg, as his uncle Berthold III. had already been the founder of Freiburg in the Breisgau, and as his sou and successor was not long afterwards to be the founder ol Bern. He not only bestowed on it all the territory which he held for three leagues round a district afterwards known as the &quot;old lands,&quot; or the &quot;twenty-four parishes,&quot; but he also, by a charter or Haiulfcstc, granted a number of privileges similar to those of Cologne, which in that unsettled period soon attracted what was then a considerable population of artisans, peasants, and traders from the neighbouring countries. On the death of Berthold V., the last duke of Zahringen, in 1218, his possessions passed to his sister Anne, wife of Ulrich of Kyburg ; and the Kyburgs were accordingly lords of Freiburg till 1264, when they also became extinct in the male line. Anne of Kyburg, who had married Kberhard of Hapsburg, sold Freiburg to Rudolph, of Hapsburg for 3000 marks ; and thus the town was subject to the house of Austria for 188 years. During that long period it had to light many a battle for its existence, more especially against the neigh bouring town of Bern and the counts of Savoy. At length aban doned by Austria, it was obliged in 1452 to swear fidelity to Louis of Savoy, to whom it had become indebted for vast sums of money. In spite of all the difficulties of its position, it was in this iirst part of the 15th century that it maintained a considerable trade with France, Italy, and Venice in its leather and cloth. As many as 18,000 or 20,000 pieces of cloth were stamped with the town s seal in the course of a year. The reign of the Savoy dynasty was of short duration, for when Yolande, widow of Amadous, entered into alliance with Charles the Bold of Burgundy, Freiburg joined Bern against the Burgundians, and took part in the battles of Morat and Grandson. At length, in the diet of Stanz in 1481 thanks mainly to the advocacy of Brother Glaus (Nicholas von der Fliih) it was admitted a member of the Swiss Confederation. Considerable additions of territory were effected in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1475 Illeus, Planfayon, and the castle of Chenaux were acquired, and, along with the Bernese, the people of Freiburg wrested Morat from the house of Savoy. In 1478 the lordship of Montagny was purchased for 6700 florins, and in 1482 Farvagny and Pont. Bellegarde was added in 1502, Wallenbucli in 1504, Font in 1508, and in the course of 1536 Vuippens, Estevayer, Corserey, Bulle, Vuissens, Chatel St Denis, Bossonnens, Surpierre, Romont, Rue, La Moliere, and St Aubin. Corbieres was bought for 8000 florins in 1553 ; and in 1555 Bern and Freiburg forced Michel, the last count of Gruyere, to abdicate, and paid 80,500 crowns for his countship. The people of Freiburg had to endure very heavy taxation to raise their proportion of the sum. Mean while, in the 16th century, the original democratic government gave place to an exclusive oligarchy, which succeeded in maintain ing its supremacy in spite of the pretensions of the papal power and the bishop of Lausanne on the one hand, and the dissatisfaction of the people on the other. The French occupation of 1798 brought its government to a close ; but in 1814 it was partially restored, 108 of the 144 seats of the great council being assigned to members of the patrician families. On December 2, 1830, the people rose and demanded equality of rights for all the citizens of the canton ; and in January 1831 a democratic constitution was drawn up, and a representative government established. In 1846 Freiburg joined the Sonderbund, and in the following year it was consequently invaded by the federal forces. In 1848 the.constitntiou was revised and rendered more liberal in regard to religious matters. Several attempts were made by the Catholic party to recover their supre macy ; but their efforts were defeated, and Bishop Marilley and other of their leaders were exiled. In 1857, however, the great council decided for another revision of the constitution in a reaction ary sense, and their proposal was adopted by the people. Since then there has been no alteration of the general tendency, and the Catholic clergy are in possession of unbounded influence. FREIBURG, the chief town of the above canton, with a station on the line between Bern and Geneva, occupies a highly picturesque situation in the valley of the Sarine, part of it lying in the bottom of the ravine and part of it climb ing the irregular eminences on the left. It is divided into four districts the Bourg or central town, the Quartier dcs Places or the upper town, and the districts of the Auge and the Neuveville, which, together with the Planchu, constitute the lower town. The principal ecclesiastical building of Freiburg, the collegiate church of St Nicholas, commenced about 1283 and finished in the second half of the 15th century, is worthy of notice, not only for the noblo belfry 245 feet iu height, but also for the organ, which was constructed between 1824 and 1834 by Aloys Mooser, a native of the town, and is one of the most famous instru ments of its kind. The various buildings belonging to the municipal and cantonal Governments, the conventual esta blishments of the Cordeliers, the Ursuline nun?, and other fraternities and sisterhoods, the college of St Michel and the lyceum, with the cantonal museum, and the civic hospital and other beneficent institutions are the most important of the public edifices. In front of the town-hall grows a linden tree which is said to have been planted by a soldier from the battle of Morat, 22d June 1476. The ravine of the Sarine is crossed by several bridges, of which the most notable is the suspension bridge constructed by M. Challey about 1834, which has a span of 871 feet, and consists mainly of four cables each composed of 105G distinct wires, individually not more than a tenth of an inch in diameter. About 3 miles to the north of the town, the river valley is crossed by the great railway viaduct of Grandfey, which dates from 1362, is a girder structure 1095 feet in length and 260 feet high, contains about 3100 tons of metal, and cost 2,500,000 francs. Immediately above the town a vast dam was thrown across the river-bed by Hitter the en gineer in 1871-3; and the fall thus obtained yields a water power of from 2600 to 4000 horse-power. A motive force of 600 horse-power secured by turbines in the stream is conveyed to the plateau of Perolles by &quot;telodynamic&quot; cables more than 2295 feet in length, for whose passage a tunnel has been constructed in the rock of the ravine. The indus trial establishments are still comparatively few and unim portant. Population in 1870, 10,904. FREIBURG, or FREYBURG, usually distinguished as Freiburg in the Breisgau, is a city formerly of the Austrian dominions but now in the grand-duchy of Baden, about 12 miles E. of the Rhine, at the foot of the Schlossberg, one of the heights of the Black Forest range. It is one, of the stations on the railway between Basel and Mannheim, and lies about 40 miles northwards from the former city. The town is for the most part well built, having several wide and handsome streets and a number of spacious squares. It is kept clean and cool by the waters of the Dreisam, which flow through the streets in open channels ; and its old fortifications have been replaced by public walks, and, what is more unusual, by vineyards. Since 1827 Freiburg has been the seat of an archbishop who has authority over the bishops of Mainz, Fulda, Rottenberg, and Limberg; and it possesses a famous Catholic university, the Ludovico Albertina, which owes its origin to Albert VI., archduke of Austria, and dates from 1454, 1456, or 1457. This was at one time a very wealthy institution, having been endowed by its founder with extensive lands in the Breisgau, Upper Alsatia, and Wiirtemberg ; but since the French Revolution it has lost nearly all its estates, and the revenue derived from those still held in Baden is not sufficient for its expenses. In 1876 it had 41 professors, ordinary and ex traordinary, and 9 privat-docenten, and the students num bered 290, of whom 141 were foreigners. The library con tains upwards of 250,000 volumes ; and among the other