90 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
supposedly conspired to bring about his dismissal from office as chancellor, leaving
him severely out of pocket and stripped of his lands and goods.171
These details, which Dufour amplified in a lurid account before the Bernese
council and elsewhere the following year,172 need not detain us. What matters is
the content of the forged will.173 By its terms, as recognition of their military sup-
port in his campaign against Marquis Ludovico II of Saluzzo in 1486, Charles
disposed that Bern should receive 200,000 fl and Fribourg 150,000 fl, with the
Vaud, Chablais, Bugey, and Faucigny as sureties against default.174 These were
staggering sums, at least twice the duchy’s ordinary annual revenue. Why Dufour
should have singled out Bern and Fribourg for this fictitious favour (leaving Saluzzo
to one side) is suggested by the long-standing contacts with the Swiss which
Dufour had built up in Savoy service—it must be assumed that he was bilingual—
for after his dismissal he took out citizenship in both Bern and Fribourg, with
whom, of course, Savoy had an ancient Burgrecht.175
Dufour’s fraud was not without precedent. His plan may have been suggested by
an earlier deception perpetrated on Charles II by Louis d’Orléans, husband of
margravine Johanna of Neuchâtel, with the connivance of the Swiss cantons, who
was demanding a share of his mother’s dowry (she was Agnes of Savoy, sister of
Duke Amadeus IX), which led to the sum of 120,000 fl being remitted, divided
171 Tallone, Parlamento Sabaudo, XIII, 2, 184: Messieurs, si Dieu a droit m’a persequuté et advisé,
encoure plus mondit seigneur a son grant tort sans cause et sans raison, a l’appetit de la Val d’Issere
[Janus de Duyn] qui pour me faire disappointer de mon office qu’avoye a vie, et ne valloit que sinc-
quante florins par an a prins de Trolliet et de Vuillet cent escus d’or, sur lequel m’est dehu plus de dix
mils florins comme je monstreray, et continuant mondit seigneur me destruyre a l’appetit que dessus
et me faire consumer le mien m’a envoyé vers l’empereur pour ses affaires, ou j’ay esté passés troys
moys; aussy vers messeigneurs de Berne et de Fribourg par deux foys, ou j’ay vacqué plus de sept moys
sans avoir recue de luy ny de son tresorier Vaillant un deni[e]r, mais emprompter l’argent de deux gens
de bien, et despuys pour le contenter ay esté constraint de vendre ma vaisselle et mes meubles a
Geneve, comme on trouvera. See Katharina Simon-Muscheid, ‘Jean Furno. Frommer Stifter,
politischer Intrigant und “Freund der Eidgenossen” ’, in Katharina Simon-Muscheid and Stephan
Gasser (eds), Die spätgotische Skulptur Freiburgs i. Ue. im europäischen Kontext. Akten des Internationalen
Kolloquiums in Freiburg i. Ue. 15.–17. Mai 2008 (Archives de la Société d’Histoire du Canton de
Fribourg, new series 4) (Fribourg, 2009), 281–307, here at 281. After his dismissal Dufour fled to
Fribourg, but sought to return to his birthplace Annecy in the vain hope of recovering his possessions,
but he was denied safe passage. Ibid., 283.
172 Tallone, Parlamento Sabaudo, XIII, 2, 200–2. There is a copy of this declaration at Bern in AEF,
Diplomatische Korrespondenz, Savoie (1363–1510). It contained accusations of violence against
members of his family and the murder of his servant Franz Bertoz, who had been sent to inventorize
his property. Bertoz, however, was also a citizen of Fribourg, which made the incident all the more
charged. Simon-Muscheid, ‘Jean Furno’, 287. Further depositions by Dufour are to be found in
SABE, Unnütze Papiere, Savoyen-Sardinien-Buch 58, pp. 39–48 (undated), and SAZH, A 212 Akten
Savoyen 1, 26 (16 Nov. 1510). Both documents are in German and neither has been edited.
173 There is a copy in SABE, Unnütze Papiere, Savoyen-Sardinien-Buch 58, together with the
vidimus of Abbot Rudolf Benedict (pp. 1–4, 5–8), and receipts for payment (pp. 17–20).
174 Armando Tallone, ‘La frode del Segretario Du Four nei documenti svizzeri (1508-1512)’,
Bollettino Storico-Bibliografico Subalpino, 35 (1933), 225–45, here at 226; Alberto Caviglia, Claudio di
Seyssel (1450–1520). La vita nella storia de’ suoi tempi (Miscellanea di Storia Italiana, 3rd series,
23 [54]) (Turin, 1928), 130.
175 Caviglia, Claudio di Seyssel, 129. In particular, Dufour was closely acquainted with the distin-
guished Fribourg humanist scholar Peter Falck. Castella, Histoire, 212.