The apparent death of Lucerne

The story is suitable for horror and for retelling. It was in 1741 when the young Marie Josse d’Hemel from Argenteuil near Paris married the Lucerne patrician Franz Ludwig Pfyffer von Wyher. She was the 19-year-old daughter of a general, he was a high-ranking mercenary in French service who rose to the rank of lieutenant general. Marie and Franz moved to Lucerne after their marriage.

The Pfyffer family from Wyher-d’Hemel soon had two daughters and two homes: a double mansion near Mühlenplatz in Lucerne and the stately Wyher country castle near Ettiswil. It is said that Marie Josse was a remarkably beautiful woman who brought exquisite French fashion to Lucerne.

She was the first woman in Lucerne to have one Umbrella and with one Beach umbrella, so with parasol and parasol! However, the government of Lucerne did not like the sensational appearances of the neo-Lucerne woman, so in 1755 they asked the French woman to wear more discreet clothing from now on, as was common in Central Switzerland at the time.

But Marie Josse did not think to follow the advice of the authorities. Quite the opposite. She inspired a number of women from Lucerne with her extravagant appearances, also dressed in flowing hoop skirts and daring skirts. Necklines wear. Despite her penchant for striking clothes, the lady was absolutely not above leading the renovation and expansion of her country castle in Ettiswil, because her husband was away a lot. So she had the moat dug around the property and built the second floor Louis XVI style A. She also climbed Lucerne’s local mountain, Pilatus, which was very unusual at the time, especially for such a distinguished lady as the French-born woman.

In 1780, Marie Josse’s life came to an end. Adorned with beautiful clothes and expensive jewelry, she was given a grave in the cemetery of the Hofkirche; Half the city of Lucerne gave her an honorable escort.

But then something unprecedented happened: the next night a greedy gravedigger dug up the grave and opened the coffin. He stole the deceased’s clothes and jewelry. When he finally started working on his petticoat, the deceased Marie Josse is said to have suddenly opened her eyes and rose from the coffin. She then walked in her shroud through the city of Lucerne from the Hofkirche to the Mühlenplatz, where she would have lived for another twenty years until 1800 – without ever smiling again.

At least that is what Theodor von Liebenau puts it in his book “Old Lucerne” from 1881. Liebenau (1840–1914) was not just any random storyteller, but rather the state archivist of the canton of Lucerne and an honorary doctorate from the philosophical faculty of the University of Bern. A variant of the story talks about an expensive noble ring that the gravedigger wanted to steal. Shortly before her finger was cut off, the woman presumed dead woke up, got up and went home.

Whether it’s clothes or a ring, the story is pretty scary. But it is not unique to Lucerne. For as the Lucerne folklorist Kurt Lussi has shown, it is also told in modified form and in other places. So it is a so-called traveling legend, that is to say a legend that appears in different versions in different places. This was also the case in England, where Lady Emma Edgcumbe was able to ‘extend’ her time on earth thanks to a cemetery thief.

The intention of the stories is clear: the scary story is intended to help ensure the peace of the dead and deter grave robbers.

The fate of the grave desecrator was aptly described in a poem in the Willisau newspaper supplement “The Hinterlander”: