A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
High above the Aare River, perched on the Chäschtebärg hill near Möriken-Wildegg in the Swiss canton of Aargau, stands Wildegg Castle. With origins dating back to around 1200, built by the powerful Habsburgs, this proud fortress has witnessed centuries of wars, dynasties, and secrets.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
Yet among its long and tangled history, one ghostly tale still lingers in the mists of local legend of an outsider who took sanctuary within the castle walls from the French Revolution. This is the story of the sorrowful queen, Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart (1763-1804).
A Tale of Loneliness and Loss
They call her a queen of Wildegg Castle in the legends, but she was actually a French Countess. Long ago, Marie Louise lived at Wildegg Castle with her husband, according to legend, a king known more for his indulgence in hunting, carousing, and feasting than for any affection toward his wife.
She was however married to Louis Marie de Montléart. Originally from Paris, she had fled to Switzerland after the French Revolution. It is however true that she was unhappy in their marriage.
In Versailles at the French court, she became close friends with Baroness Sophie von Effinger, who was herself unhappily married and whose ancestral seat was at Wildegg Castle. As the French Revolution ravaged the French Court and Paris, she fled to her friend who took her in as the battle went on. She was accompanied by another Duchess, but it’s unsure if her husband even followed her.
As the legend goes however, her husband neglected the countess, leaving her to wander the vast and shadowed forests surrounding the castle, seeking solace among the ancient trees. Around the Wildegg Castle as her own country went up in flames in the bloody revolution.
The forest, wild and eternal, became her only refuge. It’s said that within its depths, she found peace from her sorrows, the trees whispering comfort to her heavy heart. There, far from the noise of courtly revels, she is believed to have breathed her final breath.
During a later visit to Wildegg in 1804, Marie Louise St. Simon-Montléar died of tuberculosis. As her spirit left her body, a mournful rustling wind swept through the forest, carrying away the last traces of her grief.
The King’s Guilt and a Haunting Memorial
According to the legend of her being the queen of the castle, her husband was overcome with guilt for his neglect, and is said to have built a grand tomb for his lost queen deep within the castle grounds, near her beloved woods. This part is not true, but her grave does really sit in the nearby forest.
The simple rectangular gravestone bears the inscription written by Count von Redern of Bernsdorf :
“Here rests, after the storm of life, a noble woman. Marie Louise St. Simon-Montléart, born in Paris on October 12, 1763, died in Wildegg on June 21, 1804. She was born a violet among thorns and thistles. She fought courageously against bitter misfortune from early childhood to her grave. She died peacefully among friends, happily sensing a higher destiny, for her actions were just and her words true.”
Count von Redern was the business partner of her brother Henri Claude and had accompanied her from Montpellier to Wildegg Castle.
To this day, visitors claim to feel a strange, uneasy presence when approaching the grave. On still nights, when the wind stirs the branches and the leaves sigh like whispered words, many say it’s the queen’s restless spirit, forever roaming the forest she loved.
In time, nature reclaimed the resting place, dense trees and creeping vines entwining it as though fulfilling Marie Louise’s unspoken wish to forever be part of the forest. The grave inspired Walter Fähndrich when he wrote “Music for a Forest Grave” in 2001 and The 15-minute piece begins at the time of local sunset from loudspeakers in the vicinity of the grave.
The Girl and the Ghosts
There is another ghostly legend retold by El Rochholz: Swiss Legends from Aargau from 1856 about a girl seeing a ghost around Wildegg Castle. It is said that all those born around midnight on Lent are capable of seeing spirits. But if they keep silent about what they last saw for 24 hours, no ghosts can harm them. There was such a child in the village of Holderbank.
Once upon a time a girl and her colleagues were walking home from work at Wildegg Castle to Holderbank village. It was between 10 or 11 o’clock. As she was crossing, over the mountain to their village, a man dressed in green and armed with a rifle suddenly stepped into her path. She immediately changed her route and after a long detour, she reached her house by 1 o’clock.
The other girls that had been walking with her, didn’t know where she had gone and had already spread the word that she had been shot by a huntsman. She didn’t say a word about it.
Later, as she was on her way from Holderbank to Saffenwil as a bride, a small black dog ran between them. She immediately crossed to the other side of the road, evading once more the spirits she could see. And despite all her fiancés’ questions as to why she was leaving him, she failed to answer him for a full 24 hours, believing the legend about not saying a word after seeing ghosts.
A Castle of Secrets
Wildegg Castle, with its commanding view of the Aare and its centuries of layered history, remains one of Switzerland’s most atmospheric historic sites. Though the Effinger family, the castle’s last noble residents, passed away in 1912 and the property now belongs to the Canton of Aargau, echoes of its haunted past still cling to its stones.
And on certain misty evenings, as the wind stirs the trees on the Chäschtebärg, one might sense a faint rustle — and wonder if it is merely the wind… or Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart still walking among her trees.
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References:
Hier spukt es: Unheimliche Orte in der Schweiz | WEB.DE
Schloss Wildegg – Alemannische Wikipedia
Das Fraufastenkind und die Hasenpfoten – Schloss Wildegg
Marie Louise St. Simon-Montléart – Wikipedia
https://www.fairyhills.com/waldtreu.htm