Apr 25 2001
Morbid Wednesday
As Rufus and I were walking past the funeral home on our way to work early this morning, a guy came out dressed in a surgeon-type smock and pants, removing his rubber gloves. Taking a smoke break after an embalming, I guess…
Came across this gem in Jan Bondeson’s “Buied Alive”, a work of horror and elegance (slightly paraphrased from the original):
Francois de Civille, said to be thrice declared dead and as many times rescued from the tomb, was born by a Caesarean section to a dead mother exhumed from her coffin. He became an army captain, and was severely wounded at the siege of Rouen in 1563. He was buried alive in a common grave on the battlefield. His servant, who wanted to dig his master a more fitting grave, discovered that he was not dead. While de Civille was recovering, a troop of enemy soldiers burst into the house where he was staying and threw him into a dung heap (!), where he remained buried for three days until he was dug out and nursed back to health. According to a gravestone in Milan, Francois de Civille was finally buried in that city. He had died at the age of 105, from a chill contracted “while serenading the lady of his heart all night long.”