PFYFFER, LUDWIG. - Swiss soldier and statesman, born in 1524 at Lucerna, died there on 17 March 1594. He was initially in the service of the king of France.
In 1567, with a regiment, he entered the service of Carlo IX; having returned to Switzerland in 1569, he became the acknowledged leader of the Catholics and, as Schultheiss of Lucerna from 1571 until his death, made Lucerna the stronghold of Swiss Catholicism against the Reformers. There he promoted the establishment of a college directed by the Jesuits and obtained from the Holy See the dispatch of a permanent nuncio. In 1576, in the service of Enrico III, he defended Paris against Condé; he played a major part in concluding the alliance of the following year between the six Catholic cantons and Savoia. In 1588 he signed a treaty with Spain in Milano.