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THE GHOSTS OF THE TRIANON

Palace of Versailles, Paris, France

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The Ghosts of the Trianon-Society for Psychical Research Investigation

Between 1902 and 1904, Miss Jourdain made frequent trips to Versailles, with her students. Each time she visited Versailles, looking for clues to the haunting, she was unable to find the gazebo and the bridge they had seen on their walk. She could not understand why they should be missing. She suspected they had travelled back to an earlier time when the gazebo and bridge were present.

Later, in July 1904, both Miss Jourdain and Miss Moberly were able to visit Versailles together. Not only could they not find the gazebo or the bridge, but they also noticed that the grounds were crowded with people, walking or sitting in the shade. This was quite different from their 1901 visit, when they saw only five people. Where had all the tourists been?

The two women sent a letter to the Society for Psychical Research declaring their discovery that the Trianon was haunted. But the Society deemed their claims unworthy of investigation. Thereupon the two women decided to conduct a full-scale investigation of their own to prove that they had seen the ghost of Marie Antoinette.

The accounts of Versailles they wrote in 1901 were the corner-stone of this investigation. They sought to prove that in these accounts they had accurately described what Versailles looked like in 1789. Their argument was that because they did not possess any knowledge of eighteenth-century Versailles when they wrote these accounts, it would have been impossible for them to produce such detailed descriptions unless the scene they had witnessed really was Marie Antoinette's memory of 1789 Versailles that they had somehow stumbled into.

The result of their investigation was the publication in 1911 of a book titled An Adventure. They published it under the pseudonyms of Miss Morison and Miss Lamont. This is some of the evidence they unearthed:

They had seen a plough, but on later trips they learned that no ploughs had been kept in the gardens of Versailles in 1901. However, an old plough had been displayed on the grounds in 1789.

They had crossed a small bridge, but on later trips they could not locate this same bridge. However, they discovered that a bridge had existed there in 1789.

There was no gazebo on the grounds of the Petit Trianon. However, the women discovered an old map that showed a gazebo-like building where they had seen one. It had been torn down long before 1901.

They had seen two men in green coats. Neither the gardeners nor any other employees at Versailles wore green coats and tri-cornered hats in 1901. These men, they later learned, were wearing the uniform of Marie Antoinette's Swiss Guard.

They had seen a sinister man, apparently suffering from small pox. This man exactly resembled Comte de Vaudreuil, an enemy of Marie Antoinette.

The running man was a messenger sent to the Petit Trianon to warn Marie Antoinette that a mob of French citizens was headed to Versailles.

They saw a footman rush out of a building and slam a door shut behind himself. However, this door was actually barred and bolted shut when they visited, and had been kept so for many years.

Finally, the sketching lady herself could have been no one else but Marie Antoinette.

An Adventure provoked an outpouring of public interest, selling 11,000 copies by 1913. But it also attracted a great deal of criticism. Critics argued that the two women either simply got lost, or their memories of what they had seen were mistaken.

The two women defended themselves, and published the accounts of their experience that they had each written in November 1901 as proof that they had seen things which they later discovered corresponded exactly to what the grounds of Versailles looked like in 1789. They argued that there was no way they could have known about such details.

After the women died (Jourdain in 1924, Moberly in 1937) their identities were revealed. The revelation that they were respected academics created further interest in the case, and a series of studies of the case followed.

Read More:

The Ghosts of the Trianon-Time Slips
The Ghosts of the Trianon-Marie Antoinette and The French Revolution
The Ghosts of the Trianon-Society for Psychical Research Investigation

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