Ghosts of Versailles ?

On 10 August 1901, two ladies enjoyed a day out at Versailles. Miss Charlotte Anne Elizabeth Moberly and Miss Eleanor Frances Jourdain took tea in the magnificent Galerie des Glaces before walking through the palace’s vast gardens towards the canal. Their ultimate destination was the Petit Trianon, the beautiful house that had been presented to Marie Antoinette by Louis XVI. They had a rough idea of the way, and they had with them the latest copy of Baedeker’s for reference.

It was almost four in the afternoon when they set off. The day had been hot, although it had now clouded over, and there was a pleasantly cool breeze. Having taken the central avenue, they arrived at the canal, to the right of which stood the Grand Trianon. At this point, however, they took a wrong turning. Instead of going right onto the broad road that would have led them to the Petit Trianon, they followed a narrow lane that ran to the right of the Grand Trianon.

Passing under a bridge, the ladies carried on up the lane, which made a sharp turn to the right, and passed some deserted buildings. Suddenly everything took on an unreal quality, as though they had stepped into a painting; they began to experience feeling of depression, even oppression, which deepened the further they went. Still walking in the general direction of the Petit Trianon, they asked two gentlemen, who stood on the path ahead of them, if they were going the right way. Brusquely, the men waved them on.

As they passed some farm buildings, one of the ladies noticed a discarded plough. Miss Jourdain saw a woman passing a jug to a small child. Suddenly they heard the sound of someone running up behind them. They turned to see a young man wearing a green cloak; he was out of breath, but he gave them rapid directions: they must not go left, but to turn right and ‘cherchez la maison.’ His message delivered, he then turned and disappeared as quickly as he had arrived.

The ladies followed the young man’s directions and took a path that led them into a narrow grotto. Close to the entrance of the grotto stood a circular garden kiosk that looked like a bandstand. They both noticed a man sitting on the low wall that surrounded the kiosk, and something

about his appearance repelled them. He watched them as they went past, but did not speak to them, nor did they speak to him.

A narrow path took them through the grotto, across a small footbridge which skirted a tiny waterfall on the right. This took them over a patch of high ground and on to a meadow, from which they could finally see the Petit Trianon.

Miss Moberly noticed that the building was smaller than she had expected it to be. To reach it, they had to walk over a large area of rough grass which led them all the way to a terrace in front of the house. Here, on their left, she saw a lady sitting on a small stool sketching, ‘she turned her head and looked at us’, Miss Moberly remembered. ‘It was not a young face, and though rather pretty, it was not attractive. She had a shady white straw hat somewhat perched on a good deal of fair hair. Her light summer dress was arranged in handkerchief fashion on the shoulders, and there was a little line of either green or gold near the edge of the handkerchief. Her dress seemed to be short in front, but as she was sitting carelessly I cannot be sure of this. For the same reason, I perceived no distinction about her figure. She had a sheet of paper in her hand, and I had an impression that there was nothing on it. There was something unattractive about her expression, and after looking full at her, I suddenly turned away.’

As they walked up to the terrace searching for an entrance, a door of a building to the side suddenly opened and a man ran out, banging the door behind him. He hurried up to the two ladies, telling them they could not remain there and offering to escort them to the main entrance to the house. Thankful for his assistance, they allowed the stranger to guide them through a narrow space between the buildings and onto the broad drive they should have taken in the first place. The Petit Trianon was a short walk away and, upon entering it, everything seemed to return to normal, and the feeling of depression and anxiety that had come upon them as they had passed under the bridge, suddenly lifted, and they joined a French wedding party, who were visiting the house.

A week later, as they were writing their letters home, they spoke about their visit to the Petit Trianon for the first time. As she considered the events of a week earlier, Miss Moberly asked her companion and asked, ‘Do you think the Petit Trianon is haunted?’ Miss Jourdain answered promptly: ‘Yes, I do.’

Miss Moberly and Miss Jourdain would spend the rest of their lives trying to explain the phenomenon they believed they had experienced. They would come to believe that they had slipped through a ‘ripple in time’ and had actually encountered the Petit Trianon and the people who worked and lived in it as it was in the closing days of the Ancien Régime. They lady, who only Miss Moberly saw, they concluded, was Marie Antoinette, the house’s first mistress.

The story of the ‘Ghosts of Versailles’ has fascinated ghost-hunters and psychologists alike, and it is interesting to note that what the two ladies believe they had experienced that summer is not unique. A similar event occurred to none other than Carl Gustav Jung.

While on a visit to the tomb on Galla Placidia in Ravenna, Jung fell into what he described as a ‘strange mood’. He was struck by the blue light that seemed to bathe the baptistery, although he did not wonder at it nor did he try to account for it. This was his second visit to the tomb, and he was surprised to see that, instead of the windows he remembered from the first visit, there were now four large and very beautiful mosaic frescoes. One mosaic depicted the baptism in the Jordan; the second was the passage of the children of Israel through the Red Sea; the third one quickly faded from Jung’s memory, but he thought it might have shown Naaman being cleansed of leprosy in the Jordan, while the fourth and most impressive of the mosaics depicted Christ holding his hand out to Peter, who was sinking beneath the waves. This memory of last mosaic remained with Jung for a very long time, and he would always be able to recall it in detail.

When Jung and his companion left the baptistery, he wanted to buy some postcards of the mosaics but time was pressing and the two of them had to leave. Having returned home, he asked a friend who was visiting Ravenna to obtain some pictures for him. The friend duly went to the baptistery only to find that the mosaics did not exist.

[This post was first published on Facebook, 10 August 2016].