The Ghosts of the Petit Trianon
Two English college principals got lost in the gardens of Versailles and met people in 18th-century dress. One of them, they came to believe, was Marie Antoinette.
What was reported
On 10 August 1901, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, the principal and vice-principal of an Oxford women's college, were walking through the gardens of Versailles to find the Petit Trianon. They felt a sudden depression, and the landscape seemed flat and lifeless. They met men in long coats and tricorne hats, and passed a woman sketching on the lawn.
Back in England, they compared notes and decided they had stepped back in time to 1789, and that the woman was Marie Antoinette. In 1911 they published their account, An Adventure, under false names. It caused a sensation.
Explanations offered
Researchers have suggested they met people in costume, perhaps at gatherings held nearby by the poet Robert de Montesquiou, and that their memories grew in the retelling over the years. The Society for Psychical Research was not convinced. The two women never doubted it.
- When
- 10 August 1901
- Where
- Versailles, Île-de-France, France
- Witnesses
- Two English academics
- Status
- Disputed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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