Versailles, the seat of the French kings, has long been under the watchful eye of anomalous experts. The fact is that in the beautiful buildings and gardens of Versailles you can see not only fountains and wonderful Baroque architecture, but also more interesting things …
The first reports of ghosts at Versailles date back to 1870. And in 1901, the residence of the deposed French kings was visited by two ladies who, I must say, were considered quite educated for their time. Miss Moberly was the director of St. Hugh's College, Oxford, and Miss Jourdain, the director of the Watford girls' school.
Both ladies came to Paris for three weeks in order to assess their possibilities for further joint work at Saint Hugh's College and, along the way, broaden their horizons by touching on the history of France. This ordinary, in fact, excursion became for both of them a bright event in life, an explanation for which has not yet been found.
THE GHOST OF MARIA ANTOINETTE
Walking through the palace park, the layout of which they were not familiar with, heading from the Grand Trianon towards the Little Trianon, Annie Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain soon got lost. When they entered the palace garden, Moberly felt a strange depression. Both women felt as if they were moving in a dream. It was deserted around, there was a strange silence, nothing broke the silence: neither the singing of birds, nor the chirping of grasshoppers. This oppressed and frightened women.
Finally, they came across two strangely dressed men who looked like they had stepped off the paintings of 18th century artists, in green uniforms and cocked hats. The teachers addressed them in French and asked how to get to the Little Trianon. They looked in amazement at the clothes of the Englishwomen and gestured in the direction they needed.
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The first thing that crossed the minds of the travelers was some kind of costume performance for the entertainment of visitors. Then, as if out of nowhere, a stately, out of breath youth in a wide-brimmed hat appeared and told the lady that they should immediately return to the palace.
After a while, Eleanor and Annie saw a woman, dressed in an old-fashioned, pale, but very beautiful dress, who was painting. For some reason, it was her appearance that intensified the feeling of fear and depression in the tourists, which was impossible to explain. After that, historians more carefully analyzed the memories of English teachers, and the most daring of them came to the sensational conclusion - in some incomprehensible way, these elderly ladies managed to visit the past. They saw paintings from the past, namely from the 18th century.
By that time, many buildings in the park had been rebuilt and changed or did not exist at all: ghostly figures entered the park through doors that in 1901 did not open at all. For example, the door in which the young man appeared was in the inoperative and destroyed part of the chapel, and there was no longer a gazebo and a bridge. The drawing woman turned out to be Queen Marie Antoinette, there was no doubt about that: all her portraits were like two drops of water similar to that lady in an old dress.
It was even possible to assume a specific day in which the British women found themselves, "plunging" into the past - October 5, 1789. It was on this day that an armed crowd was moving from Paris to Versailles, and that breathless man whom the teachers met, ran to the palace to report the impending danger.
Moberly visited Versailles a second time only on July 4, 1904, together with Jourdain and accompanied by their French friend. But this time they could not find either the roundabout route they took in 1901, or the pavilion, or the bridge near it. Where they then saw the woman sitting in the grass, there was a large old rhododendron bush.
THE QUEEN AND HER SWEETS
Over time, reports of the ghosts of Versailles began to appear more and more often. In 1908, these places were visited by the Englishman John Crook with his wife and son. Tourists also saw a blonde lady in antique dress - a cream skirt, white cape, and white hat - sitting on a small bench in the middle of the lawn. The lady was drawing something and did not pay any attention to Krukov.
When Crook, who was himself an artist, wanted to look at her drawing, she annoyedly removed the sheet. It was strange that the Crooks saw the artist now quite clearly, now as if blurry, out of focus. A man and a woman in 18th century outfits were walking nearby, and the sounds of music were even heard.
In the fall of 1928, two more Englishwomen, interested in the teachers' stories, came to Versailles. In the royal park, the ladies met an elderly man, dressed in green uniforms embroidered with silver, and asked him for directions to the palace. In response, the old man shouted something evil to them in Old French, and after a moment he disappeared, as if he had disappeared into thin air. Then, just as unexpectedly, a couple in antique clothes appeared in front of the women, they were rolling towards them a cart loaded with wooden blocks. They passed by as if they had not seen the Englishwomen, and then disappeared just as suddenly as they had appeared.
Twenty years later, three more tourists simultaneously saw a woman standing on the steps of the Grand Trianon, holding an umbrella from the sun and dressed in an old-fashioned dress. It would have been quite real if it had not “disappeared into thin air”.
In the spring of 1955, the British chargé d'affaires took a stroll through the gardens of Versailles with his wife. When they left the Grand Trianon and headed for the Small, everything around suddenly changed, the area was empty. Clouds flew in, a thunderstorm began, it became stuffy, it became hard to breathe. But then the sun came out, and the couple saw two men and a woman walking towards them. They wore the clothes they wore 200 years ago: a woman in a long, shiny yellow dress, men in black breeches, black shoes with silver buckles, black hats and open short cloaks.
Masquerade or anomaly
All these meetings were analyzed by experts on the paranormal, but no consensus was reached.
One of the explorers of Versailles, H. W. Lambert, found evidence that in 1775 the royal gardeners actually wore green liveries, embroidered with silver. At that time, this position was occupied by Claude Richard, who was 65 years old, and his 35-year-old son Antoine. Most likely, tourists saw their ghosts in the park, as they were later told that the man in green livery looked about 60 years old.
In contrast to the "ghost" version, skeptics argue that the English teachers who first saw the ghosts most likely knew the history of France much deeper than anticipated. Perhaps all these "meetings" are nothing more than subconscious memories of books read and pictures once seen. In addition, Moberly has previously talked about various paranormal activities that she witnessed.
Everything could be explained by the eccentricity and sensitivity of these ladies, if they did not provide very precise details regarding the layout of the gardens, the clothes of the people and the architectural features of the palace of that time. It is unlikely that they had access to documents that contain such details, since such sources are often stored in little-known archives. It could very well be a costume performance, but the architectural inconsistencies cannot be explained by this.
In the light of today's knowledge, it became known that on the day the two teachers visited Versailles, electromagnetic storms were observed over Europe, which undoubtedly affect human behavior and can cause hallucinations. But how can the subsequent apparitions of ghosts be explained? Therefore, the question of who the visitors to Versailles saw remains open. What is happening there? A tourist show or an anomalous place where the past and the present seem to intersect at times?..
Galina MINNIKOV