After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Ghost of Marie Antoinette

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

What if a leisurely visit to the Palace of Versailles transported you back to the court of Marie Antoinette — would you believe it or question your sanity?This is the story of two English women from St Hugh's College, Oxford University, who in 1901 believed that they slipped back in time to the 1790s and came face-to-face with one of the most famous figures of history.Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling the story this week.Written by Anthony DelaneyEdited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ 

If there's one thing that gets my goat, it's time travel. I just don't like it. Nothing can guarantee that I put a book down or turn off a TV show quicker than a sudden exclamation from one of the lead characters that inevitably goes a little something like this. Oh no! I can't believe that terrible huge plot point happened. Whatever will we do now?

I wish we could just go back to the beginning and undo this terrible mess. And that is when the friend will say, there is a way. If we realign the flippity gum and sampony crop fit, then maybe, just maybe it'll take us back to the very moment when that big plot point thing happened and we can just undo the whole thing. It's at that point that I go, nope, I'm sorry, it's just not for me. It feels like cheating or something, because in a world where anything can be undone, nothing matters.

There are no stakes. So when the idea of a historic time slip, and don't worry if you don't know what that is, we will explain, was floated in a recent planning meeting for After Dark, I'm sure the whole team could see that I was subtly, or maybe not so subtly, rolling my eyes. That will have been, of course, until they explained that this supposed time slip occurred at one of my favourite places on Earth, the Palace of Versailles. Now, suddenly, I'm interested. So let's take our own little excursion back in time together, shall we?

This is a case that will take us to the very heart of royal power in 18th century France, but it doesn't begin there. Instead, it starts long after the French monarchy had fallen, in 1901. Editor Tom, if you could do the honours. And just like that, we find ourselves wandering the gardens of the Palace of Versailles on the outskirts of Paris. It is a hot August day in 1901. Because of the soaring temperatures, the women who can afford it wear cooler, expensive garments, a white China silk day dress, for example.

This might provide some relief from the heat. Fans, flutter, and parasols cast precise shadows across delicate complexions. The gentlemen are every inch as stylish, too. Three-piece suits cut from lighter lighter fabrics, are now en vogue, as a more relaxed morning dress style has replaced the formal, structured ensemble of the century prior. Amongst this distinguished gathering, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain crunched through the pristine walkways of the palace grounds together,

examining the baroque planting patterns and decoding the classical allusions contained in the imposing statues displayed here and there. The women were undertaking a three-week sightseeing trip before taking up their positions at St. Hughes Hall at Oxford as principal and vice-principal respectively. As they wandered the grounds, taking in the history and the former splendour,

Charlotte and Eleanor couldn't possibly have anticipated what was about to happen next. Hello and welcome to After Dark, I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony. He forgot for a second. I did, I absolutely... Who he was. Timeslip. Yeah, evidence of a timeslip. Maybe you fell back in time and then we're back just a second too late to say your name.

Who knows? In this episode, we're going to be trying to expand Anthony's closed mind about all things time travel. Two things to say up top here. First of all, you started the second part of that narrative with the words and just like that, and it was giving Carrie Bradshaw. Oh, I've never seen an episode of that. Do you know that? I've actually never seen an episode. That's Sex and the City, right? Sex and the City and the arguably questionable follow up that is titled and just like that. Second thing to say,

when it comes to time travel, I could not disagree with you more. No, well, I know. I know! Go on, you give us a defence. You know what I'm going to say is my favourite show on Earth. Oh my god! I wasn't even thinking about that! Oh yeah, go on. Okay, so for anyone who knows me even a little bit, they will know that I absolutely adore, am obsessed with, have written about in magazines, in scholarly journals, yes really. I forgot about this. Uh oh. Outlander. It's the best period drama possibly ever. That's a bold statement. I love it so

much and at the risk of this becoming an Outlander podcast, I think what's so appealing for anyone who's interested in history is time slips allow you to imagine that you might go back to your favourite time period, obviously for me it would be the 18th century, and that you would have to survive there somehow. And that all the things that are different about the past, the way people lived, their attitudes, their dress, how they conducted themselves, what they ate, what they got angry about, that all of that would become so apparent and you would have to draw on your own knowledge of that period in order to survive in that world. Obsessed. So I'm sorry, I think you're on goodbye the end.

Can I ask one question about Outlander, which I also haven't seen. Is it a time slip or is it time travel? So it's a time slip. I'm more here for that. I'm more here for a time slip. But she slips in and out at various points. So when does it stop being a time slip and when is it time travel? She goes to some ancient stone circles in Scotland, Claire, the main character, and she slips back into the 1740s to begin with, and then slips accidentally back later on in the 20th century. And then at various points, it starts to become her choice to travel. So it is time travel, but it begins as a slip. It's a slip to begin with.

I'm here for it. There is the distinction slip. You have no control over travel. You do. That is the distinction. OK, so she gets control over it. But we're not talking about Outlander in this episode, Maddie, despite the fact that you would make this the Outlander after dark.

And so what did hundreds of thousands of other people. There's a niche in there somewhere. Someone should present that podcast. There's an Outlander episode to be done. And I also will say that there are Outlander scenes in France and I'm pretty sure at Versailles. So I'm just saying there's room. I go to Versailles just because of Outlander. I'm sure people do, actually. So we are in Versailles in this particular time slip, but we are not in the 18th century. We're in 1901. So the world is changing a little bit at this particular time. We have Queen Victoria who's dying. She dies at Osborne House in the Isle of Wight and her son, King Edward VII, comes to the throne. So this is

White and her son, King Edward VII, comes to the throne. So this is a big, you know, the end of the Victorian era. It's a huge, huge thing. In America, we have the second inauguration of William McKinley, although he will be killed during this term in September of that year, actually, and replaced by his vice president, Teddy Roosevelt. We have the first ever Australian parliament opening in Melbourne on the 9th of May. And it's a time of technological advance too, although a lot of technological advancement has been happening in the 19th century because Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal sent from England to St. John's in Newfoundland. And it is the letter S in Morse code.

So the world is shifting, the world is changing, the world feels like it's coming into, if I think of modern modernity, this is around the time world is changing, the world feels like it's coming into, if I think, modern modernity, this is around the time I'm thinking. Does that ring true to you, Maddie? Yes, I think this is an interesting moment for this ghostly time travel, time slip story. And we're going to talk more about what those distinctions are, but I think there is a ghostly element to this, definitely. And this is a ghostly element to this definitely. This is a moment, as you say, of incredible change, constitutional change around the world, technological change, and actually there's something quite ghostly about the transatlantic radio signal being

sent for the first time. These crackling mysterious messages coming across the ocean and voices being heard from people who are not in the same room as you. There's so much there about the unknown and the unknowable, I think, and I think that's a very good context for this story. But these aren't necessarily the people that you would expect to be caught up in a supernatural anecdotal story. We've got two respectable female scholars who are about to take up really senior positions at Oxford University. They're based in academia, they're all about rigour, they're all about common sense, looking for evidence, examining what's in front of you. So can you tell us a little bit about who they are?

Yeah, I mean, that at least sums up what the perception was once their identities were revealed, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But let's start with Charlotte Ann Moberly first then. So she's an English academic, as you mentioned, born in 1846. So we are speaking with a Victorian here, even though the Victorian era has ended. She comes from an academic household too, and a very academic community. So she's surrounded by this idea of rigorous thinking. She has been, as you say, appointed the principal of St. Hughes Hall, which was a women's college, which had been founded, established by Elizabeth Wordsworth in

1886. And she has been appointed principal and she will serve there until her retirement in 1915. And it is under her leadership in 1911 that St. Hughes Hall becomes St. Hughes College in Oxford. Now, interestingly, bear this in mind as we listen to these things going forward, Charlotte Unmobarly did continue to experience paranormal experiences throughout the rest of her life. So this is one of a few experiences that she had. And then we have who I find even more fascinating is Eleanor Jourdain. And she was born in Derbyshire. She is slightly younger than Charlotte Anne.

She was the vice principal of St. Hughes Hall and then college. And she went on to become vice principal of St. Hughes Hall and then college and she went on to become the principal in time. She defended her thesis in 1886 becoming the first woman to undergo a viva in the School of Modern History. Isn't that incredible? LAREE I can see from the notes in front of me here that she was also a suffragette leader in Oxford. And she just, to me, she just sounds like the most fantastic, forward thinking, exciting woman of this period. Is she any more inclined towards the paranormal than Charlotte, who you say

is having these experiences throughout her life? Does she have a background in that? Is that something that's part of her life? I mean, in this period, I suppose as well, we've got seances going on, we've got spiritualism coming out of the end of the Victorian era. Are they involved in that movement in any way? GK Not directly, although obviously this gets picked up amongst those circles. And this does become a talking point in the Society for Psychical Research. But just to point out, Jordania is very interesting. So you have this idea of her being in the robes and the suffrage movement, but she was a really problematic leader when she was at St. Hughes. She fired a tutor, a female tutor, Cecilia Mary Addy. Addy was a

Renaissance historian and she felt that Addy was challenging her authority. So she took her to Tribunal for Wrongful Termination and all of the tutors and several of the council members in support of Adi resigned so that there were boycotts of Oxford and affiliated schools, obviously St. Hugh's particularly. This was reported widely in the press and investigations were undertaken and Jordan initially welcomed all of this, but it became evident that she was going to be asked to resign for wrongful termination and that I suppose now we would kind of talk about it as kind of workplace bullying. And some say as a result of the pressure that she was feeling about this, she suffered a heart attack and died on the 6th of April, 1924.

And it prompted her heavy handed tactics, I suppose, prompted an overhaul of the working conditions for female tutors at St. Hughes. So you get this dichotomy with Eleanor, I think, where she is this suffrage, powerful, you know, front footed woman. And at the same time, then not necessarily bringing that into women's working conditions and working rights for women at third level institutions. So it's an interesting one. She's an interesting one. Yeah, she's an interesting figure, definitely. That all happens after their experience, after Charlotte and Ellen's experience of Versace. And let's go back to that moment. So right at the

opening of the 20th century, we have these two women, as we've said that institutional academics are better or worse and they have this experience. So can you tell us anything more about the experience that they have? And once we've gone through it a little bit, I want to talk more about whether it's a time slip, whether it's time travel, whether it's a ghostly experience. I think the boundaries and the definitions here are really vague. And I think that's what makes it so compelling. Do you know what? We're doing something a little different. I'm not going to tell you the next bit. I'm going to make you tell us the next bit only because, luckily for us and the listeners,

Mowgli and Jourdain left an account of what they experienced in 1901. Now, this was published in 1911, so 10 years later, and it was called An Adventure. And rather than me trying to describe what they saw, I think it's better if we just let them, via you, describe what they saw. Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr, Six Wives, Six Lives. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and this month on Not Just the Tudors I'm joined by a host of experts to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII who shaped and changed

England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Maddie, if you could take us right to the heart of what happened when they were in Versailles in 1901. And just a heads up, when this was published, they published as Elizabeth Morrison and Francis Lamont. So they didn't really want to be associated with this in their own lifetimes. And they weren't, to a great extent. We walked briskly forward, talking as before, but from the moment we left the lane,

an extraordinary depression had come over me which, in spite of every effort to shake off, steadily deepened. There seemed to be absolutely no reason for it. In front of us was a wood within which, and overshadowed by trees, was a light garden kiosk, circular and like a small bandstand by which a man was sitting. The ground was covered with rough grass and dead leaves, as in a wood, everything suddenly looked unnatural. Therefore unpleasant, even the trees behind the building seemed to have become flat and lifeless, like a wood worked in tapestry. There were no effects of light and shade, and no wind stirred the trees. It was all intensely still. The man sitting close to the kiosk, who had on a cloak and a large, shady hat, turned his head and

looked at us. That was the culmination of my peculiar sensations, and I felt a moment of genuine alarm. The man's face was most repulsive, its expression odious. His complexion was very dark and rough. I said to Miss Lamont, which is our way, but thought nothing will induce me to go to the left. It was a great relief at that moment to hear someone running up to us in breathless haste. I turned and ascertained that there was no one on the paths, either to the side or behind, but at almost the same moment I suddenly perceived another man quite close to us. The suddenness of his appearance was something of a shock.

Second man was distinctly a gentleman. He was tall, with large dark eyes and had crisp curling black hair under the same large sombrero hat. He was handsome, and the effect of the hair was to make him look like an old picture. He had on a dark cloak wrapped around him like a scarf, one end flying in his prodigious hurry. He looked greatly excited as he called out to us. Madame, il ne faut pas passer par là. He then waved his arm and said with great animation, Par ici, chercher la maison. I was so surprised at his eagerness that I looked up at him again and to this he responded

with a little backward movement and a most peculiar smile. Though I could not follow all he said, it was clear that he was determined that we should go to the right and not to the left. As this fell in with my own wish, I went instantly towards the little bridge on the right and turning my head to join Miss Lamont in thanking him, found, to my surprise, he was not there. Dun dun dun. Right, I need to I need to come clean here before we go any further. That if you haven't visited Versailles, you should drop everything right now, quit your jobs, everything and go and visit Versailles because it is the most remarkable

place it is. I mean, Maddie, you and I are constantly voice noting and constantly texting, whatever, about different places we've been and whether we'd recommend it or whatever. Versailles, I walked through the main gates and walked around the back of Versailles and instantly started crying when the gardens opened up before me. Like, it was embarrassing. I had sunglasses on, so I was like, just put those on. I don't doubt it. Good. I'm glad because it did happen. You could ask Shane.

I don't know. I literally could just feel something when I walked around that corner, but it wasn't always quite so glamorous. The original residence was just a hunting lodge and a private retreat for Louis XIII, yes, who died in 1643. And then that was elaborated on a little bit. And under the guidance of Louis XIV, who was the Sun King, of course, that's when it gets transformed into this kind of extravagant complex, I suppose. And it was built, in fact, to glorify Louis XIV, the Sun King, and glorify the kings of France in general. But perhaps the most famous room, I think people might be if they Google it and we'll put some images up on our socials, but the Hall of Mirrors is the place that most people know from Versailles.

It's 230 feet long with 17 wide arched mirrors opposite 17 windows and they overlook the garden. So the mirrors reflect back the windows and it's just incredible. There's chandeliers and ornately painted. It's absolutely incredible. That's what's happening inside. But as I say, I hadn't even set foot inside yet when I started bawling my eyes out. So the grounds and the gardens are just as impressive. Although it has to be said in 1901, they hadn't quite gone through the same level of pruning as they have now. LW. What's striking me while you're talking about that is the very genuine emotional response that you had to this site. In the time of the Sun King, Louis XIV, there's very much this idea, and thinking specifically about the Hall of Mirrors, there's this idea that this is a site, an environment, a space in which you are

meant to be seen, you're meant to see other people. And there's something there about vision, about layers of vision in the Hall of Mirrors. You've got the reflections of the inside of the people in the room, but then you've got the gardens to outside and you've got the landscape that is brought in by being reflected in the mirrors, and you have these vistas going out into the landscape as well. There are so many layers of seeing. I want to bring that idea to the experience that Charlotte and Eleanor have because what I think they're experiencing is a very emotional response, a bit like yours, to this place that has such a palpable feeling of the past and of history. With that added idea that it sounds to me like as historians they would have picked up on,

or indeed anyone would, going to Siverside, this idea of seeing visions, this layering of the past in all these different ways, that all that is coming together. And I'm not saying that their experience isn't valid necessarily, but I think there are these elements that are being brought in that they're not necessarily naming or talking about on the surface in their written account that they publish 10 years after the event. But I wonder in that moment if that's something that they have going through their minds, the sense of place. You know what, I had never seen anything in common with the experience I had of Versailles and the experience they had of Versailles, but you've just articulated it really well. I think why couldn't that be some, on a spectrum of a shared experience? I think it actually makes total sense because I know what that experience was for me. It was very, very acute and very impactful.

Let's bring together what they recounted later that they saw. So the first thing is, and this struck me, was a strange feeling. I can definitely relate to that. But they say it's a depression. I think in this case, it's Charlotte writing this, she says it's a depression. And I thought that was interesting. I can relate to that. There's that feeling when you go to any historic site, I don't know if it's necessarily depression, but a kind of nostalgia. It's a romanticization of the past, a yearning for something that is not necessarily tangible anymore. The lives that were lived there, the bodies that filled up that space. Yes, you can go and look at the walls of a ruin. You can go and look at some of the objects that might have existed in a room in a palace. You can look at the footprints

of some of the gardens of Versailles, for example, but you're not looking at the same plants anymore. They're all ephemeral. And even if they're grown from the same plants of the 18th century, that's not the same thing anymore. It's changed and evolved. And so I just wonder how much of that is something that everyone experiences when they go to historic sites. For them, it goes a little bit further, whether that's because there's something supernatural happening or whether it's... Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things to bear in mind here is that Jourdain, particularly as the historian, they leave here eventually, and we will come back to Versailles, but they leave to go back to England and Jourdain researches what she has seen. And I

would love to know when this idea of a depression came into it, because their conclusion as historians or researchers is that they have landed, they landed in that moment in time in France in the 1790s, in Versailles in the 1790s. Now, if we're looking at what's happening in France, in French history, in Versailles in the 1790s. It ain't good. No, it depends which side you're on, I suppose. But like for who the people that they are seeing in Versailles, this is a time of huge political and social change. The bourgeoisie, the wealthy commoners, merchants, manufacturers, professionals, they are becoming more and more wealthy, have become more and more wealthy, and so therefore wanted to share the power. The Palace of Versailles has already been stormed. The royal family has been removed and held captive. In September 1792, I'm sure it is, the National

Convention meets and the next day it abolishes the monarchy. This is the 90s. This is what's happening when they have established that they're seeing. They abolish the monarchy. So this is the 90s. This is what's happened. 1790s. This is what's happening when they have established that they're seeing. They abolished the monarchy. The republic is formed. And Louis XVI was executed for treason then on the 21st of January 1793, with Marie Antoinette being executed nine months later. So I just wonder, you mentioned earlier, you kind of said, oh, any historian might feel that. And I wonder if there is something unique to people with a certain interest in

history or particular interest in history, not necessarily his professional historians, but anybody who has that interest, where because you have a little bit more knowledge, you know that this may be a place where the former inhabitants are feeling depressed, are feeling confined, are feeling that they're on the way out. I don't know, obviously it's all conjecture because something like this is very hard to pin down, but because it's so specific to the 1790s, I thought that was really interesting and then linking that with an idea of depression was fascinating, I thought. LW. Yeah, definitely. And actually, as well, in the account that we just read out, they talk about seeing figures in the landscape. They're all male. I think elsewhere in the account, they do talk

about seeing female figures. They do. It's coming. Don't you worry. We're getting there. Okay. Okay. Good. But what's interesting to me is that they see two men in the landscape at this point, and they describe one as being rough looking with a dark complexion and a scary face. And to me, the way that that's written and the way that he's depicted in the landscape sitting in this, you call it, beautiful scene is almost like he's part of the lower classes. And then by contrast, he says, oh, we saw another man, he was distinctly a gentleman. And so what I think, as you say, is happening is this historical knowledge is coming in that there's a tension between the lower orders and the aristocracy in France in the 1790s.

The man from the lower classes is looking scary, he's looking angry. There's something there, isn't there? There's a knowledge that they're bringing to their experience when they write it down 10 years later. If only they had made a more thorough description of their experience at Versailles or as they were leaving or the next day or when they returned to England. I'm thinking about the episode we did on the alien abductions with Barney and Betty Hill, and they went home and drew. I love them so much. And their dog, don't forget that dog.

And, you know, they went home and sketched what they saw. I just wish that these two had done the same thing. Can I add an even worse thing to that? They apparently didn't talk about it at all. They didn't even reference it between one another until they got back to England. Right. Yes, that is the only appropriate reaction. talk about it at all. They didn't even reference it between one another until they got back to England. Right. Yes, that is the only appropriate reaction. Can you imagine the hours of voice noting that would happen between us if we experienced a time slip at Versailles?

But like, you don't keep that to yourself, right? You just don't. Like, it's too weird to go, God, I think I might have gone back to the 1790s. But you know what I'm not going to do? Mention it to the person that was with me. Like, no, that's too weird to go, God, I think I might have gone back to the 1790s. But you know what I'm not going to do? Mention it to the person that was with me. Like, no, that's too weird. Like it doesn't add up. Okay, so we're calling it slightly suspect. Let's talk about is this a ghost experience?

Is it a time slip? Is it time travel? So there are lots of famous examples of time slips. And my understanding of a time slip is that it's almost like a layering of two different moments on top of each other. There's a really famous one in, I think it's in Liverpool, where someone was going down the road and suddenly it seemed like the road was the 1960s. There were cars that looked like they were from that era and it was just a few seconds and then it was gone. There's quite a few reports of these sorts of experiences. Is

it a hallucination? Is it wishful thinking? Is it completely fictional made up? Is it an effect of the light? Is it a visual trick in some way? I had a very odd experience once. It was one of the very first dates that I had with my now husband. We were students, we were walking back to our student accommodation in York and we came around a corner. For anyone who knows the city of York, it's a big medieval warren of streets. Then as you get onto the outskirts, there's some grand Victorian and Georgian houses. We were going down a street that was just 18th century Georgian houses. We turn the corner, there's a carriage with horses. There's two boys holding torches that are lit, and there's a man getting out of the carriage, running up the stairs to what is now the house

opposite Fairfax House Museum, the Georgian Museum. He's running up the stairs and hammering on the door of this Georgian house. Everything is candlelit, there's dirt on the road, it doesn't look like how it should. And we both stop and think, what just happened? And then a security guard says, you've interrupted the take. Cut. Go again. Did you actually interrupt it though? Yes, by going, oh my god, there's an 18-second time slip. We were students, a line had been had. It was actually filming for a show that never made it onto TV, so I feel very privileged

that I saw an element of that for a second. So is it something like that that people experience? Are they mistakenly coming across actors, a performance of some kind, a set dressing, you know, there are all these different explanations. Does that sound like a reasonable definition of a time slip to you? Do you buy them as a concept? Are you as a historian and someone who deals in historical fact, are you taken in by that idea? Or are you immediately like, no, this is nonsense, you're smiling at me, I think I know the answer to this already. You know, I'm not even going to you know, exactly what I think about that. But are they a thing? Yes,

they are a thing. They're a literary device. Timeslips, I mean, in that they have been used since at least the beginning of the 19th century. There's one in Rip Van Winkle, for instance, Irving Washington's writing. It's a trope. It's something that comes up again and again in 19th century fantasy literature. Although one thing struck me when you're talking about the 1960s Liverpool thing. So interesting because if you were going to time slip in Liverpool history, 1960s seems like a really appropriate time to go back to. If you were going to time slip in Versailles history, the 1790s seems like a really appropriate time to go back to. You know what I mean? Like in terms of the connections that you're making with places, those time slips seem very purposeful and thought

out. No one's time slipping to like a boring Wednesday two months ago when nothing happened. Or maybe they are and they're not noticing. I take a nap. If I went somewhere boring, I'd just take a nap because I just want to take naps all the time. But no, like this wasn't boring. They were right in the heart of these things just, you know, in a different way. But 1960s Liverpool was in the heart of this whole pop culture moment, especially British and worldwide pop culture moment. But this isn't enough for them, of course. They are now, as you are about to tell us kindly once more, about to encounter

one of the most famous women in history. one of the most famous women in history. Silently we passed over the small rustic bridge which crossed a tiny ravine. The Petit Trianon was a solidly built small country house, quite different from what I expected. The long windows looking north into the English garden where we were were shuttered. There was a small terrace round the north and west sides of the house, and on the rough grass which grew quite up to the terrace, and with her back to it, a lady was sitting, holding out a paper as though to look at it at arm's length. I supposed her to be sketching and to have brought her own campstool. It seemed as though she must have been making a study of the trees,

for they grew close in front of her and there seemed to be nothing else to sketch. She saw us, and when we passed close by on her left hand, she turned and looked full at us. It was not a young face, and though rather pretty, it did not attract me. She had on a shady white hat, perched on a good deal of fair hair that fluffed around her forehead. Her light summer dress was arranged on her shoulders in handkerchief fashion, and there was a little line of either green or gold near the edge of the handkerchief, which showed me that it was over, not tucked into, her bodice, which was cut low. Her dress was long-waisted, with a good deal of fullness in the skirt, which seemed to

be short. I thought she was a tourist, but that her dress was old-fashioned and rather unusual, though people were wearing true bodices that summer. I looked straight at her, but some indescribable feeling made me turn away, annoyed at her being there. I was beginning to feel as though we were walking in a dream. The stillness and oppressiveness, so unnatural. Again, I saw the lady this time from behind, and noticed that her fissure was pale green. It was rather a relief to me that Miss Lamont did not propose to ask her whether we could enter the house from that side. With the passing of time, and with the help of extensive research, Moberly became quite convinced that the sketching lady she had seen at the Petite Trianon

was none other than Queen Marie Antoinette herself. Okay, immediately, this is making me think of the famous painting by Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun of Marie Antoinette, and we all know the painting. It's the white fluffy dress, the very sheer naturalistic dress that she famously would wear in this little cottage of hers on the edge of Versailles when she'd be feeding the baby lambs and sketching and doing all of this. This is canon in terms of what everyone knows about Marie Antoinette, that she spends time doing these little dainty, polite, rustic activities away from the grandeur of the main house and that it's all part of her performance. And it's of course what absolutely enrages the public in terms of the

French people against her, that she's not only sitting on this big pile of gold as it were, but that she acts at being poor essentially and that it's just so deeply offensive to everyone. And you can see why. I'm assuming that Charlotte and Eleanor know all of this and that when they go to Versailles, when they come to this building in particular, they are bringing that knowledge with them. They can see the painting in their heads. I can't buy this as a genuine experience. I'm usually the one who's more open to these things, I think, on this show. But this time I've drawn the line. I think this is nonsense, sadly. It's just it is interesting.

But I also question because this was never there were never questioned about this in their own lifetime, not publicly, at least because they had published under pseudonyms. So they weren't looking for fame from this. But I do sometimes wonder if they were purposely just undertaking a literary exercise. Maybe they didn't mean it to be taken so literally. Do you know what I mean? LR. So that's an interesting question, isn't it? That they publish it under pseudonyms a decade later, and they do title this account, this text, an adventure. This almost reads like not so much a genuine account of a supernatural experience, but a guidebook, a fun guidebook to going to Versailles. If you go to a castle or a heritage

site today, especially in Britain, there will be a little plaque somewhere or a guide to say to you, be careful in that tower, there's the white lady ghost or the monk who lives in the cloisters. There's always something like that because we're obsessed with ghosts, particularly in Britain. Again, it's part of our history, it's part of our culture. You can sort of expect them to be there, whether they're real or not. We invent them and we inject them into these sites. And I just wonder if that's what's happening here. It is sold as a genuine account. It did become a bestseller, but this idea of it being an adventure

is something, although I will say, because Mowberly continued to have paranormal experiences, and from what I can gather she is the main driving force behind this narrative that comes out in 1911, an adventure. Then that lends something of that we were supposed to believe this. Now, as a result, the Society for Psychical Research did get involved. They just said that this had been misinterpreted. They didn't misinterpreted very ordinary events that had happened when they were visiting Versailles. There was also a man named Michael Coleman who analyzed different editions of the book as it came out later and later.

In the later editions, he says it contains descriptions that were growing more fantastical after they had researched the places. The research is definitely measurably informing what they're writing. There also is an idea that the French poet Robert de Montesquieu held elaborate parties at Versailles at around this time, and that his guests wore period costume. So there are people who think that Mowbray and Jourdain just wandered across this party, and were basically told, here, don't come this way, This is our party. You can't come here. But I will say that in 1903, there was an old map discovered and that map showed the bridge that Moberly describes in her text that wasn't there at the time, apparently.

So that for me was interesting. But, you know, you're talking about what we could possibly have here. And I don't know, for me, it's a literary exercise. It's historical fantasy based on historical fact. It's the imaginings of two very erudite, intellectually driven women. It's not a time slip though. That's just me.

But I'm also right. I mean, I think it's a time slip in as literary device. As you said, I don't think it's a genuine experience, whatever we want to define those experiences as I don't think this falls into that category necessarily, and I'm not sure that they really intended it to. For me, I think it just captures that feeling that we all get at historic sites and you know, who doesn't want to go to a historic place and for a few seconds see the past in action, to be immersed in it? Who doesn't want to feel that they've rushed past the skirts of

Anne Boleyn or seen a knight charging on a horse through an empty landscape? Who doesn't want to have seen that? We all wish to see it and we all imagine it in those places. So I applaud the creation. This text is a thoroughly enjoyable read and it's a walk in a garden with two very imaginative women. I know exactly what you're saying, Maddie, because I recently made a TikTok about walking the same streets as the final canonical victim of Jack the Ripper, that being Mary Jane Kelly. And in that, I remember saying, I can hear the heels on the street, I can hear the horse and carts, and I can hear the coaches, but I couldn't physically hear them. I wasn't having a paranormal experience, I was having an imaginative experience. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. And I wonder if we

could speak to Moberly and Jorday now, if that would be what they would say. But thankfully, because they left us a little bit of an account, we can end with their words. And so I'm going to pass back over to you and let's give them the final say on this rather than us speculating. They can explain it far more vaguely than we can. we can. It is not our business to explain or to understand, nor do we pretend to understand what happened to put us into communication with so many true facts, which nine years ago no one could have told us of in their entirety. But, in order that others may be able to judge fairly all the circumstances, we have tried

to record exactly what happened as simply and fully as possible. Thank you for listening to After Dark and joining us in Versailles 1901 and potentially in the 1790s. We are so grateful that you come on these adventures with us to different places and hear different stories and you're informing the stories. Thank you for taking the time to write in and share your ideas for episodes with us. If you would like to share an idea for an episode, you can contact us on afterdark at historyhit.com. That's afterdark at historyhit.com. That's afterdark at historyhit.com. If you've enjoyed this episode or any of the other episodes,

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