ID | #1656519459 |
Added | Wed, 29/06/2022 |
Author | July N. |
Sources | |
Phenomena | |
Status | Fact
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Initial data
If there is one factor that makes people believe in their story even after more than 100 years, it is their reputation. Both Charlotte Ann Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain were highly educated Englishwomen with impeccable reputations.
They weren't liars, and both ladies didn't gain anything by making up this story. In fact, it could ruin their reputation for a long time.
In fact, both women were so alarmed by the incident that they didn't even talk about it with each other until they returned to England a week later. They knew that their reputation was at stake, and, coming from conservative English academic families, any conversation about a "strange" incident could become controversial and scandalous not only for their careers, but also for their families.
And when they did discuss this issue, they decided to write separate stories about what they had experienced, and then compare the records. They even visited the Palace of Versailles several times to identify the "sights" and "strange buildings" they found, and above all to get more information about the "beautifully dressed woman" they saw painting in the garden in front of Petit Trianon, the castle of French Queen Marie Antoinette.
But they didn't find any evidence of what they saw that day. It seemed to them that they saw "ghosts" from a bygone era that disappeared as suddenly as they appeared. Not knowing what to do and what to believe, they decided to publish their impressions in a book called "Adventure in 1911" under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Morison and Francis Lamont.
It was only after their death in 1937 that people found out about the real authors. As they feared, their impeccable reputation caused even more controversy and huge criticism, and to this day no one knows exactly what the two women actually experienced on that hot August day in Versailles.
The Palace of Versailles in France is a magnificent example of 17th-century architecture, spread over 2,000 acres of gardens and fountains. Petit Trianon is a small castle on the territory of the palace, which King Louis XVI presented to his new wife Queen Marie Antoinette as her personal refuge. The castle was a "place of solitude" for Marie Antoinette, where she could hide from the prying eyes of courtiers, nobles and diplomats.
Petit Trianon is the place where the story of Anna Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain begins. After visiting the Palace of Versailles, they decided to take a walk along the Petit Trianon. Somehow they missed the right turn and ended up in an unfamiliar alley.
They continued walking and met some strange people on the way. They saw high-ranking officials dressed in long gray-green coats with small triangular hats. They saw a house with a woman and a girl standing in the doorway; the woman was holding out a jug to the girl, and the girl was reaching for it - and yet the scene was lifeless, like in a painting.
They talked to a gentleman with a "strange" French accent, dressed in an old "suit", and with a couple of guards dressed in "strange" clothes for that time. Both of them felt some kind of "restlessness" or "immobility in the air"; as Moberly writes in his book:
"Everything suddenly began to look unnatural, and therefore unpleasant; even the trees seemed to have become flat and lifeless, like a tree woven in a tapestry. There were no effects of light and shadow, and the wind did not sway the trees."
A winding path led Moberly and Jourdain across the village bridge, and they finally reached the Petit Trianon. The biggest surprise was waiting for them there.
They saw a woman in a light summer dress, with long hair under a white hat, sitting on the grass in front of the castle and sketching. Moberly was confused and thought that the woman was a tourist who had come to sketch the gardens. But on closer inspection, she turned out to look like Marie Antoinette, after she remembered her portrait that she had seen at the exhibition.
The women were deeply moved by what had happened and hurried back, making their way through the palace gardens. On the way back, they discovered that the strangely dressed officials were missing, the woman with the jug was also gone, and the village bridge they were climbing no longer existed.
It seemed that everything that was happening was a dream.
They were convinced that what they saw that day was something unreal. Returning back, they did a little research and found a map of 1783, on which the disappeared places were marked. The bridge, the cottage, and the garden where Marie Antoinette had sketched were exactly where they had seen them.
In 1908, Moberly and Jourdain also found the diary of Madame Eloff, the queen's dressmaker, who sewed the very dress in which they saw Marie Antoinette that day.
They went back many times and tried to find the same path, but without success. In the end, they decided to write about their experiences in a book under pseudonyms, as they did not want to tarnish their reputation, which they had earned over decades of teaching.
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