Customer Reviews

Ghosts of Trianon

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Let me start by saying I just came home from Paris where Ipicked up this book in French at Versailles and read it late everysingle night! If you want it in English, amazon.uk will special order it. I first saw this as a movie on PBS, "Mrs. Morison's Ghosts," about 20 years ago and never forgot it. At the time I didnt know if it was fiction or nonfiction and couldn't find the book because the title was different and the authors did not use their real names for the first edition. This book, published first in 1911 and many times since, was a best seller in England and France. "les Fantomes de Trianon" or "Ghosts of the Trianon" not only includes the original story, but the painstakingly detailed research the authors did to track down and authenticate everything they had seen, their three subsequent visits to Versailles, and various analyses of their experience, which amounted to stepping across a time warp. As my version points out, mankind has conquered the speed of sound and the speed of light, so why shouldn't we someday be able to break through the barrier of time? I found both the book and the movie thrilling and thought-provoking. This story has not had the publicity it deserves.

By the way, I've hung out in the gardens of Versailles on two occasions so far, and both times there were repairs in the area of the Petit Trianon, so I wasn't able to see if I could duplicate their experience. If I ever do, I'll let you all know!

A thorough and absorbing re-examination of the curious story of two proper English ladies - Miss Moberly and Miss Jordaine - who went for a stroll one hot summer day in 1900 and came back convinced that they had traveled through time and seen Marie Antoinette. This is one of the world's great, unresolved ghost stories, and this slim volume does a very in-depth examination of exactly what these ladies may have seen and exactly how their story has been dealt with down through the decades. Thought provoking and very satisfying for the reader of true life ghost stories. I literally searched for this book for years and finally finding it was well worth my long, long anticipation. Highly recommended.

Well, I adore the Petit Trianon and stumbled on this story many years ago. My library had only one old copy and, at the time, it was nowhere else to be found, out of print. I actually copied the whole thing on my battered printer before returning it to the library. On a subsequent visit to the Petit Trianon, I actually tried to duplicate their route, just for the thrill of it. Of course nothing happened beyond the ordinary...but one can always dream.

Whatever they saw or thought they saw, their researches into the 1783 state of the gardens, gardeners' house, cottage, grottos and of the little mansion in relation to the Jeu de Bague and the Chapel (particularly as drawn in this book) are all wrong. A simple look at Mique's maps, available online and in other books, or a study of the Petit Trianon's plans will clarify that.

A disconcerting thing for me was "Miss Jourdain's" last visit. She claims that just as she was leaving the same old depression, accompanied by the same change in the surroundings they had experienced in 1901 began to happen...but she immediately decided to stick to her plan, and left (?) - in other words, while she admits a sense of awe at what seems to be happening again, she abandons the chance to experience it again, as in 1901, so as not to miss her tram! Very baffling, considering that they'd spent years trying to understand, if not re-live, their "time-warp" adventure and revisiting and researching Trianon. Never mind! Though I stopped taking it seriously after reading of Miss Jourdain's casual dismissal of this last chance-given opportunity, I'll always enjoy the story.

For an understanding of the gardens circa 1783, I recommend "Views and Plans of the Petit Trianon at Versailles" - essentially an album of views and watercolors Marie Antoinette was in the habit of presenting to important visitors as a souvenir.

Also, "Marie Antoinette and the Last Garden at Versailles" - recently published.

Both books have Mique's maps, and are available in Amazon.

Dianne Hunter's Review
Two British women recount their separate experiences of a time warp during an initial visit as tourists to Versailles in August 1901, and a follow-up visit by one of them the following January: Moberley saw Marie Antoinette sketching on the Trianon lawn; Jourdain saw two women passing a jug between them on the steps outside the door of a stone cottage; both women saw several members of the Trianon staff from 1783 and 1789, and Jourdain heard 18th-century music, and a crowd of people passing in rustling clothes. The 18th-century men spoke to the two British women, who subsequently undertook scholarly research that indicated to them that as tourists they had entered into Marie Antoinette's mind while she was suffering in the Revolutionary Hall of Assembly in Paris and remembering back to happier days at the Trianon. They explain why what they saw could not have been masqueraders, and answer questions that were posed to them about their adventure between the time it first happened, and 1910, when they published their story. There is an interesting contrast in reading this between its orderly, rational tone and the improbable conclusion to which the reasoning leads. The idea of transmission of trauma across time seems to inhere in the story.

MISS MORISON'S GHOSTS, a (1981) film made for UK TV, gives the background of Moberley and Jourdain as players in the struggle to get St. Hugh's College for women recognized as a legitimate part of Oxford University. Moberley was principal of the women's college, Jourdain was vice principal in the process of taking over the role "Miss Morison" [i.e. Moberley (played by Wendy Hiller)] did not want to relinquish. This film emphasizes class and status rivalries, and gives the impression that Moberley undermined Jourdain by involving her in dubious claims and a scandalous dispute with psychical researchers. In order to further the cause of women's education at Oxford, in this film Moberley mentions late in the game the possibility that she and Jourdain may have seen not ghosts but masqueraders at a party given by an "exquisite" who lived near the Trianon. In this film, as St. Hugh's gains formal recognition by Oxford University, Jourdain gets forced out as a principal.

Moberley, being superseded as principal of St. Hugh's, may have vaguely identified with the idea of Marie Antoinette's situation in 1789. Jourdain did not see Marie Antoinette. The idea of entering into the Queen's memory seems to come from Moberley in the book.

The literary critic Terry Castle interprets their adventure as a madness-for-two expressing unconscious lesbianism. Marie Antoinette is a lesbian obsession, says Castle. Her legend was a topos for homosexual pathos and romance in late-nineteenth-century European literature.

Wow! I can't decide whether I believe this story, what a cool mystery. Either it's a hoax written by two dried up old academic spinsters trying to bring a little excitement into their lives and get attention, or they really did travel back in time somehow. Both women admitted to having a history of seeing ghosts and psychic phenomenon. I love true time travel stories, they're so rare. The concept of time travel is something I could easily develop an obsession with.

This book has whet my appetite for more of these kinds of stories.

A magical walk in the castle's park, where two English spinsters, schoolmistresses, discovered an incredible view of what Versailles was before the French Revolution. Amazingly authentic and truthful. I loved it and I think everyone who loves France should read it, if you can find it!

Imagine two women strolling through the gardens of the palace of Versailles and losing their way along one of the paths and stepping back in time through some weird and ghostly time warp. This book is their explanation of what happened and what they saw. To believe or not believe: that is the question.

Either it's an incredibly elaborate hoax, or they were mistaken and there's a perfectly natural explanation for it all and the people and things they saw weren't ghostly at all, OR they really did walk back in time and the people and things they encountered were from Marie Antoinette's world shortly before she was arrested by the encroaching mob from Paris, and later tried and beheaded. The two women to whom this extraordinary episode happened wrote that they believed that they had entered, if not exactly back in time, then at least back into Marie Antoinette's mind and memory of this time which was the last few moments before her whole world fell apart.

This fall (10/5, I believe) it will be one hundred years to the day that Moberly and Jourdain saw the Ghosts of Versailles. I expect to be there around then and if I get a chance to lurk around the Petit Trianon and see anything, I'll add to this review. I thought I'd point this out to anyone else planning to be in Paris at the time. Ghosts seem to like me, the chances are good. Watch for my next review on The Days of the French Revolution, another 5-star.

I bought this because the story combined two things I don't often see together: History & the paranormal, in an account simply written by the original people who experienced an incident. So, when I received the book I was more than ready to rip into it. However, when I reached the third (maybe even the fourth) long passage in French, and discovered that there was absolutely nothing in the notes or any index to translate them, that was it. I closed the book & I won't waste another second on it. I'm fluent in Spanish & can read Italian, so I can muddle my way through, but there were things I simply could not understand. And I find it exasperating that I should have to consult something, other than the book I've already purchased, in order to find out what I'm reading.

Maybe the publisher didn't want to mass market the book; maybe it's meant for a specific audience. But I really find it hard to believe (nor can I imagine) that a book like this would be published so that it could only be read - & thus truly enjoyed - by those who fluently speak a particular language.

Note to the editor/publisher: Adding an appendix to provide translations really won't damage the integrity of the original writing.

After months of searching I found the book I had been looking for. An Adventure, which is in this book, Ghosts of the Trianon. I am incredibly happy they printed this.