odditiesThe Public Domain Review1901 · Versailles, France
Two Oxford women claimed they glimpsed Marie Antoinette's memory of 1789 while visiting Versailles in 1901
In 1901 Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, two Oxford women, walked in the gardens at Versailles and felt an eerie, unreal atmosphere. They saw figures in old clothing and a servant delivering a message. Jourdain later learned the visit fell on the anniversary of the 1792 storming of the Tuileries, and they concluded they had entered Marie Antoinette's memory of a 1789 mob. They spent nine years checking details such as clothing colours and gardening records, and published their account, An Adventure, in 1911. The claim was rejected by the Society for Psychical Research and remains a famous haunting controversy.
The case shows how a vivid personal experience can be defended with archival detail, and how readers can get drawn into a debate about evidence. It is a classic example of the psychology of conviction and the limits of eyewitness memory.
Tales of hauntings and time slips are common in the literature of psychical research. Later critics such as Lucille Iremonger argued against the women's account, and the affair shows how such claims spread through readers' own research.
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