CHAPTER III

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WHICH WE HAVE BEEN ASKED

1. One of us has to own to having powers of second sight, etc., deliberately undeveloped, and there are psychical gifts in her family. She comes of a Huguenot stock. The other is one of a large and cheerful party, being the seventh daughter and of a seventh son; her mother and grandmother were entirely Scotch, and both possessed powers of premonition accompanied by vision. Her family has always been sensitive to ghost stories in general, but mercilessly critical of particular ones of a certain type.

2. Both of us have inherited a horror of all forms of occultism. We lose no opportunity of preaching against them as unwholesome and misleading; because they mostly deal with conditions of physical excitement, and study of the abnormal and diseased, including problems of disintegrated personality which present such close analogy to those of insanity. We have the deepest distrust in, and distaste for, stories of abnormal appearances and conditions. We find narratives of _revenants_ unconvincing, and studiously avoid (as utterly lowering) all spiritualistic methods of communication with the dead. We have never had the curiosity, or the desire, to help in the investigations of psychical phenomena.

3. We belong to no new schools of thought: we are the daughters of English clergymen, and heartily hold and teach the faith of our fathers.

4. We are quite certain that neither of us exerted any conscious influence over the other; for though we saw much in common, yet each had independent vision. We should think it wrong either to exercise, or to submit to, influence of that nature. We are independent people and accustomed to stand on our own feet.

5. Our condition at the time was one of perfect health and enjoyment of a holiday in the midst of very hard work.

6. We were entirely ignorant of the history and traditions of the place, and continued our conversation about other things after every interruption. We did not even know that we were in the grounds of the Petit Trianon until we saw the house.

7. At the time Miss Lamont thought that there was something unusual about the place and was puzzled; the same idea returned to her occasionally during the following week. Miss Morison put her feeling of oppression down to some physical fatigue in herself, and so said nothing; for we did not know one another very well at that time, were in the relation of hostess and guest, and neither of us thought of enlarging on uncomfortable sensations. After some days, when Miss Morison was writing an account of the expedition, she thought it over with care, and realised that her sensations had not been caused by fatigue, but had produced fatigue. She became convinced that the oppression had been due to some unusual cause in the place itself, and instantly turned to Miss Lamont and said so. Miss Lamont agreed. We then discussed the man by the kiosk and the running man, but said that there was much besides which had caused dreamy depression. Miss Morison returned to her letter and wrote down: “We both think that the Petit Trianon is haunted.”

When we met next (three months later) we talked it over again, and finding that Miss Lamont had not seen the lady, and that Miss Morison had not seen the plough, cottage, woman, or girl, we resolved to write separate accounts of our visit in order to find the discrepancies, but with no idea of making exhaustive histories. These papers are still in existence. Miss Lamont, in her story, used the words “uncanny” and “eerie” to describe her feelings, but they did not mean that she had the least idea at the time that any of the people encountered were unreal or ghostly; this was still more true of the scenery.

8. During the next three years, Miss Lamont repeatedly took parties of girls over the Trianon, and she reported that the place was changed; but Miss Morison could not believe it, and even made maps to remind her what their old route had been. After Miss Morison had paid a second visit to Trianon in July, 1904, and had found out for herself that the place was entirely changed, it was resolved to undertake a personal research into the matter, and to say no more until we had discovered for ourselves whether our vivid recollections of the people and the place tallied with any ancient reality or not.

Up to that time we had told the story freely, with the result that we have constantly traced it inaccurately reported in histories, sometimes purporting to have come from other sources, and even in newspapers and small periodicals. After research had begun to yield interesting results, we were obliged to be silent, finding that publicity prevented our getting at evidence.

We are very busy people, and have refused to let the incident take a prominent place in our time, interests, or fancy, though from the first we agreed to lose no given opportunity of elucidation. The evidence has, therefore, come slowly; but the manner in which it has come has often been a source of surprise. If a helpful person came in our way, we showed the whole thing: if we were casually asked if certain reports were true, we confirmed them (when we could), but said nothing further. We were anxious to wait until we had exhausted every possible means of satisfying ourselves as to the exact amount of interest attaching to the story; and it was several years before we had to believe that we had seen the place as it had been a hundred years before, and as it had not been, in several important particulars, since 1835. The research had been undertaken with the idea of _disproving_ the suggestion that anything unusual had happened, for we were resolved not to deceive ourselves or anyone else, if personal industry could prevent it.

9. In the course of the last four or five years, Miss Lamont has searched for evidence bearing on the story (either by word or picture) in the Archives nationales, in the library, museum, Mairie, and Archives departmentales at Versailles: also in the libraries Nationale, Hôtel de Ville, and in the Musée Carnavalet, and in the Conservatoire de Musique at Paris. She has poked about in French book and print shops, and must have seen a large number of the originals of the published plans, illustrations, and accounts of the place. We believe that there is not likely to be any striking documentary evidence other than we have dealt with.

10. The historical interest of the story seems to depend on the truth of the tradition that the Queen went to Trianon on October 5th, 1789. We can find no negative evidence of this, but extremely little which is both affirmative and trustworthy. Madame Campan’s short statement remains the basis of other people’s longer and more detailed narratives. General La Fayette’s full account of the day was burned by his wife during the Terror. Count Fersen’s memoirs were also partly destroyed. The Abbé Bossuet had Madame de Tourzel’s careful history of that day burned; but in the published memoirs she says that she was in residence that day at Versailles, as _Gouvernante des enfants de France_; she does not mention having gone to Trianon, as implied by Marion’s story, but it is still possible. Most French historians now adopt Madame Campan’s statement, but (in the words of one of them) “with some doubts.” It is worth mentioning that many later historians insert the fact (though it is not recorded by Madame Campan) that “the Queen was accompanied by a single valet.” Is this a tradition?

11. We do not believe in anniversaries in the usual sense. We have tested both our days (August 10th and January 2nd), going, as far as possible, under the same circumstances, without any result at the Petit Trianon. Yet it is possible that if we entered into an act of memory, it may well have been first made on the terrible 10th of August, 1792, though the memory itself was occupied (in the central place) with the events of October 5th, 1789. The dress of the messenger was more suitable for October than August. At the same time Vaudreuil left France the previous summer and cannot have sat in the Trianon woods after the taking of the Bastille, July 14th, 1789.

There is an incoherence about both the large and small incidents which seems to require combination within a single mind, and the only mind to which they could all have been present would have been that of the Queen. Our theory of 1901, that we had entered within the working of the Queen’s memory when she was still alive, is now enlarged. We think that the two first visits to Trianon (August 10th, 1901, and January 2nd, 1902) were part of one and the same experience; that quite mechanically we must have seen it as it appeared to her more than a hundred years ago, and have heard sounds familiar, and even something of words spoken, to her then.

Having been for two most trying years confined to Paris, and (excepting for a visit to St. Cloud) through two hot summers, and being in the midst of the tumultuous horrors of the great tenth of August, she may, as the day wore on, and she grew more used to her miserable position in the Hall of the Assembly—where she sat for eighteen hours—have fancied (in memory) the grounds at Trianon more spacious than they really were; and have seen the trees, as one sees trees in recollection, like a picture without life, depth, or movement. In rêverie her mind may have wandered from the familiar sight of the two Bersys at the gate, to the little vision of two men gathering up garden rubbish into a cart (which we know happened on October 5th, 1789, as well as one day during the last winter she spent at Versailles), and which—without any reason—had remained in her mind. She may have thought of the place as it was during that year of the meeting of the States-General when the grounds were, for the first time, thrown completely open to the public, and intruding strangers could be seen there. Or she may have gone back to the earlier years and the pleasant afternoons when the band played on the _pelouse_ in front of the house, and to the excitement of acting in the little theatre with her special friends, perhaps letting herself realise the unkindness of the pressure put upon her by Vaudreuil to have the acting of the _Mariage de Figaro_ authorised.

How naturally the thought of him would have formed one picture in her mind with the memory of the last scene, when she was hurriedly summoned from Trianon, never to return! For she may very likely have supposed all that she was suffering to have been more exclusively the result of her own former mistakes than could have been just, and have been going over them in her mind.

On our return to Paris on the day of the original visit to Trianon, when undoubtedly her image was uppermost in our thoughts, and the recollection of her terrible end was hardly to be endured, the recurring consolation to Miss Morison was, “She has forgiven it all now, and knows the true meaning of the French Revolution on both its good and bad sides, and also the exact proportion of her own part in it.” But the act of memory which had so strangely and mechanically clung to the place, with which we had, perhaps, been associated in the grounds, was incoherent and pictorial. It was oppressive to us because it represented a more limited view of those times than after a hundred years we have learnt to take of them, and was far more limited than any thought the Queen can have about them now.

12. Our answer to the suggestion that we were in a state of suspended consciousness is that our conversation and sense of the quiet continuity of things remained unbroken, and, in spite of oppression, believed ourselves to be particularly wide awake and on the alert. When we were first asked whether the man from the side building was real or not, we laughed at the idea of any unreality; all was so quietly natural that we are still uncertain whether the tall gardener belonged to another century or not. It has taken us nine years to work out all the details which bear witness to the strangeness of what we saw and did, and to justify us in our present conviction, that from the moment of our leaving the lane until we emerged into the avenue we were on enchanted ground.

13. The theory of coincidences would have to be considerably strained to cover more than twenty points quickly succeeding one another.

14. In the municipal records kept in the Library at Versailles there is a list of fêtes in the grounds. Miss Lamont has examined it carefully. There had been one for which people had been dressed in Louis XVI. costume in June, 1901, but there is a note to say that it had been confined to the Hameau. There was none in August, 1901. We know that since 1901 there have been fêtes in the grounds with scenes in character, so that other people may have come across them; an examination of the records as to dates would probably reveal such possibilities.

In the same catalogue notices are made of photographs taken of historical groups at fêtes; there had been some in connection with the June fête, and “Otto” was mentioned by name. On enquiry Otto wrote that he had not taken “l’ensemble de la fête, c’était des groupes de jeunes filles, et des dames séparément.” “Dufayel” took pains to look the matter up, and Miss Lamont and one of his employées went all through his lists and books of specimen photographs, and found that he had not taken any photographs at Trianon between 1900 and 1906. He recommended enquiries at Pierre Petit’s, as Petit would have Lafayette’s as well as other photographers’ pictures. No photographs of the scenes we wanted were to be heard of there, and Pierre Petit wrote afterwards that his only photographs at Trianon had been taken in 1900 for the Exhibition.

It has been suggested to us that our story can be explained by people posing for a cinematograph in order to register the scene of the messenger running to the Queen, whilst something further has been said of a girl sweeping up leaves as forming part of the group. Naturally, from the first, we had thought of some such explanation, but had rejected it as insufficient. We did not see the man running; we only heard him; then he suddenly appeared, standing close to us, and addressed us personally, earnestly, and with excitement. As a scene it would have been nothing; we saw no Queen, and no girl sweeping up leaves. He remained by us until we turned away from him. The cinematograph theory does not explain how it was that he came over and stood with his back against rocks of considerable size piled on one another, when rocks have not been there for nearly a hundred years, though we find that they had been placed in that part of the garden in 1788. Nor does it explain how it was that both before and during the man’s coming we were both gazing at a kiosk which is not now in existence, though both rocks and kiosk we found out years after to have made part of the original scenery in 1789. Not a word is hinted about the little bridge over the ravine, and the little cascade close by, all being essentials both to our, and, we believe, to the original story. We suspect the explanation to be simply that we had not talked about them at first, not knowing their significance till later, and so they have not got into any widely-spread story. We know from the archives that the streams were not cleared from leaves after October 4th, 1789, and that “Mariamne” is only mentioned as having been paid for work in the grounds in _1783_, as one of several children so occupied.

If masqueraders were posing as guards at the _porte du jardinier_, the cinematograph idea does not explain the reappearance of the old cottage close by, in its former position as placed in Mique’s map of 1783. If the part of the Queen was being acted, what of the orchard of trees we saw her looking into, not now in existence; also, what is the account of the barrier at our right hand screening off the present view and exactly answering to the old enclosure of the Jeu de Bague?

The cinematograph does not explain the man who opened the great door of the chapel, easily banging it behind him as he came out; for in 1907 the people living in the place believed that it had not been opened since the days of Louis XVI., and the keeper of the key knew that even the door of the landing had not been opened for fifteen years. How was the wall lowered, which now largely hides the great door from the terrace, and makes it necessary to go down one flight of steps and up another, whereas we saw the man coming along a level, in full view, from the moment of his opening the door until he reached us standing on the terrace outside the window of the _antichambre_?[77]

A cinematograph would not explain the reappearance of the old wood in all its denseness; nor the rapid disappearance of the cart and horse in an open field; nor the music, which, six years later, was found to be a piecing together of eighteenth century operas.

No amount of masqueraders explains to us the ease with which we dismissed from sight and hearing the usual August crowds in the middle of a fine afternoon, and the impossibility of harmonising our recollections of the scenery with anything but the old maps and records. Certainly none of the persons we met were being photographed at the moment, or we must have seen it; and had scenery been erected for the purpose, we must have observed such large artificial arrangements; there would probably have been sightseers; and, presumably, the fact of anything so considerable would have been in the catalogue.

Even should it be proved that a cinematograph had been taken that very day, it would not be a possible explanation to us. The groups we saw were small and isolated from one another. There was the deepest silence everywhere, and no sunshine; whilst the light was the worst possible for a picture, for the sky was overcast. And though whilst we stood there an indefinable air of strangeness dropped over everything, including the tall forest trees, it was not of a kind that could be accounted for by fictitious scenery. The people moved and spoke as usual, but their words were extraordinarily difficult to catch.

In September, 1910, the question of such representation was settled by an enquiry of the authorities. No leave to take cinematographs had been granted in August, 1901. The fête had been on June 27th, and the photographs of it had been taken sufficiently near the time to be published in the July number of _Versailles Illustré_. Not one of the pictures in this number is in the least like what, we saw either in the matter of subjects, costumes, or places. The inaccuracy is so great, that in an article in the same magazine the scene of the messenger coming to the Queen is transferred from the grotto to the Hameau, though the sole authority for the tradition places it at the grotto.

15. During the last five or six years much research into topographical and archæological details has been made by the newly-formed “Société des amis de Versailles,” probably from the same archives examined by Miss Lamont, so that many points of likeness to what we saw may soon reappear. Old music with old-fashioned instruments is now frequently introduced at summer fêtes at Trianon. Even the water arrangements in our part of the garden seem likely to be altered, and the little cascade may yet be seen again. At the beginning of 1910 Miss Lamont saw engineers searching for the first and second _sources_, and in the following autumn she found iron grids placed on the ground near the positions we had allotted for them; but nothing had been altered up to September, 1910. We are most curious to know whether the restorations will be exactly according to our recollections of the scenery or not.

16. Stories retailing just so much of our own as we had first talked about are constantly being repeated to us; some with the little additions we can recognise as our own early surmises; generally with the omission of points we did not know to be interesting until later; and often with all the muddles arising from the attempt to shorten a long story, with a few unauthorised additions and explanations thrown in. These stories are told to us as being the property of persons we have never heard of. We have constantly enquired on what authority they rest, and, if there is any at all, we have not infrequently been able to discover the track they have followed from us back to us again.

17. We do not think that deception explains it. If we were deceived in one, two, or three points, could we have been in all? For out of them we have been able to reconstruct the story of Trianon in many tiny details, the truth of which we have had to discover for ourselves.

18. We are constantly asked why we, of all people, should have had such an adventure? We are equally puzzled; and have come to think that it may not be so unusual as it seems. We can imagine that people, even if they suspected anything unusual (which they might easily not do), may have thought it best not to follow it up. The peculiarity in our case may simply have been that two persons were equally able to consider the circumstances, and did do so: that we found there was available evidence, and that we had the opportunity for obtaining it.

19. Certain unusual conditions were present.

(1) Two people in broad daylight, good health, and normal conditions, were equally able to bear witness to the facts, yet not in the manner of thought transference between each other, for they did not see alike in every point.

(2) Some of the facts were so small that no historical knowledge, however dim, could have suggested them.

(3) They concerned such well known historical personages that much documentary proof as to the reality of the incidents is accessible; yet, in some particulars, they are of such a nature as to be incapable of reproduction by any tricks of scenic effects; and some of the evidence found in the archives had, to all appearance, not been disturbed since its collection by the National Assembly until Miss Lamont in 1904 undid the old fastenings that had stuck together through age and disuse: for instance—much of the evidence about the gardeners taken from the wages book.

E. M. F. L.

_September, 1910._