Everything You Should Know About The Moberly-Jourdain Incident

for your eyes only

A century ago, a Versailles time traveling incident made headlines around the world. Two academics named Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain experienced a strange event on a casual stroll through the gardens of Versailles in 1901. The women spent the next decade researching every detail from their trip, finally concluding that they experienced a time slip. Since then, many have seen Moberly and Jourdain as real-life time travelers.

Moberly and Jourdain's book, republished as An Adventure: A True Story About Time Travel, recounts every detail of the incident, supported by exhaustive research into the clothing, layout, and people at Versailles in 1789. Some of the details they recall simply don't appear in most history books. And with all the fantastic stories about Versailles, it's not hard to imagine mysterious things still might occur at the palace.

Genevieve Carlton

A Stroll In The Versailles Gardens Turned Eerie

On August 10, 1901, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain went for a walk in the gardens of Versailles. As they strolled, the two women went down an empty lane, searching for the Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. When the two found themselves lost in the woods, they asked a pair of gardeners for directions. They walked past a woman and girl in a cottage, a pair of guards wearing capes, and a man at a pavilion. They spoke to a gentleman with a strange accent and were scolded away from a chapel.


Photo: Jean-Eugène Durand/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

The winding path took Moberly and Jourdain over a rustic bridge and through an arbor, then across a meadow with long grass. Finally, they reached a lady sitting on a terrace sketching. The entire walk struck both women as completely ordinary, yet also eerie. Moberly wrote that "the stillness and oppressiveness were so unnatural." It was almost as though "we were walking in a dream." It was only later the women wondered if they had slipped through time.

Moberly And Jourdain Compared Notes And Were Shocked To Realize They Had Seen Different Things

After their journey, Moberly asked Jourdain, "Do you think that the Petit Trianon is haunted?" Jourdain instantly responded, "Yes, I do." Both women described a feeling of depression and anxiety, beginning when they wandered down the path. Moberly was shocked to learn that Jourdain didn't see a woman sketching on the terrace, even though Moberly swore they sat only a few feet from her.


Photo: Swedish National Heritage Board/Wikimedia Commons/No Restrictions

At that point, the two women independently wrote accounts of their journey and started researching the history of Versailles to learn more about what happened. They conducted research, as Moberly said, "with the idea of disproving the suggestion that anything unusual had happened." They eventually published their findings using pseudonyms. The publisher explained, "The ladies whose adventure is described in these pages have for various reasons preferred not to disclose their real names, but the signatures appended to the Preface are the only fictitious words in the book."

One Woman Wore An Outfit Made In 1789 For Marie Antoinette

One mysterious lady baffled Moberly and Jourdain. Why did only Moberly see her when they both walked directly past the woman? Moberly pored over her recollection, recalling "her light-colored skirt, white fichu, and straw hat," and wondered if the woman might have been Marie Antoinette herself.


Photo: Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

In 1908, Moberly and Jourdain found the journal of Madame Eloffe, the queen's dressmaker. Eloffe wrote that in 1789, Marie Antoinette had few dresses made. However, that summer Eloffe made two green silk bodices, large white fichus (a pashmina tied over the bodice), and a slightly yellow skirt. "This agrees exactly with the dress seen in 1901," Moberly reported.

Il était temps de présenter ces faits sous forme de rapport circonstancié.

Moberly Heard A Ghostly Tune Dated To The 1780s

When Moberly returned to the Petit Trianon in January 1902, she found herself again lost in the woods. As she tried to find her way back, she heard "faint music as of a band, not far off." She moved closer, catching the "very light music with a good deal of repetition in it." When she returned, she wrote down 12 bars of music from memory. In 1907, Moberly showed the bars to a musical expert. He determined that they dated from about 1780.


Photo: Pierre Cléreau/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Moberly also interviewed caretakers at Versailles who said no bands were allowed to play in the park during winter. Regardless, bands were only allowed to play in one location, and visitors couldn't possibly hear them from the Petit Trianon.

The Grounds Looked Completely Different When The Women Visited Again

Moberly and Jourdain recalled many simple details about their trip to the Petit Trianon. They walked across a "small rustic bridge which crossed a tiny waterfall." They spotted a "small circular building having pillars and a low surrounding wall." They passed through "the French garden, part of which was walled in by trees." And Moberly wandered through woods when she returned in 1902.


Photo: Unknown/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

However, many of these places did not exist in the 1900s. In fact, when Moberly went back to the Petit Trianon, "she could never again find the places, not even the wood in which she had been." The women eventually found a 1783 map that showed the missing sites. The bridge, the pavilion, and the garden all appeared exactly where Moberly and Jourdain had seen them.

A Simple Plow Connected The Incident To The 1780s

Both women remembered seeing a plow on the ground near a pair of gardeners. The plain instrument only stood out after they learned in 1905 that there was no plow at the Petit Trianon. In fact the land had not been plowed in decades. However, they read in Le Petit Trianon by Gustav Desjardins that Louis XVI kept an old plow at the Petit Trianon for years. It was sold during the French Revolution, along with the king's other belongings.


Photo: Boris Orel/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Moberly and Jourdain eventually located a picture of Louis XVI's old plow in 1907, and believed it identical to the one they saw in 1901.

A Portrait Of The Queen Helped Moberly Identify The Lady

Moberly did not identify the "lady sitting on a low seat on the grass" for a full year. As she wrote in An Adventure, "In 1902 I saw Wertmüller's picture of the Queen, which alone of all the many portraits... brought back the face I had seen; for the face was more square and the nose shorter."


Photo: Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Moberly soon learned Marie Antoinette's companion Madame Campon considered that portrait the only picture that looked like the queen, "though other people thought it did not do her justice." For Moberly, the image confirmed her suspicion that she and Jourdain experienced a time slip.

Vous allez très vite. Je ne suis pas le rythme.

The Women Trespassed By Marie Antoinette's Chapel And A Porter Told Them To Leave

As Moberly and Jourdain stood on a terrace, a young man came outside to tell them to leave. In 1905, the women located the house, but it was "in ruinous condition." They also learned it was a former chapel, but the door they had seen open easily in 1901 was completely sealed shut. "The guide said that the door had not been opened in memory of any man there: not since it was used by the Court."


Photo: Eugène Atget/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

The man warned the women away from the queen's private entrance to the chapel. Moberly and Jourdain later learned that "since 1870 the gardens and terraces have been made public until dark, and people walk about freely." However, in 1789 a name named Lagrange was the porter in charge of the queen's private door. Moberly and Jourdain believed the man they met was Lagrange.

Two Of The People They Saw in 1901 Were With Marie Antoinette On October 5, 1789

On October 5, 1789, Marie Antoinette sat outside the Petit Trianon. Nearby, the gardener's daughter picked up leaves. Then a young man ran up with a letter in his hand, warning the queen a mob was approaching from Paris and she needed to race back to the main palace.


Photo: PMRMaeyaert/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA-4.0

Moberly and Jourdain connected the girl's first-hand account of the scene to the young girl Jourdain saw standing outside a cottage. Her name was Marion, and she was 14 in 1789. When she grew up, she married the head gardener at Versailles. Marion wrote that the messenger was called De Bretagne, and Moberly and Jourdain found the same name in a court almanac from 1783. He would have been 22 in 1789. The women believe the man who ran up to them and spoke in a Breton accent may have been the same one from Marion's account.

Hercule Poirot a écrit:

Vous allez très vite. Je ne suis pas le rythme.

run hercule run

Moberly And Jourdain Disagreed About What Happened

The women did not agree about what they experienced. Moberly wondered if they somehow slipped through time and walked the grounds of Versailles as they had appeared in 1789. Jourdain, on the other hand, proposed that they had actually slipped into Marie Antoinette's memories from 1789.


Photo: Eugène Atget/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

The women visited Versailles on August 10, 1901, and later learned that on August 10, 1792, the royal palace in Paris was sacked, and the royal family was seized and imprisoned. The women gradually became convinced that they had seen Versailles as Marie Antoinette remembered it on October 5, 1789, when she fled from a mob. The clothing, the people, and the grounds all appeared as they had in October 1789. The women concluded that "we had entered within the working of the Queen's memory when she was still alive."

to be continued

The Guards Wore Royal Uniforms No Longer Used In France

Moberly and Jourdain remembered meeting with two officials wearing three-cornered hats and long green coats. When the women asked for directions, the guards coldly directed them down a winding path. As the women conducted research, they learned from someone working at Versailles in 1904 that it was "impossible" to see those uniforms, because green was a royal livery color no longer used in France.


Photo: David Gustave/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

They later learned in 1908 that between May 1789 and October 1789, Versailles was open to the public, and people streamed in to see the palace. Moberly and Jourdain concluded that the "mechanical and disengaged" manner of the guards may have been because during that period, "Trianon officials must have learnt to treat strangers with cold politeness, but probably [resented] the necessity."

Skeptics Wondered If The Women Wandered Onto A Movie Set

As Moberly and Jourdain researched their strange visit to Versailles, skeptics wondered if they had actually witnessed a reenactment, or in the words of the 1900s, "people posing for a cinematograph in order to register the scene of the messenger running to the Queen." However, Moberly and Jourdain dismissed that suggestion. A reenactment could not explain the major changes to the grounds, like the bridge, the pavilion, or the woods.



Moberly and Jourdain also pointed out, "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 in 1910, the women learned from authorities at Versailles that there were been no cinematographs filming on the grounds in August 1901.

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Très intéressant, merci

Oui, l'existence d'univers parallèles ne fait aucun doute pour moi.

Chakton a écrit:

Oui, l'existence d'univers parallèles ne fait aucun doute pour moi.

coud be another case
https://medium.com/@true-historian/the-mysterious-case-of-three-boys-traveling-to-medieval-england-66d510240923

and they read us