Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Madeline Moore came into
Speaker 1: the world. She was born in talent Court, a small
Speaker 1: village in France, where she lived with her three brothers
Speaker 1: and one sister. Her mother died giving birth to the
Speaker 1: youngest child, and her father abandoned the family soon after,
Speaker 1: leaving them to be cared for by the state. As
Speaker 1: a result, Madeleine grew up in the foster system, but
Speaker 1: as she got older she worked as a servant on
Speaker 1: local farms. Her story doesn't end there, though. In her
Speaker 1: teenage years, conflict of did across Europe, sending countries around
Speaker 1: her into a Second World War. To find safety, Madeline
Speaker 1: fled to Orleone, where she found refuge inside a convent.
Speaker 1: During her time there, the war claimed two of her brothers,
Speaker 1: but her remaining siblings, her brother Renee and her sister Nancy,
Speaker 1: both remained close for years to come. In fact, Madeleine
Speaker 1: would later work in a factory just one town over
Speaker 1: from Nancy. All the way up till nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: That's when she met and married a railway worker and
Speaker 1: the two of them moved to Algeria to start fresh,
Speaker 1: and Madeleine never moved back to France after that. She
Speaker 1: lived out the rest of her life with her husband
Speaker 1: in the Mediterranean. It's a nice story, isn't it. A
Speaker 1: life that began with tragedy, only to be torn apart
Speaker 1: by wars, ends up full of peace and tranquility. But
Speaker 1: even after all of that, Madeline's story doesn't end there.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was just beginning in her eighties. Madeleine
Speaker 1: had to return to her hometown in talon Court in
Speaker 1: two thousand six to renew her I D card and
Speaker 1: secure her government pension. She brought with her the usual
Speaker 1: documentation like her birth certificate and her passport and presented
Speaker 1: them in what should have been a pretty simple process.
Speaker 1: There was just one problem. Madeline Moore had already claimed
Speaker 1: her government pension. Her checks were sent to Saint Etienne,
Speaker 1: her home of the past twenty years. Obviously, our Madeline
Speaker 1: was confused and possibly even upset. Sure she had lived
Speaker 1: in Algeria for nearly four decades, but she was the
Speaker 1: real Madeline Moore she had the paperwork to prove it.
Speaker 1: Of course, the authorities assumed it was just a simple
Speaker 1: case of identity theft. Someone else was pretending to be
Speaker 1: Madeleine in order to claim her pension as their own.
Speaker 1: They just needed to spend some time investigating it to
Speaker 1: sort it all out, and then all the confusion would
Speaker 1: go away. Except it didn't. When this new Madaline arrived
Speaker 1: from her home in Saint Etienne, she produced the exact
Speaker 1: same documentation, a birth certificate, I D card, even old
Speaker 1: past dubs, all of them clearly showing identical details to
Speaker 1: our Madaline. More both women gave detailed descriptions of their
Speaker 1: upbringings to the police. Each of them explained how their
Speaker 1: mother had died young and their father had abandoned them.
Speaker 1: Each woman described living in foster care after that. This
Speaker 1: new Madaline seemed to know every single detail of our
Speaker 1: own Madaline's life, right down to the most tragic pieces. Clearly,
Speaker 1: this was no longer a case of a stranger getting
Speaker 1: ahold of forged documents to steal a little money. This
Speaker 1: was something else, something stranger. But being the twenty one century,
Speaker 1: they had new tools to lean on, tools like d
Speaker 1: n A, so they acquired a sample from Renee, Madeline's brother,
Speaker 1: who had survived the war, and then took samples of
Speaker 1: both women to compare them, and the results were conclusive.
Speaker 1: Our Madaline was the real Madeline, and I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: as relieved as I am to hear that. But it
Speaker 1: still wasn't over because there was a new piece of
Speaker 1: evidence that muddied the waters rather than making them more clear.
Speaker 1: It was an old black and white photograph that Renee
Speaker 1: had sent to his sister. It had been taken during
Speaker 1: their time at the orphanage when they were children. In
Speaker 1: the photo, the police could clearly see young Madeline posing
Speaker 1: in a sun filled field with a smile on her face.
Speaker 1: But she wasn't alone. Renee was there and he had
Speaker 1: his arms around another girl. It was clear that the
Speaker 1: first girl was Madeline, our Madeleine, of course, but everyone
Speaker 1: wondered who the second girl was. Renee didn't remember when
Speaker 1: he handed the photo to his sister, but someone did
Speaker 1: recognize the second girl. One of the policemen, the one
Speaker 1: who had been interviewing the new Magdaline for hours that day,
Speaker 1: was absolutely certain that the stranger in the photo was
Speaker 1: the elderly woman sitting across the table from him. After
Speaker 1: he pointed it out to the others, everyone else agreed,
Speaker 1: which was weird because neither of the women had any
Speaker 1: memory of the photograph being taken. It's understandable, really, the
Speaker 1: photo must have been seventy years old. I have a
Speaker 1: hard enough time remembering what I did two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: so seven decades must have felt like an eternity. They
Speaker 1: had no memory of the photo, no memory of ever meeting,
Speaker 1: but clearly they lived at the same orphanage way back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties. None of this explains how both
Speaker 1: women came to think of themselves as Madeline More. Perhaps
Speaker 1: the war had been too rough on the second woman
Speaker 1: and she began to slowly think of herself as the
Speaker 1: girl she'd spent time with at the orphanage. Maybe she
Speaker 1: pretended for a while, and as time went on that
Speaker 1: new persona took over and replaced the woman and she
Speaker 1: had once been. Or maybe it was all an intentional
Speaker 1: lie and she was just really committed to it. Whatever
Speaker 1: the reason, I'd like to think there was more to
Speaker 1: the story, don't you. Time is a tricky thing. Some
Speaker 1: believe it moves in a straight line, while others believe
Speaker 1: it's destined to repeat itself. Nietzschie referred to it as
Speaker 1: eternal return, that the universe and everything inside will loop
Speaker 1: forever across infinite time and space. That's pretty heavy stuff,
Speaker 1: I know, and it might be a strange concept to
Speaker 1: grasp if you haven't experienced it. They must have felt
Speaker 1: that way to Charlotte and Eleanor too, who got to
Speaker 1: experience it firsthand for themselves. Six Charlotte Mobley was appointed
Speaker 1: as the principal of a school for young women in Oxford.
Speaker 1: As her duties became more overwhelming than one person could handle,
Speaker 1: she considered bringing on someone else to help with the
Speaker 1: day to day operations. Someone suggested she talked to a
Speaker 1: woman named Eleanor Jordaan, who ran a school of her own.
Speaker 1: She had an apartment in Paris, and Charlotte took the
Speaker 1: opportunity to stay with her as both a vacation and
Speaker 1: a job interview. Both women had a love for travel,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen o one, during Charlotte's stay at Eleanor's place,
Speaker 1: they toured several locations around France. One such landmark was
Speaker 1: the Palace of Versailles, built by Louis the palace had
Speaker 1: been home to French royalty for generations, including two of
Speaker 1: its most famous residents, Louis the sixteenth and his wife
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette. After a tour of the place and its
Speaker 1: vast marble interiors, elaborate tapestries, and sprawling corridors, Eleanor and
Speaker 1: Charlotte found the whole thing underwhelming. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: they were expecting, but Versailles didn't do it for them.
Speaker 1: So instead of going home right away, they decided to
Speaker 1: explore more of the grounds and see the Petit Trianon,
Speaker 1: a chateau built by Louis and where Marie Antoinette was
Speaker 1: known to spend most of her time. But they got lost.
Speaker 1: Eleanor and Charlotte spent more time looking down at their
Speaker 1: guide book then at the path they were walking on,
Speaker 1: and as a result, they wandered off the main route
Speaker 1: and couldn't find their way back. As they did, the
Speaker 1: overall mood of the world around them seemed to shift.
Speaker 1: They later recalled that they both felt a wave of
Speaker 1: nausea washed over them, so much so that they had
Speaker 1: to flag down to gardeners for help. At least that's
Speaker 1: what they thought. The two men were, since both men
Speaker 1: had been pushing a wheelbarrow nearby. But there was something
Speaker 1: different about them, something off. Rather than wearing modern clothing
Speaker 1: of nineteen o one France, their outfits seemed two centuries
Speaker 1: too old. Despite being dressed in an odd manner, the
Speaker 1: men were helpful and they guided the two women back
Speaker 1: toward the Petit Tree Anon. Charlotte and Eleanor considered the
Speaker 1: men as they walked with them. Maybe they were actors
Speaker 1: dressed up in period clothing for some performance elsewhere at
Speaker 1: the palace. Before they could decide, however, events took an
Speaker 1: even weirder turn. They passed a cottage where a woman
Speaker 1: in rustic clothing handed a little girl a jug of water.
Speaker 1: At another building, a man wearing a thick black coat
Speaker 1: and a wide brimmed hat looked straight at them, his
Speaker 1: face covered in the tell tale marks of smallpox. They
Speaker 1: were startled by yet another man, who ran up behind
Speaker 1: them and ushered them towards the Petit Tre Anon, where
Speaker 1: Charlotte witnessed the site that would haunt her for the
Speaker 1: rest of her life. It was a woman, also in
Speaker 1: vintage garments, and she was sketching on the grass in
Speaker 1: front of the palace. She wore a summer dress and
Speaker 1: a large white hat which sat upon a head of
Speaker 1: thick yellow hair. Eleanor didn't see the woman, but Charlotte
Speaker 1: thought back to the gardeners in their green jackets and
Speaker 1: eighteenth century hats, the man with the thick cloak and smallpox,
Speaker 1: and the poor woman with the child. This woman was
Speaker 1: no different. Her clothes appeared new, but of a style
Speaker 1: much older than anything Charlotte and Eleanor were used to.
Speaker 1: And this beautiful, fair haired woman bore a striking resemblance
Speaker 1: to the palace's former homeowner, a woman who had well
Speaker 1: lost her head. The woman Charlotte was looking at was
Speaker 1: none other than Marie Antoinette. The women didn't talk to
Speaker 1: each other about what they had seen until a week later.
Speaker 1: They compiled their story of what they called a time
Speaker 1: slip into a book titled An Adventure, which they published
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Morrison and Francis Lamont.
Speaker 1: The tale and its authors were widely ridiculed in publications
Speaker 1: all over the world. One critic had written a biography
Speaker 1: of a French aristocrat by the name of Robert de Montesquieu,
Speaker 1: who had been known to have thrown lavish parties, were
Speaker 1: guests dressed in period clothing and post for living paintings.
Speaker 1: It was possible that Charlotte and Eleanor had stumbled into
Speaker 1: one of these gatherings, but some things didn't quite add up.
Speaker 1: The young girl and her mother, who had been dressed
Speaker 1: in peasant clothing, as well as the man with smallpox,
Speaker 1: didn't seem like they would be welcome at such an
Speaker 1: extravagant party, and the dreadful feeling that washed over the
Speaker 1: two academic women as they ventured deeper into the gardens
Speaker 1: couldn't be explained away either. It's easy for us to
Speaker 1: scoff at stories like the one told by Charlotte Moberly
Speaker 1: and Eleanor Jordan. If we can't see it for ourselves,
Speaker 1: how are we to know if it's true or not.
Speaker 1: Tales of alien abductions, Bigfoot, and the Lockness Months have
Speaker 1: survived because our fascination with the unexplainable, and this story
Speaker 1: was no different. Charlotte and Eleanor swore that they had
Speaker 1: caught a glimpse of a time gone by, that they
Speaker 1: had experienced life in a time that was very much
Speaker 1: not their own, and they wanted us to know about it.
Speaker 1: I'd like to believe it all really happened, and that
Speaker 1: someday it might happen again. A tourist might stumble through
Speaker 1: the garden paths of Versailles and find themselves standing beside
Speaker 1: a historical celebrity. And if they do, though, will anyone
Speaker 1: believe them? Today? Maybe? Maybe not, Only time will tell.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.