1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,680
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

2
00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:09,080
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

3
00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:24,560
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,

4
00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:26,720
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my

5
00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:29,520
Speaker 1: name is Noll. They call me Ben. We are joined

6
00:00:29,560 --> 00:00:33,360
Speaker 1: with our super producer Paul Decant. You are you? Thanks

7
00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:36,280
Speaker 1: for tuning in? Should I say bonjour? This is stuff

8
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:40,839
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. We get so many

9
00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:46,120
Speaker 1: suggestions via email, via tweets, via strangers talking to us

10
00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:51,320
Speaker 1: in the streets, and this this episode is based on

11
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:57,360
Speaker 1: a very old suggestion that came in two thousand and ten.

12
00:00:57,720 --> 00:01:01,480
Speaker 1: Maybe in two thousand and the good old days. Things

13
00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:04,880
Speaker 1: were so simple then, right, little did we know what

14
00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:09,119
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen would bring. And it's appropriate that we're looking

15
00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:12,039
Speaker 1: into the past and into the future and remarking on

16
00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:16,920
Speaker 1: the passage of history because today's episode concerns one of

17
00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:22,800
Speaker 1: the most important historical locations in France. Today, we are

18
00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:27,520
Speaker 1: asking why people believe the Palace of Versailles is haunted.

19
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:30,240
Speaker 1: And if you don't know what the Palace of Versailles is,

20
00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:34,880
Speaker 1: it is the or it was the seat of royal power,

21
00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:37,800
Speaker 1: in France for many, many years. But it didn't just

22
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:41,760
Speaker 1: start off that way. No, No, it started off actually

23
00:01:41,800 --> 00:01:45,240
Speaker 1: in a very difficult way. Uh. In fifteen seventy five,

24
00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:48,520
Speaker 1: there was a fellow named Albert de Gandhi g O

25
00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:51,160
Speaker 1: n d I, who was a member of the Court

26
00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:55,280
Speaker 1: of Henry the Second. He purchased the seignori or the

27
00:01:55,760 --> 00:02:01,040
Speaker 1: lordship over this village called Versailles. Sorry perch. Yeah, he

28
00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: just bought it. He bought the town, he got the signiority.

29
00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:09,440
Speaker 1: That's Italians. It doesn't matter. Okay, it's early, alright, actually

30
00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:12,160
Speaker 1: it's eleven. Yeah, it's kind of early for us. We're

31
00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:17,280
Speaker 1: night outs yet. And you are correct. He did have

32
00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:22,440
Speaker 1: an Italian background, which at that time came with some stereotypes.

33
00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:26,839
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. The French looked down on the Italians

34
00:02:26,919 --> 00:02:31,760
Speaker 1: as being sort of shifty, uh, not layabouts, but more manipulative,

35
00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:35,880
Speaker 1: kind of machiavellian creepers. I guess right, Yes, schemers. That

36
00:02:35,919 --> 00:02:38,639
Speaker 1: was the stereotype they were laboring under. But the Gandhi

37
00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:42,639
Speaker 1: had done quite well and was well regarded in the court.

38
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:46,800
Speaker 1: He also clearly had some juice. You had some scratch,

39
00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:50,560
Speaker 1: he had some some cash, so he yes, he purchased

40
00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:54,680
Speaker 1: the lordship over this town about fifteen miles southwest dish

41
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:58,359
Speaker 1: of Paris. The population was in a very bad way.

42
00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:01,040
Speaker 1: They were in a tailspin. They have been damaged by

43
00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:05,760
Speaker 1: the hundred years wars and the plagues and all in all, this, uh,

44
00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:09,880
Speaker 1: this series of tragedies for the village of Versailles means

45
00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:13,519
Speaker 1: it's a great bye for Albert de Gandhi. Oh absolutely,

46
00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:16,160
Speaker 1: sort of like the banks swooping in after the housing

47
00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:18,400
Speaker 1: collapse or whatever, and like, you know, just buying up

48
00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:22,800
Speaker 1: underwater properties and stuff, you know, quite similar, very gross.

49
00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:26,800
Speaker 1: You know, it's a good business move. Yeah, yeah, So

50
00:03:26,919 --> 00:03:31,560
Speaker 1: you know, uh, kingships change over time as they do,

51
00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:35,200
Speaker 1: as the uh the old man dies, somebody new comes

52
00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:38,360
Speaker 1: in and it's usually blood related, almost always blood related.

53
00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:42,280
Speaker 1: So in the early sixteen hundreds, Gandhi invited the new

54
00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:47,720
Speaker 1: King Louis the to Versailles on hunting trips. Because you know,

55
00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:51,440
Speaker 1: you've got this beautiful area, this land that you've purchased,

56
00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:54,520
Speaker 1: you invite the king down to do a little hunting. Hey,

57
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:57,200
Speaker 1: you're always in court, why don't come out to my place.

58
00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:01,040
Speaker 1: We can can run down some peasants bars, maybe and

59
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:04,000
Speaker 1: we can. Yeah, I'm thinking fox, That's what I'm picturing,

60
00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:09,720
Speaker 1: with their pack of hounds chasing down the sly little fox. Yeah,

61
00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:12,240
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of wildlife there. It was it was

62
00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:15,760
Speaker 1: largely just untouched land. And these are going to be

63
00:04:15,880 --> 00:04:20,159
Speaker 1: hunting parties. This means it's not just these two fellows

64
00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:24,040
Speaker 1: on horseback with with some dogs or with some bows

65
00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:27,239
Speaker 1: and arrows, and they have a bunch of people who

66
00:04:27,839 --> 00:04:32,800
Speaker 1: are doing the actual work. Well they kind of watch maybe,

67
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,400
Speaker 1: I don't know who knows. Who's to say, Actually they're

68
00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:39,479
Speaker 1: probably historians that will say exactly how much Louis got

69
00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:43,640
Speaker 1: down with the hunting. But either way, he loved doing it. Yeah,

70
00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:47,200
Speaker 1: he loved the place so much that in sixty three

71
00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:52,039
Speaker 1: he had a hunting lodge built nearby. And for him,

72
00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:56,520
Speaker 1: this was a modest, a modest structure. It was built

73
00:04:56,520 --> 00:05:00,520
Speaker 1: out of bricks and you know, would stuff that the

74
00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 1: common man would use. But that's all they needed. They

75
00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:05,480
Speaker 1: just needed a place to take shelter so they could

76
00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:07,760
Speaker 1: stay the night there or whatever, and they go hunting

77
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:11,599
Speaker 1: the next day. So then eight years later Louis obtained

78
00:05:12,279 --> 00:05:17,080
Speaker 1: the senior of Versailles from the Gandhi family and began

79
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:22,920
Speaker 1: to make enlargements to this hunting chateau um. He continued

80
00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 1: to expand the structure until his death in sixty three,

81
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:29,719
Speaker 1: at which time the real big player in this story

82
00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:33,120
Speaker 1: comes along, his son Louis the FOURT a k a.

83
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:36,680
Speaker 1: The Sun King came along and he was a huge

84
00:05:36,680 --> 00:05:40,799
Speaker 1: fan of the location as well. Yes, the Sun King,

85
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:44,200
Speaker 1: the one that your history books rightly associate with the

86
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:48,719
Speaker 1: practice called absolute monarchy. Yes, he loved centralized government. He

87
00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:51,039
Speaker 1: was all about it, and he thought the king is

88
00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:54,560
Speaker 1: the center. Everything else moves out from there. Right, Hence

89
00:05:54,880 --> 00:05:58,120
Speaker 1: the Sun King right as as Noel has pointed out,

90
00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:03,640
Speaker 1: And it's true, he expanded Versailles at at a massive rate,

91
00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:08,120
Speaker 1: and this is where it moved from a pretentious royal

92
00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:13,919
Speaker 1: chateau to a palace, in fact, by some measures, the

93
00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:18,159
Speaker 1: largest palace in the world. And there's a side note

94
00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:21,960
Speaker 1: here that I want to put in just for all

95
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,120
Speaker 1: of you listening who have an interest in the bizarre

96
00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:28,480
Speaker 1: nature of royal day to day life. While we were

97
00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,760
Speaker 1: researching this episode, I found something that has nothing to

98
00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:36,040
Speaker 1: do with whether or not Versaillah's haunted. It is the

99
00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:41,680
Speaker 1: ceremony that the king had his rising and sleeping ceremony.

100
00:06:42,240 --> 00:06:46,560
Speaker 1: It is bizarre and so over the top. Yeah, if

101
00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:48,120
Speaker 1: you want to go down a rabbit hole, look up

102
00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:52,599
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette. The waking ceremony. It is one of the

103
00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,839
Speaker 1: strangest things. People would pay to talk to these folks

104
00:06:57,160 --> 00:07:00,560
Speaker 1: as they were waking up and to like with their

105
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:04,080
Speaker 1: clothes on four of them to address them. And then

106
00:07:04,080 --> 00:07:05,640
Speaker 1: they would paid to do the same thing as they

107
00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:09,239
Speaker 1: were going to sleep. And the one thing, at least

108
00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:13,120
Speaker 1: in Louise case, that keeps popping up is the fact

109
00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:19,119
Speaker 1: that they're the actual place where they slept amid these ostentatious,

110
00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:23,440
Speaker 1: opulent chambers. The actual place was separated from the rest

111
00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:27,480
Speaker 1: of the room by this tiny decorative balustrade. And they

112
00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:31,240
Speaker 1: kept using the phrase decorative balustrade. Looked it up. It's

113
00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:34,480
Speaker 1: just cartoonish. What is a balustrade. It's it looks like

114
00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:36,960
Speaker 1: a banister, That's what I was kind of picture. Yeah,

115
00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:40,800
Speaker 1: it's a it's just a gilded bannis fancy banister. It's

116
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:43,760
Speaker 1: a fancy that's what they should call it. Uh. I

117
00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:46,920
Speaker 1: think we should write to the editors and ask them

118
00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:52,040
Speaker 1: to change that fancy band. Yes, So, speaking of fancy,

119
00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:55,880
Speaker 1: though Louis was itself quite fancy. Right. He was responsible

120
00:07:55,920 --> 00:08:01,480
Speaker 1: for a lot of the trends in clothing and quaffery

121
00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:03,520
Speaker 1: that kind of permeated out of France and the into

122
00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:06,440
Speaker 1: the rest of Europe. Right, Yeah, Yeah, he was a

123
00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:13,520
Speaker 1: trendsetter who was also he was also easily angered, and

124
00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:20,760
Speaker 1: angering him was bad. But without going too far into Louis,

125
00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:25,000
Speaker 1: we can say that his call it his ego, call

126
00:08:25,080 --> 00:08:29,200
Speaker 1: it his philosophy of what a government should be symbolically,

127
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:36,680
Speaker 1: whatever the motivation, it resulted in this gigantic, monstrous compound.

128
00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:39,320
Speaker 1: And this place is huge. We have stats about the

129
00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:45,040
Speaker 1: palace itself. It has seven hundred rooms that are spread

130
00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:50,200
Speaker 1: over more than seven hundred thousand square feet. Yeah, it's

131
00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:53,480
Speaker 1: stinking giant. And that's just the palace itself. If you

132
00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:56,320
Speaker 1: look at the surrounding area of the palace that is

133
00:08:56,320 --> 00:09:00,240
Speaker 1: considered Versailles still or the Palace of Versailles grounds, Um,

134
00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:05,040
Speaker 1: you're covering over two thousand acres and that's about eighties

135
00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:11,360
Speaker 1: seven almost eighty eight million square feet. Good gali yeah um.

136
00:09:11,400 --> 00:09:14,239
Speaker 1: And this also includes two d and thirty acres of gardens,

137
00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:20,439
Speaker 1: again massive and uh. Inside these gardens you'll find two

138
00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:24,360
Speaker 1: hundred and ten thousand flowers and two hundred thousand trees

139
00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:28,320
Speaker 1: that are annually planted there. Those numbers are astounding, and

140
00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,280
Speaker 1: they're very into fountains. It must have been a different time,

141
00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:35,640
Speaker 1: you know, the era of construction, because gardens must have

142
00:09:35,679 --> 00:09:40,600
Speaker 1: been i'm gonna say, more popular overall than they are today.

143
00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:45,400
Speaker 1: You know. Also, the fountains themselves are a work of art.

144
00:09:45,679 --> 00:09:49,480
Speaker 1: This makes the Palace of Versailles officially the world's largest

145
00:09:49,679 --> 00:09:53,720
Speaker 1: royal domain in terms of sheer area, and it also

146
00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:56,800
Speaker 1: has a lot of notable features. Yeah, I think we're

147
00:09:56,800 --> 00:09:59,160
Speaker 1: all big fans of the Hall of Mirrors, which has

148
00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:05,000
Speaker 1: seventeen giant mirrored arches opposite seventeen windows um. Each one

149
00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:08,480
Speaker 1: of the arches contains twenty one mirrors, which makes a

150
00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:12,280
Speaker 1: massive three and fifty seven total um as. The hall

151
00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:16,040
Speaker 1: is two point five feet long, thirty four point four

152
00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:19,880
Speaker 1: feet wide, and forty point four feet high. So has

153
00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:23,880
Speaker 1: this cavern, the cavern that you walk down that has

154
00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:26,400
Speaker 1: a light coming in on this on to your right.

155
00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:28,840
Speaker 1: Let's see, you're walking this way to your right, and

156
00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:30,800
Speaker 1: then on the left you've got the mirrors reflecting the

157
00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:35,360
Speaker 1: light and these chandeliers, these opulent, insane chandeliers, and above

158
00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:39,320
Speaker 1: the chandeliers are these paintings on the ceiling. It's just,

159
00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:43,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it's incredible, but it's also one of those

160
00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:46,400
Speaker 1: things like how much money can we spend? And then

161
00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:51,760
Speaker 1: you know, why were peasants starving in the streets? Yes,

162
00:10:52,520 --> 00:10:55,840
Speaker 1: and on special occasions, while the same peasants were starving,

163
00:10:55,960 --> 00:11:00,160
Speaker 1: they would light around twenty thousand candles at nights to

164
00:11:00,880 --> 00:11:05,560
Speaker 1: uh have the same sort of phenomenon occur. It seems

165
00:11:05,559 --> 00:11:07,720
Speaker 1: like one of those things it's difficult to imagine until

166
00:11:07,760 --> 00:11:11,000
Speaker 1: you actually visit. Yes, it kind of makes me think

167
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:13,160
Speaker 1: of that movie The Florida Project. Have you guys seen

168
00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:17,960
Speaker 1: this yet only, and that it's about these very poor

169
00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:21,280
Speaker 1: areas around Disney World and these really kind of like

170
00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:25,360
Speaker 1: shoddy hotels where families rent them by the week because

171
00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:27,400
Speaker 1: otherwise they wouldn't be able to pass a credit check.

172
00:11:27,760 --> 00:11:31,360
Speaker 1: And but they're all like things like the Magical Castle

173
00:11:31,559 --> 00:11:35,080
Speaker 1: and like Future Land, but they're all just completely kind

174
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,520
Speaker 1: of poor facsimiles of Disney stuff. And then you know,

175
00:11:38,600 --> 00:11:42,480
Speaker 1: every night Disney World shoots off this insane, ostentatious firework

176
00:11:42,559 --> 00:11:44,720
Speaker 1: display and it becomes this thing you're just kind of

177
00:11:44,760 --> 00:11:47,520
Speaker 1: living in the shadow of and you sort of like

178
00:11:47,679 --> 00:11:49,360
Speaker 1: take it for Graham and it's like, well, we're never

179
00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:52,160
Speaker 1: gonna get to go there, but here it is, and

180
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:54,160
Speaker 1: you just sort of almost like forget about it. I

181
00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:55,920
Speaker 1: don't know that you know what I'm saying, Like people

182
00:11:55,920 --> 00:11:58,320
Speaker 1: that like, here's this thing that's just we're living in

183
00:11:58,360 --> 00:12:01,000
Speaker 1: its shadow, but we're never gonna understand that kind of

184
00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:05,360
Speaker 1: wealth or opulence, and it's is it depressing? Is it

185
00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:07,000
Speaker 1: a constant reminder or do you just kind of get

186
00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:08,600
Speaker 1: used to it and just go on with your life.

187
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:13,560
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's stark inequality and very close association. Well,

188
00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:17,840
Speaker 1: and it means that would spread a lot because imagine

189
00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:19,520
Speaker 1: all those people who live near it that can never

190
00:12:19,600 --> 00:12:22,080
Speaker 1: go there, and you can only imagine what the royal

191
00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:26,280
Speaker 1: family does up there in the dark spoiler alert, weird stuff. Yeah,

192
00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:30,120
Speaker 1: are they hunting animals or are they hunting men? The

193
00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:34,359
Speaker 1: Greatest Game? Right right? Who was that iced tea ice cube?

194
00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:36,840
Speaker 1: One of the one of the one of the ices

195
00:12:37,640 --> 00:12:41,880
Speaker 1: I think it was t was And we won't explain

196
00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:45,040
Speaker 1: that reference. If you don't get it, you're going to

197
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:49,040
Speaker 1: have a great time this weekend googling this. Over the years,

198
00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:52,200
Speaker 1: Versaille has also been home to not one, not two,

199
00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:55,839
Speaker 1: not three, but five chapels, and they have a royal

200
00:12:55,880 --> 00:13:00,199
Speaker 1: opera house in there. It's just an opera house. It's

201
00:13:00,360 --> 00:13:02,720
Speaker 1: made out of wood. I think they actually still host

202
00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:06,360
Speaker 1: some fully produced opera performances there. And you can obviously

203
00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:09,640
Speaker 1: buy tickets to tour the Palace of Versailles and the

204
00:13:09,640 --> 00:13:12,080
Speaker 1: opera houses included as part of that. And let's return

205
00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:15,640
Speaker 1: to the history here. Sure, let's jump forward almost a

206
00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:20,160
Speaker 1: century to seventeen fifty eight. This is when the next King, Louis,

207
00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:25,600
Speaker 1: he had another chateau constructed inside the gardens themselves, remember

208
00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:28,959
Speaker 1: that two or thirty acres. He called it the Petite Triannon,

209
00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:33,400
Speaker 1: and it kind of mirrored the larger Triannon that existed

210
00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:35,560
Speaker 1: in the palace itself already, and it just it was

211
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:38,240
Speaker 1: just meant to be another royal residence on the grounds.

212
00:13:38,559 --> 00:13:40,160
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be able to house the king

213
00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:42,679
Speaker 1: if the king was in town, as well as the

214
00:13:42,760 --> 00:13:46,760
Speaker 1: king's entourage, so enough enough rooms to house a small

215
00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:50,480
Speaker 1: group of people. Then, when this King, Louis the fift

216
00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:54,000
Speaker 1: died of the pox in seventeen seventy four, the crown

217
00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:56,200
Speaker 1: mus passed down to yet another Louis, this time the

218
00:13:56,240 --> 00:14:01,000
Speaker 1: sixteenth and Marie Antoinette. And did she later enter into

219
00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:06,680
Speaker 1: possession of this petit triannon. Yes, it was given to

220
00:14:06,720 --> 00:14:11,000
Speaker 1: her by the king, and she really took it as

221
00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:13,600
Speaker 1: her own. She made all kinds of additions and alterations

222
00:14:13,679 --> 00:14:18,360
Speaker 1: to the surrounding structure and to the petit trianon itself. Uh,

223
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:21,040
Speaker 1: And she spent a ton of her time. They're like

224
00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:25,040
Speaker 1: inside the petit trianon, balustrades galore, Yes, all over the place.

225
00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:29,040
Speaker 1: And then, of course we must mention that the Palace

226
00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:34,960
Speaker 1: of Versailles itself had a close brush with death due

227
00:14:34,960 --> 00:14:40,360
Speaker 1: to the French Revolution. In the revolution forced Louis the

228
00:14:40,400 --> 00:14:44,480
Speaker 1: sixteenth to leave Versailles for Paris. Do those revolutionaries have

229
00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:48,880
Speaker 1: no appreciation for fine things? What's wrong with them? Come on?

230
00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:53,520
Speaker 1: The French Revolution is the startling chapter in history that

231
00:14:53,920 --> 00:14:57,480
Speaker 1: I think more people should know more about. When one

232
00:14:57,520 --> 00:15:01,040
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts of it, so weird sentence to say,

233
00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:03,080
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts of the French Revolution, but

234
00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:07,200
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts was the effort to remake

235
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:11,160
Speaker 1: the calendar, to create a different calendar entirely. Absolutely. There's

236
00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:13,520
Speaker 1: so many nuances to the whole thing that you don't

237
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:17,160
Speaker 1: get in the broad strokes kind of high school education

238
00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:21,840
Speaker 1: version of it. All right or right right right, the

239
00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:26,240
Speaker 1: Palace would never again be home to French royalty, and

240
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:30,040
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century seven specifically, it became the Museum

241
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,280
Speaker 1: of the History of France. Today, it's one of the

242
00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:37,320
Speaker 1: most visited sites in the country, up there with you know,

243
00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:41,320
Speaker 1: approximately the the other one, the Eiffel Tower, right. And

244
00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:44,160
Speaker 1: in the centuries between its construction and the modern day,

245
00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:49,640
Speaker 1: it's been host to numerous storied visitors and residents. Some

246
00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:55,520
Speaker 1: rumor has it never left. So is it about to

247
00:15:55,520 --> 00:16:04,920
Speaker 1: get crazy? Yes, right after this quick break, here's where

248
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:07,720
Speaker 1: it gets crazy. In the past as well as in

249
00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:11,720
Speaker 1: the modern age, multiple visitors have reported otherworldly or to

250
00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:16,760
Speaker 1: their minds inexplicable phenomena at the palace. Uh. They've alleged,

251
00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:20,360
Speaker 1: to put a fine point on it, that they've seen ghost,

252
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:28,320
Speaker 1: specifically King Louis the four and all of these these

253
00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:31,040
Speaker 1: kings have been seen roaming the halls of the palace

254
00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:34,800
Speaker 1: itself or in a hunting party that never ends, the

255
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:40,000
Speaker 1: great hunt. Yes, yes, yes, yeah, and we clearly just

256
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:43,080
Speaker 1: established earlier in the show that we think they were

257
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:47,560
Speaker 1: recreationally hunting people. Hey, hey, we never said that. It

258
00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:49,960
Speaker 1: was just you know, we hinted at it was thrown

259
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,280
Speaker 1: out ideas here. Dennis Reynolds would say it was the implication.

260
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:57,320
Speaker 1: There are other ghosts that are rumored to haunt the

261
00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:00,280
Speaker 1: grounds Marie Antoinette, of course, and then there are post

262
00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:04,840
Speaker 1: of visitors such as Benjamin Franklin, whom friends and neighbors

263
00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:09,040
Speaker 1: you may recall from an earlier episode. Yeah, he liked

264
00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:13,040
Speaker 1: to hang around there. Yes, Benjamin Franklin, probably not a

265
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:21,120
Speaker 1: serial killer, probably not, but definitely a philandering francophile. Indeed, indeed,

266
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,440
Speaker 1: there's no proof of these ghosts, of course, but from

267
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:30,040
Speaker 1: a tourism perspective, a good ghost story is great for business,

268
00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:34,000
Speaker 1: and these are just oddly enough, and the Kings would

269
00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: be very insulted to hear this. They're just the also

270
00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,040
Speaker 1: rans and the stories of hauntings at Versailles. When most

271
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:44,680
Speaker 1: people mention ghost or paranormal activity in Versailles, they're thinking

272
00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:48,639
Speaker 1: of a singular, strange afternoon that occurred around a hundred

273
00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:53,240
Speaker 1: and seventeen years ago this August. Was it a wrinkle

274
00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:57,120
Speaker 1: in time a fold in death. It starts with two

275
00:17:57,119 --> 00:18:00,840
Speaker 1: teachers who traveled there from England on August in nineteen

276
00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:04,800
Speaker 1: o one. These two academics were Anne Moberley and Eleanor Jordaane,

277
00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:09,760
Speaker 1: and these were the principal and vice principal of St.

278
00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:13,720
Speaker 1: Hugh's College in Oxford, uh And they were in France

279
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:16,200
Speaker 1: on vacation and they wanted to go visit Versailles, as

280
00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:18,560
Speaker 1: you do because most people when you're in there France,

281
00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:21,879
Speaker 1: go to Versailles if you can. And after touring the palace,

282
00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:24,720
Speaker 1: they went on search um in the nearby gardens of

283
00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:28,560
Speaker 1: the Petit Triannon, remember the one with Marie Antoinette. Well,

284
00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:32,359
Speaker 1: they noticed that things seemed a bit off somehow. The

285
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,879
Speaker 1: further that they traveled that they kept going and things

286
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:39,640
Speaker 1: are feeling strange. And again this is a huge area,

287
00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:44,119
Speaker 1: right They passed a deserted farmhouse, they noticed an old

288
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:47,040
Speaker 1: plow line by the side of the road, and they

289
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:51,600
Speaker 1: both claimed they began to feel strange, as if some

290
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:57,480
Speaker 1: sort of emotional oppression was occurring. They got a bad vibe.

291
00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:00,680
Speaker 1: And this is something we here with ghosts encounters or

292
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:04,800
Speaker 1: stories of ghosts encounters throughout the centuries that there's an

293
00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:08,399
Speaker 1: overwhelming feeling of dread that occurs before you see or

294
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:11,840
Speaker 1: hear anything. And they started to see other people they saw,

295
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:15,720
Speaker 1: according to their reports, they saw two men dressed in

296
00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:20,960
Speaker 1: long grayish green coats with small, three cornered hats, passing by,

297
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,800
Speaker 1: and they asked them in the way to the Petit Treadman,

298
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:26,760
Speaker 1: and they were pointed toward a path that was directly

299
00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:29,520
Speaker 1: in front of them. They walked on. They came to

300
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:34,920
Speaker 1: a gazebo shaded by trees. The dark mood hung even

301
00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:39,440
Speaker 1: heavier over them. Here Um, in this shady grove, everything

302
00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:43,520
Speaker 1: was very, very still, and um, all of a sudden,

303
00:19:43,760 --> 00:19:50,040
Speaker 1: a repulsive, foul looking gentleman, his face pitted with smallpox,

304
00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:55,720
Speaker 1: was standing by the gazebo, and he stared direly unpleasantly

305
00:19:56,160 --> 00:20:00,199
Speaker 1: at the onlookers. And just then someone came rushing up

306
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:02,679
Speaker 1: behind them and warned them that they were going the

307
00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:05,880
Speaker 1: wrong way. They were told to cross a small bridge,

308
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:09,280
Speaker 1: and when they did, they arrived at what they assumed

309
00:20:09,320 --> 00:20:12,199
Speaker 1: to be the Petit Treon, and where they found a

310
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:16,439
Speaker 1: woman sitting on a stool sketching. Yeah. They said that

311
00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:19,320
Speaker 1: she wore an old fashioned dress. She was covered with

312
00:20:19,359 --> 00:20:22,080
Speaker 1: a pale green scarf, and all of a sudden, that

313
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:28,040
Speaker 1: gloom came back over them, that intense, sad, disturbing feeling. Suddenly,

314
00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:30,680
Speaker 1: a footman came rushing out of a nearby building, slamming

315
00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:33,119
Speaker 1: the door behind himself. The footman told them that the

316
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:35,280
Speaker 1: entrance to the Petit channel was on the other side

317
00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:37,680
Speaker 1: of the building, and so they walked around the house

318
00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:41,000
Speaker 1: where they found a wedding party waiting to tore the rooms.

319
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:44,679
Speaker 1: And at that point they're encountering other human beings that

320
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:48,120
Speaker 1: they can confirm our human beings, and the dark mood lifts,

321
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:52,880
Speaker 1: and nothing else unusual happens to them. In fact, they

322
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:57,400
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it for a long time. Later, so

323
00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:01,000
Speaker 1: the story goes, they realized that people they had encountered

324
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:07,280
Speaker 1: were dressed in garb from approximately seventeen eighty nine. They

325
00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 1: also found that some of the buildings they had passed

326
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:13,639
Speaker 1: existed in seventeen eighty nine, but not in the present day. Again,

327
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:17,439
Speaker 1: that's nineteen o one, so from what they believed. In

328
00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:21,400
Speaker 1: what later came to be known as the mobilely Jordained incident,

329
00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:27,480
Speaker 1: they somehow they thought had traveled a hundred and twelve

330
00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:30,399
Speaker 1: years into the past, or seen things that happened a

331
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:34,280
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve years ago, only to be rescued by

332
00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:36,720
Speaker 1: the tour guide who is leading that wedding party in

333
00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:41,120
Speaker 1: nineteen o one. I want to see a dramatization of this, like,

334
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 1: you know, a reenactment. This is a cool scenario. Yeah,

335
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:47,200
Speaker 1: you know, they were just experiencing the flat circle, you guys.

336
00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:52,320
Speaker 1: I think that's what happened quite possibly, right, Well, we'll see.

337
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 1: Within months of their encounter again August tenth, nineteen o one,

338
00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:01,119
Speaker 1: they had published an account of this in a book

339
00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:05,640
Speaker 1: called An Adventure. It's very important to note they used pseudonyms.

340
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:10,480
Speaker 1: They did not use their real names. Their experience became

341
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 1: known as the Versailles time slip, which sounds cool, the

342
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 1: Ghost of Trianon, or of course, the moverly Jordaan incident. Uh.

343
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:21,360
Speaker 1: Their alarms going off in my head about this already,

344
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,479
Speaker 1: just because of the garb what went down at the

345
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:29,399
Speaker 1: Palace of Versailles, the smallpox epidemics that were, you know,

346
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:33,360
Speaker 1: ravaging France around the time that they allegedly went back

347
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:38,719
Speaker 1: to I feel like there are signs pointing to maybe

348
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 1: an explanation that would be less otherworldly. Yeah, so what

349
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:50,400
Speaker 1: happened nowadays? There are several popular theories. We'll go ahead

350
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: and say the first two that everyone thinks of. Did

351
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 1: these people travel in time or did they have what

352
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 1: would be a retro cognitive experience the opposite of precognition, right,

353
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:09,359
Speaker 1: or did they just happen to see a bunch of ghosts?

354
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: And if so, there's an interesting debate there. What would

355
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 1: the difference be. What's the difference between them traveling in

356
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:19,880
Speaker 1: time and then seeing a bunch of ghosts? Well, it's

357
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: certainly hard to explain away. Given that they had a

358
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:25,439
Speaker 1: shared experience, whatever might have happened. So that's you know,

359
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 1: that's how I see it. That's a great point. There

360
00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:34,879
Speaker 1: were the popular mundane theories as well, right, But the

361
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 1: primary thing is, yeah, a shared experience. It wasn't one

362
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 1: person saying, who's that dude with a weird hat? What's

363
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 1: wrong with that guy's face? Because even if they were

364
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 1: both like tripping their butts off on some sort of

365
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: psychedelic they're not gonna see the same thing. They might

366
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: just you know, have a weird freak out of Versailles,

367
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:55,680
Speaker 1: but they're not going to see the same dude in

368
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: the green coat and the woman sketching with the you know,

369
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: the veil or whatever, the green scarf. Well, but what

370
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: if they did have some wine and they were walking

371
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,960
Speaker 1: the grounds and then they came across something that was

372
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,919
Speaker 1: real that they both saw that maybe they just didn't

373
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: know was happening or understand historical reenactment of some kind. Yes,

374
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 1: that's what I'm thinking. That's one of the theories. One

375
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:25,120
Speaker 1: is that the teachers accidentally crashed an historical reenactment. Yes,

376
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 1: a woman named Joan Evans, who is Jordan's literary executor.

377
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: She wrote in a nineteen seventy six article for Encounter

378
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 1: magazine in which she argued that the two women had

379
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 1: simply walked unknowingly into this historical reenactment where you know,

380
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: there are people dressed in seventeen late seventeen hundreds garb

381
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: and even with perhaps face paint of smallpox, and they're

382
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,960
Speaker 1: all just you know, going around in the period attire

383
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: because they're waiting for the performance. It's like backstage, that's

384
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 1: like Disney rules. Man, you never he let them see

385
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 1: you with your head off, you know, you always you

386
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: don't unless you're on And like in the game. You

387
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: don't let people walk up on you just doing your thing. Well,

388
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: that's the thing they were. They were. They were just

389
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,119
Speaker 1: wandering about through the gardens and trying to find the

390
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: petit try and and and perhaps all these other people

391
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:20,919
Speaker 1: are just getting ready, and you think maybe they were

392
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: drunk too. I don't know. I'm just saying, if you're

393
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,400
Speaker 1: a little bit tipsy and you see something like that

394
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: in your in, you're feeling that gloom or whatever it

395
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 1: was that they're feeling, perhaps everything became a little more

396
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: sinister or strange than it truly was. Well okay, okay,

397
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: just saying okay, But here's the thing. Evans is seeking

398
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: a way to defend this explanation, right without attacking the

399
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:51,639
Speaker 1: protagonist or the people who believe this happened. She researched

400
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: re enactments, but she didn't find any events that would

401
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 1: have been happening in nineteen o one. So if that

402
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 1: is the explanation, then it was some sort of underground

403
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: historical reenactment, which I guess people do. I would love

404
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: to accidentally walk into one with you guys, but they're not.

405
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 1: They're not that common. Right. Well, here here's my theory.

406
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: Part of the wedding that was going on was the reenactment.

407
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 1: The reenactment and the wedding were tied together, the one

408
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: that they crashed from earlier, because it was just around

409
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: the corner to enter the petitan On. I think it

410
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: was all part of one just opulent wedding party. There's

411
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: another theory. Did you hear this whendn't? This also comes

412
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 1: from Evans. She based on a nineteen biography of a

413
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: French artist named Robert de Montescue. The biography, by an

414
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: author named Philip Julian noted that this artist had lived

415
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: in a house in Versailles and was noted for his

416
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: performances that were called tableau vivant, in which gay Parisian

417
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: men performed the roles of both men and women, kind

418
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare style, and Evans says that maybe Moberley and

419
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 1: Jordaane were encountering some performance like this. We should also

420
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: add after they were speaking to each other about this incident,

421
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 1: they both became convinced that the woman they saw sketching

422
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 1: outside the Petit chan and was Marian's when it either

423
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: alive hundred and twelve years ago or dead and ghost sketching,

424
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: Which is you know, obviously their version of ghost riding

425
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: the whip, ghost sketching the horse right exactly. There's a

426
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 1: there's a problem that there's no evidence indicating this artist

427
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: would have thrown an event in nine one, and ever

428
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: since her article, this theory had been reported and re

429
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:56,959
Speaker 1: reported as one of the most likely explanations for the

430
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:01,199
Speaker 1: Versailles time slip, but again no hard proof. Yeah, and

431
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 1: I wonder it does make sense that an historical reenactment

432
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: of that sort would be written down somewhere in some record,

433
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 1: because there's a budget associated with it, and anytime there's

434
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: money associated, it probably got written down. Unless it was

435
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: like a black market recreation. It's like a black bag

436
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: operation the government of France, or maybe it's just in

437
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,720
Speaker 1: you know, the father of the bride's records somewhere that

438
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: he paid for it, really pushing this wedding party. So

439
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 1: there's there's another there's another aspect here, and it goes

440
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: back to a point we had established earlier. It's that

441
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: they experienced this together. They had a shared call it

442
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: a delusion if you will, but they had this shared experience.

443
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: Where does that lead us? We'll find out after a

444
00:28:51,920 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: word from our responsible and we're back. So another potential

445
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: explanation for this phenomenon is that these teachers shared a delusion,

446
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: which is kind of the sticking point for me. If

447
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: it wasn't an incident of drunkenly stumbling into a historical reenactment,

448
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 1: there's definitely a shared delusion going on here. Uh. If

449
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 1: it's not you know, actually physically seeing ghosts. Uh. And

450
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: this is cool. This is something that's called a folly

451
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: adieu or madness of two. Uh. And you've probably heard

452
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: this term before. I'm connected with stories of identical twins

453
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: who for some reason go insane at the same time. Um,

454
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: such as Ursula and Sabina Ericsson. I argue that they

455
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: didn't go mad. I still think they're like secret spies

456
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: or something. Well, this this is interesting. You often will

457
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: hear about the madness of two or it could be uh,

458
00:29:54,800 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: fallis you hear about this in terms of twins, one

459
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: twin goes crazy. There's there are a couple of cases

460
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom that involved this sort of uh,

461
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: this sort of emotional contagion spreading. And when we hear

462
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: descriptions of someone saying, oh, we both felt a palpable mood,

463
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: we have to remember that the majority of our in

464
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: person communication is non verbal. So if someone is indicating

465
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: that they're feeling a mood and you are sympathetic with them,

466
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: close with them, they're a friend, colleague, a neighbor, of

467
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: family member, then you will unconsciously pick up on those cues,

468
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: and if you like them, you will unconsciously start practicing

469
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: something called mirroring, which is when you subtly mimic. The

470
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: sales folks are doing this to you all the time,

471
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: before and after you listen to this show, where they'll

472
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: subtly mimic maybe the play spin of your arms on

473
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 1: the placement of your legs, or or start nodding when

474
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,959
Speaker 1: they ask a question. This stuff, all this, this whole

475
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: quiverful of strange nonverbal arrows. They can affect people, whether

476
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: or not they're twins, And in this case, I would

477
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: I would agree that there's some sand to it, although

478
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: it does sound weird because usually if we think about

479
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: a shared delusion, we imagine, you know, kids one upping

480
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: each other, backing each other up when they're telling crazy

481
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: stories and they all know on some level it's not true,

482
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: but they want to participate. So how could two people

483
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: really believe this. The problem with this theory, which seems

484
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: really solid in my opinion, is that it comes from

485
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: kind of a screwed up place. The scuttle butt about

486
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: Mobile and Jordan was that they weren't just two colleagues

487
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: who taught closely together and took vacations. According to at

488
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: least one former student, they were romantically involved and had

489
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: a long term, open relationship where they were known to

490
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: pursue other teachers and students as well. And this comes

491
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: from a book in nineteen fifty seven by a former

492
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: student named Lucille Ironmonger, who wrote a critique of their

493
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: book An Adventure in her own work called Ghost of Versailles,

494
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: Miss Mobile and Mr Jordain and their Adventure a Critical Study.

495
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 1: Wow Award for a title there, But it it gets

496
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 1: across exactly what it is. So Iremonger deld into the

497
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 1: nature of their relationship um the two women and basically

498
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: concluded that their adventure was this folly, folly, adieu and

499
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: uh and they had been so you know. She suggests

500
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: that they had been so distracted by their relationship and

501
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: by their time that they were spending together. And again

502
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: I'm gonna insert maybe some wine there that they merely

503
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: misinterpreted ordinary people and objects to be things from that

504
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: time period seventeen eighty nine, and they became so obsessed

505
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: with proving their story and we're kind of retelling their

506
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: story that it grew and grew over time that they

507
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 1: even convinced themselves of the reality of this ghostly encounter.

508
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: But do we have any reports of them doing historical

509
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: reenactments at the Palace of Versailles during this time period? Yeah,

510
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 1: m yeah, that's it. You know, this seems like a

511
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: little bit odd to have done in the in the

512
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 1: early nine Well, I don't know, Okay, So let's imagine

513
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: the Colosseum, the Greek Colosseum. That entire thing was based

514
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: or at least it became in the end historical re

515
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: enactments of war battles things like that. I mean, I

516
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: think this is a celebrating the past, especially victories or

517
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: something good or a previous kings. That's true. I guess

518
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of that as being more of a

519
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,239
Speaker 1: touristy thing that you would do like at a you know,

520
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: like Stone Mountain or they like you have, you know,

521
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: civil war reenactments and stuff that seems like much more

522
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: of a modern construct. But that call it sumes a

523
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,359
Speaker 1: good point. It is a very good point. I I

524
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: have a life hack for everyone listening. It is relatively

525
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: unethical and is not particularly good. There is no recognized

526
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,280
Speaker 1: statute on the amount of time that needs to elapse

527
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: between re enactments. That's true. We all have sort of

528
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: a rough spider sense about it. You know, if you

529
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: don't feel like changing your clothes, just tell people the

530
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: next day that you're doing a re enactment. I think

531
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 1: I think you can get away with it once. I'm

532
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: gonna use that, but I've got to keep it in

533
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: my back pocket for when I'm really funky. It's just

534
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: between it's just between us super producer Paul, and millions

535
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,799
Speaker 1: of people. So don't tell anyone, folks. Everybody use it once,

536
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: and I would say, be be excruciatingly specific about the

537
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: time period. Lecture people about little known facts heard the

538
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: day before. So, aside from the excellent point that that

539
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: there's no evidence of an historical reenactment occurring, we do

540
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 1: know that there are factors that cast doubt on the

541
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:22,320
Speaker 1: truth of the couple's claims that come from the skeptic side.

542
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: So first England Society for Psychical Research found that the teachers,

543
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: originally I did not think anything was wrong. Originally they

544
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: thought they just had a great afternoon touring Versailles and

545
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: they got lost for a second. These were some cookie ladies.

546
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: I was gonna throw that rut out there. They didn't

547
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: think anything was strange until as much as three months

548
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 1: later when they compared notes and one of them not

549
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 1: both of them said hey, do you remember the thing? Yeah,

550
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 1: I remember the smallpox face guy that was weird and

551
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: the footman. And they re published the story multiple times,

552
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: and each time they republished it, the story seemed to

553
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: expand and it caused a stur didn't It absolutely did,

554
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 1: because you know, Versailles already has this iconic image. People

555
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: want to see mystery. They know great historical events transpired,

556
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: So this sounds like a likely candidate for something extraordinary

557
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:25,280
Speaker 1: to occur. The author of this study for the Society,

558
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: a guy named W. H. Salter, pointed out that the

559
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:31,879
Speaker 1: embellished versions of the tale published in later editions were

560
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: also written much later than the couple had originally claimed,

561
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 1: maybe as long as five years afterwards, only after they

562
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,280
Speaker 1: have made several return trips to Versailles. And there's another

563
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: thing here. Both of the authors of the original tale

564
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 1: we're prone to hallucinations. One of them overly was prone

565
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: to hallucinations, both audio and visual, since childhood. And there

566
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:04,240
Speaker 1: is a person here writing Terry Castle that says quote

567
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: as a child, she had heard the words pinnacled reality.

568
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: As she stared at the spires of Winchester Cathedral. She

569
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: had seen two strange birds with dazzling white feathers and

570
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: immense wings fly over the cathedral into the west. In

571
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:23,919
Speaker 1: Cambridge in nineteen thirteen, she saw a procession of medieval monks,

572
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: and at the Louver in nineteen fourteen she saw a

573
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 1: man six or seven feet high in a crown and

574
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: toga like dress, whom she at first took to be Charlemagne,

575
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: but later decided it was an apparition of the Roman

576
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 1: emperor Constantine. So who Perhaps she actually has some form

577
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: of the second site. Maybe she truly is seeing historical

578
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: figures throughout the past, and flat circle has opened up

579
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: to her. What's that syndrome you have where you get

580
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: overcome with great works of art? You're talking about not

581
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: just a garden variety epiphany, something that's stays with you. Yeah,

582
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: the Stendl syndrome. It's like a reverie that you experience

583
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 1: that's very, um all encompassing, borderline debilitating when when you

584
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 1: when you are in the presence of great art. I

585
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,399
Speaker 1: just think it's really fascinating, Matt, that all of these

586
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: times that she had these hallucinations, she was either at

587
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: some sort of historic site or an amazing art museum. Um.

588
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering if there's a connection there, because it

589
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: seems like, you know, and I could see what you're

590
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: saying to about the second site. Surely, you know, if

591
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 1: at these these historic locations where you know, many many

592
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: events have occurred and historic figures have trod upon these

593
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:39,879
Speaker 1: hallowed grounds, you know, I could see that as being

594
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: a potential thing too. But I'm wondering if her hallucinations

595
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 1: weren't triggered by these breathtaking sites. You know, that's a

596
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 1: really good question, and I'm I'm tempted to agree. But

597
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 1: what this does prove is that the teachers are not

598
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: or we're not per briskly misleading folks. They weren't themselves

599
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: being hucksters or or trying to you know, sell a book.

600
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: They were they were, but they weren't. They weren't attempting

601
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:18,760
Speaker 1: to purposefully mislead people, which I think is a huge difference,

602
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: because it sounds as if they genuinely believed in the

603
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: veracity of their story, despite the fact that it was

604
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: changing and expanding, right, and part of the reason why

605
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: it seems contradictory first to say, well, how could they

606
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: both believe this thing was true and expand upon it

607
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: at the same time. The fact of the matter is

608
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: that memory is tricky, deceitful, treacherous, and will betray you.

609
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: Every time you remember something, you're just remembering the last

610
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: time you remembered it, which we've mentioned on this show before.

611
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: That's why as humans age, earlier memories take on this

612
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: strange feeling. Right, with this encapsulated tone, you might remember

613
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: just a snapshot from a time when you were four

614
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:15,280
Speaker 1: and you burned your hand or something, but that probably

615
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: happened in a very different way. We've just been a

616
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 1: creating these new interpretations of it. So at this point

617
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:27,800
Speaker 1: there is no proof of ghostly activity in Versailles. However,

618
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:32,240
Speaker 1: the two teachers captured the public imagination, and this book

619
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: sold like gangbusters, multiple issues, multiple languages, you can go

620
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:42,320
Speaker 1: to Versailles today and if you wish attempt to take

621
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: the path that they took. You will likely not see

622
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 1: Mary Antoinette. But if you do, please let us know.

623
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: And if you do happen to snap a picture of

624
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,439
Speaker 1: any ghost, any apparition has some time slip, whatever it is,

625
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 1: send it to us. On Twitter your conspiracy stuff, and

626
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: on Facebook we are the same. You can find our

627
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy. Post a picture there.

628
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 1: Maybe if you just go on a trip, tell everybody

629
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: in that community about it. I'm sure people will want

630
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: to talk about this. We want to talk about it too.

631
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: If you want to listen to other shows we've done,

632
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 1: go to stuff they don't want you to know. Dot com.

633
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:24,359
Speaker 1: You can even find our videos there what it's crazy? Uh?

634
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: And if you don't want to do any of that

635
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: stuff and you want to still talk to us, send

636
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy and

637
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com