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Tonight, we'll read the first half of the petite trionone,

adapted from an adventure by Charlotte Anne Moberley and Eleanor Jordane, first published in 1911. This episode is part of Snuescast's 7th annual Spooky Sleep Story series where we share true and imagined encounters with the strange and unexplained every October. The two English women, both Oxford academics, recorded their uncanny experience while visiting the gardens of Versailles in 1901. What began as an ordinary afternoon outing soon became one of the most famous time-slip mysteries in modern folklore. Their book recounts the event through two separate testimonies, each written without the others' influence. First that of Miss Morrison, Moeberley, then Miss Le Mont, Jordan, the pair described wandering from the lively palace grounds into an oddly still corner of the estate, the Petit Trionon, where the encountered figures, fashions, and a mood belonging to another century. Later, their impressions would be linked to the last days of Queen Marie Antoinette, whose private retreat once stood on the same path. This episode presents the first half of their written accounts. Next week, in part two, we'll continue with the remainder

of their story and the discoveries that followed as they began to investigate what truly happened that August afternoon. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. Miss Morrison's account of the first visit to the Petit Trinon, August 1901. After some days of sightseeing in Paris, to which we were almost strangers, on an August afternoon 1901, Miss Lumaughan and I went to Versailles. They had very hazy ideas as to where it was or what there was to be seen. Both of us thought it might prove to be a dull expedition. We went by train and walked through the rooms and galleries of the palace with interest, though we constantly regretted our inability through

ignorance to feel properly the charm of the place. My knowledge of French history was limited to the very little I had learned in the schoolroom, historical novels, and the first volume of Justin McCarthy's French Revolution.

Over 30 years before my brother had... and the first volume of Justin McCarthy's French Revolution.

Over 30 years before my brother had ridden a price poem on Marie Antoinette, for whom at the time I had felt much enthusiasm. But the German occupation was chiefly in our minds, and Miss Le Manson I thought and spoke of it several times. We sat down in the salt of glass where a very sweet air was blowing in at the open windows over the flower beds below and finding that there was time to spare I suggested are going to the Petitrianome. My soul knowledge of it was from a magazine article read as a girl from which I received a general impression that it was a farmhouse where the queen had amused herself. Looking in Bay Decker's map, we saw the sort of direction and that there was two trionone and set off. By not asking the way, we went an unneccessarily long way round, by the great flights of steps from the fountains and down the central avenue as far as the head of the long pond. The weather had been very hot all the week, but on this day the sky was a little overcast and the sun shaded. There was a lively wind blowing. The woods were looking their best and we both felt particularly vigorous. It was a most enjoyable walk. After reaching the beginning of the long water, we struck away to the right down a woodland glade until we came up legally to the other water close to the building, which we rightly concluded to be the Grand Trianon. We passed it on our

left hand and came up a broad green drive perfectly deserted. If we had followed it, we should have come immediately to the petite Trianon, but not knowing its position, we crossed the drive and went up a lane in front of us.

I was surprised that Miss Lamont did not ask the way from a woman who was shaking a white cloth out of the window of a building at the corner of the lane, but followed, supposing that she knew where she was going. Talking about England and mutual acquaintances there, we went up the lane and then made a sharp turn to the right past some buildings. We looked in at an open doorway and saw the end of a carved staircase, but as no one was about, we did not like to go in. There were three paths in front of us, and as we saw two men a little ahead on the center one, we followed it, and asked them the way. Afterwards, we spoke of them as gardeners, because we remembered a wheelbarrow of some kind close by,

and the look of a pointed spade. But they were really very dignified officials, dressed in long, grayish green coats with small three cornered hats. They directed us straight on. We walked briskly forward, talking as before, but from the moment we left the lane, a strange quiet seemed to fall over everything. The air grew heavy and hushed, and a curious stillness settled about us. seemed to be absolutely no reason for it. I was not at all tired and was becoming more interested in my surroundings. I was anxious that my companion should not discover the change upon my spirits, which deepened as we went on, like the weight of an approaching storm. In front of us was a wood within which, and overshadowed by trees, was a light garden kiosk, circular, and like a small bandstand by which a man was sitting. There was no green sward, but the ground was covered with rough grass and dead leaves as in a wood. The place was so shut in that we could not see beyond it. Everything suddenly looked unnatural. Even the trees behind the building seemed to

have become flat and lifeless, like a woodworked in tapestry. There were no effects of light and shade, and no wind stirred the trees. It was all intensely still. The man sitting close to the kiosk, who had on a cloak and a large shady hat, turned his head and looked at us. That was the height of my peculiar sensations, and I felt a moment of genuine unease. His face startled me. There was something severe in his expression. His features seemed roughened, as if by hardship or shadow. I said to Miss LeMont, which is our way,, but thought nothing will induce me to go to the left. It was a great relief at that moment to hear someone running up to us in breathless haste. On the way back to Paris, the setting sun at last burst out from under the clouds, bathing the distant Versailles woods and glowing light. Valerian standing out in front, a mass of deep purple. Again and again the thought returned. Was Marie Antoinette really much at Trionon and did she see it for the last time, long before her final days in Paris? For a whole week, we never alluded to that afternoon, nor did I think about it until I began writing a descriptive letter of our expeditions of the week before. As the scenes came back one by one, the same sensation of dreamy quiet came over me so strongly that I stopped writing and said to Miss Lamont. Do you think that the petite trianon is haunted? Her answer was prompt. Yes, I do. I asked her where she felt it, and she said, in the garden where we met the two men. But not only there, she then described her feeling of unease, which began at the same point as it did with me, and how she tried not to

let me know it. Talking it over, we fully realized, for the first time, the theatrical appearance of the man who spoke to us, the inappropriateness of the wrapped cloak on a warm summer afternoon. The unaccountableness of his coming and going, the excited running, which seemed to begin and end close to us, and at always out of sight, and the extreme earnestness with which he desired us to go one way and not another. I said that the thought had crossed my mind that the two men were going to fight a duel, and that they were waiting until we were gone. Miss Le Mans owned to having disliked the thought of passing the man of the kiosk. We did not speak again of the incident during my stay in Paris, though we visited the Conseilles-Jiris and the tombs of Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette at Sundinie. We're all was clear and peaceful and natural. Three months later, Miss Le Monde came to stay with me, and on Sunday, November 10th, 1901, we returned to the subject, and I said, if we had known that a lady was sitting so near us sketching, it would have made all the difference, for we should have asked her the way. She replied that she had seen no lady. I reminded her of the person sitting under the terrace, but Miss Le Mante declared that there was no one there. I exclaimed that it was impossible she should not have seen the individual, for we were walking side by side and went straight up to her, passed her and looked down upon her from the terrace. It was inconceivable to us both that she should not have seen the lady, but the fact was clear that Miss Lamont had not done so, though we had both been rather on the lookout for someone who would reassure us as to whether we were trespassing or not. Finding that we had a new element of mystery, and doubting how far we had seen any of the same things, we resolved to write down independent accounts of our expedition to Triennon, read up its history and make every inquiry about the place.

Miss Lamont returned to her school the same evening, and two days later, I received from her a very interesting letter giving the result of her first inquiry. EM November 1901 first time, and then the course of that summer took a flat and furnished it, intending to place a French lady there in charge of my elder-school girls. Paris was quite new to me, and beyond seeing the picture galleries and one or two churches, I made no expeditions except to shops for the exhibition of 1900 was going on and all my free time was spent in seeing it with my French friends. The next summer, however, 1901, when after several months at my school in England, I came back to Paris. It was to take the first opportunity possible of having a visitor to stay there. And I asked Miss Morrison to come with me. Miss Morrison suggested our seeing the historic part of Paris in something like chronological order, and I looked forward to seeing it practically for the first time with her. We decided to go to Versailles one day, though rather reluctantly, as we felt it was diverging from our plan to go there too soon,

I did not know what to expect as my ignorance of the place and its significance was extreme. So we looked up general directions in Baydecker and trusted to finding our way at the time. After spending some time in the palace, we went down by the terrace and struck to the right to find the Petite Trionon. We walked for some distance down a wooded alley and then came upon the buildings of the Grand Trionon, before which we did not delay. went on in the direction direction of the petite triumon, but just before reaching what we knew afterwards to be the main entrance, I saw a gate leading to a path cut deep below the ground level. And as the way was open and looked used, I said, shall we try this path? It must lead to the house, and we followed it. To our right, we saw some farm buildings looking empty and deserted, implements among them a plow we're lying about. We looked in, but saw no one. The impression was saddening, but it was not until we reached the crest of the rising ground, where there was a garden that I began to fill as if we had lost our way, and if something were a mess. Two men stood there in official-looking greenish coats, carrying what might have been staves, a wheelbarrow and other tools lay near. They told us, in answer to my inquiry, to go straight on. I remember asking again, for their tone was oddly mechanical, but the same answer came back in precisely the same way. To the right stood a solid stone cottage with steps at the door. A woman and a girl were at the threshold, their dress unlike anything modern, white Kircheeves tucked into bodhisattva's, and the girl, though but fourteen at most, were a long skirt to her ankles and a close white cap. The woman was handing her a jug. Following the directions of the two men we walked on, though the path seem to lead away from where we imagined the petite triadon to be, and a strange loneliness came over the place. The air felt still and heavy with the dreamlike quiet as if the day had paused. But last we came to a cross path, and saw before us a small colonated building, set back among the trees. Seated on its steps was a man wrapped in a dark cloak, a broad hat shading his face. At that moment the unease that had been gathering within me deepened. He turned just head slowly. His skin was roughened as if scarred by illness. His complexion shadowed. The expression was cold and vacant, and though he did not look directly at us, I felt a strong, disinclination to pass him. Not wishing to show it, I spoke lightly of which turned to take, and we decided upon the right-hand path. Suddenly, we heard a man running behind us. He called out, ladies, ladies. And when I turned he said, and enough accent unfamiliar to me, you must not go that way. This way, look for the house. He made a quick gesture to the right. Though startled to be addressed, we were grateful for the direction, and I thanked him. The man ran off with a curious smile. The sound of his steps ceased as suddenly as it had begun. He was young-looking, with a florid complexion and rather long dark hair, his clothing dark and heavy, his shoes buckled in old fashion. We walked on, crossing a small bridge that spanned a green bank, high on our right and sloping down to a tiny pool of water that gleamed through the shade. A thin stream fell from above, so slight it seemed to lose itself before reaching the pool. We followed a narrow path and almost immediately came upon the English garden front of the Petitrianome. The place was utterly still. It as we stepped onto the terrace, I instinctively drew my skirt aside as though making room for someone I could not see, wondered why I had done so. While we stood there, a boy came out of the door of a second building opening on the terrace and closed it quickly behind him. He told us to go round to the other entrance and seeing seeing us hesitate, with a faint smile offered to show the way. We passed through the French garden, partly walled in by trees. A quiet melancholy hung over it until we reached the front entrance to the petite Trionionome and joined a cheerful French wedding party already inside. Afterwards we drove back to the Roul des Rez d'Oire. The impression returned to me at intervals during the week that followed, but I did not speak of it until Ms. Morrison asked if I thought the petite

tree in norm was haunted, and I said yes. The strangeness of the men's dress and manner lingered in my mind. Nothing else passed between us in Pelley. It was not until three months later when I was staying with her that Miss Morrison casually mentioned a lady and almost refused to believe that I had not seen her. How that happened was inexplicable to me, for I believed I had looked on all sides. was not that I had forgotten, but that I could have sworn no one was there. Yet as she spoke, I recalled a momentary sense that others might be present, though unseen. That evening, November 10th, 1901, I returned to my school near London.

The next morning I gave a lesson on the French Revolution, and it struck me with interest that the 10th of August had special meaning in French history and that we had been at Truyenom on its anniversary. evening, a French friend from Paris came into my room and I asked her if she had ever heard any story about the petite triangle being haunted. She said at once that she had heard from friends in Versailles that on a certain day, in August, Marie Antoinette, is sometimes seen sitting outside the garden in front of the Petitreanome in a light flapping hat and a pink dress. She added that the farm, the garden and the path by the water water are said to come alive for a day and a night with figures from her time. Their occupations and amusements quietly re-enacted. I then told her our story, and when I repeated the words the man had spoken and the accent he had used.

She remarked that it was the Austrian pronunciation of French. I had thought it might be old French. I wrote immediately to tell this to Miss Morrison.

AML November 1901. you you you you