Music Welcome to Snewscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by The Queen's Pavilion. Tonight, we'll continue with The Petit Trionon, adapted from An Adventure by Charlotte Anne, Moverly and Eleanor Jordan, first published in 1911. This episode is part of our spooky sleep story series where we'll share classic tales of the strange and mysterious. In part one, the two English academics described an uncanny afternoon walk through the gardens of Versailles in 1901, and experience they could neither explain nor forget. In this second part, which began as a curious outing, gradually turns into a quiet obsession. Tonight's reading follows their continued search for reason amid the

unaccountable and the lingering question of what exactly they had walked into

that August day.

Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. F.L. November 1901. On receiving Miss LaMont's letter, I turned to my diary to see on which Saturday in August we had visited Versailles and looked up the history to find the event she alluded to. On August 10, 1792, the Twiliree was stormed. The royal family escaped in the early morning to the hall of the assembly. We wondered whether we had unknowingly stepped into some lingering echo of the Queen's memories. That this might explain the strange feeling of enclosure and quiet way to upon the air. Perhaps during those hours in the hall,

or later in the concierge Ré,

her mind had drifted so vividly to the peaceful days in August

that she once spent at Trionon

that an imprint of them still lingered there.

Some portraits of the time showed court gentlemen in broad hats and cloaks, and ladies in long-waisted bodices with short gathered skirts and fissue. I told the story to my brother. We agreed that such accounts usually have simple explanations, if only examined

carefully, yet this one felt curiously resistant to reason. He gested that perhaps we had glimpsed the queen as she imagined herself, and wondered whether the dress described was that of the moment or one she remembered from years before. He also asked half teasing whether we were sure the last man we saw and the wedding party were of our own time. I assured him, amused that we had no doubt what ever of their reality. As Miss Le Mans was going to Paris for Christmas, I wrote and asked her to visit the place again to sketch the path and buildings. For the guidebooks mentioned the Tom-Ple de Le Mans and the Bellevier, and I thought one might prove to be our chaos. E.M. Miss La Montse count of her second visit to the Petit Trionon. January 1902. On January 2, 1902, I went again to their side.

It was a cold, wet day, but I would not be deterred. I drove straight to the Petit Trénon, passing the Grand Trénon. From there, I could see the path we had walked to the previous August.

I entered by the regular gate, intending first to visit the Tomplow de la Mour. To the right of the Côde-nour, a doorway led toward the Amour de la Rene. There was no place or no trace for the uncanny stillness we had felt before. Until upon crossing a small bridge toward the Amo, it returned suddenly and with force, as though I had stepped across an unseen boundary. To my left stretched open parkland with leafless trees. Two labors were filling a cartwistics, wearing bright hooded tunics of red terracotta and blue. I glanced aside for a moment, and when I looked back both men and cart were gone, though the ground lay clear for a great distance. I went on toward the Amon. The cottages stood beside a sheet of water and again that heavy charge quiet gathered, strongest beneath the balcony of the Maison d'Ollren, and by a shuttered window of the Lethry. I hesitated to approach, but when I did, the window was closed within. Leaving the Amon, I reached the smaller Orangery, intending to find the Belvedere. I took a wrong turn into a wood. Before entering, I looked across an open space and saw a man in a dark cloak slip silently through the trees. His motion was smooth, almost gliding. Inside the wood I heard a faint rustle behind me, like silk brushing leaves. I turned quickly but saw no one. And the feeling deepened, like being among a crowd moving past, unseen yet close enough to touch. I caught fragments of French voices, the words, Mizzio et Madem, spoken near my ear, and Distant music began to play, light and repetitive,

as if from a band far away. Both voices and melody sounded thin like an echo from an old recording, low pitched and strangely distant. I studied the map I carried, but whenever I chose a path, I felt compelled toward another. After wandering back and forth, I came again to the Orangiri and met a I asked where the Queen's Grotto might be, mentioned in Denolach's book. He told me to follow the present path, saying one must pass the Belvedere, and adding that it was impossible to know the grounds unless person, no, puré, voulte, trompé? No one could mislead you. The phrase struck me, echoing my own confusion. He pointed the way and left me. The path lead past the Belvedere to the French Garden where I finished my walk. Back in Versailles, I asked whether the band had played that day. I was told it had not, having performed the day before for New Year's Day. My French friends said there was a tale that Marie Antoinette had once been seen making butter in the laterally hence the shutters.

F. Marie Antoinette had once been seen making butter in the laterally hence the shutters. FL January 1902, 1902 through 1904. During the next two years little came to clarify our experience. in Versailles who once repeated the old traditions remembered nothing. Photographs of the Belvedere showed it was not the kiosk we had seen. Though Miss Le Monde returned to the Trianol many times, she could never again find the same places, not even the wood, and said that everything seems smaller, nearer, and entirely ordinary. She brought back some books related to the tradition of the Queen's last visit, and noted that the Kunt-vodrayi, who once betrayed her confidence, was a creole and marked by illness scarring, a detail that matched the man we had seen. In one of the books I found a portrait of the queen and was startled by its likeness to the Lady at Trinol. In January 1904, Miss Le Mont attended a performance of Le Barbié de Seville at the Commodite Française, and noticed that the attendance on stage were long green coats like our garden officials, a royal livery of the period. While the noble was dressed in a dark cloak and broad Spanish hat, the same style seen at Versailles. EM July 1904. On July 4, 1904, Miss Le Mont and I visited Trianon together joined first by a Madame Wazelle, then later alone. Both days were bright and hot, full of life and chatter, a stark contrast to the quiet of 1901. The gates we remembered were closed. The paths altered.

Where we had once met the officials,

a neat gardener's house now stood before attended partaire.

The ravine, cascade, and little bridge were gone.

The trees cleared.

The meadow replaced by gravel and flowering trumps. The transformation was complete. Crowds strolled freely. Fruit stalls stood beneath the trees, and the still dreamlike air of that earlier day had entirely vanished. We searched for the old paths in vain. Everything seemed smaller, closer, and ordinary. The mystery we had once felt seemed to have dissolved into daylight. We questioned a bookseller in Versailles about maps of the old Trinon. He showed us a print of the Jodabang. Its central pavilion resembled our kiosk, but not in setting. When we mentioned the men in green coats, insisted such uniforms were

impossible now, green being once a royal color. A palace guard later confirmed this. Only the president may use it today. We were told the grounds had been freely open for many years.

The more we compared our two visits, the stranger the difference became. Determined to understand it, we began keeping what we called the Green Book,

a record of every letter, plan,

...