Beyond the Veil Magazine

The Moberly-Jourdain Incident Revisited

Issue #45: September 1982

On August 10, 1901, two Englishwomen visiting the Palace of Versailles experienced something they could not explain. Charlotte Anne Moberly, Principal of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, and Eleanor Jourdain, her Vice-Principal, appeared to have stepped back in time to the era of Marie Antoinette.

Their account, published as “An Adventure” in 1911, became one of the most celebrated and controversial paranormal narratives of the twentieth century.

The Experience

Moberly and Jourdain were visiting Versailles as tourists. After touring the main palace, they set off to find the Petit Trianon, the small chateau that had been Marie Antoinette’s private retreat.

They became lost.

Walking through the grounds, they noticed a strange atmosphere. The landscape seemed flattened, lifeless, like a painted backdrop. Both women felt an oppressive melancholy.

They encountered figures in period costume. A man in a wide-brimmed hat sat near a kiosk. Two men in greyish-green coats appeared to be gardeners. A woman in light-coloured clothing sat sketching on the terrace of the Petit Trianon.

Most remarkably, a man with a pockmarked face ran past them, warning them away from their path. His clothing and demeanour seemed to belong to another age.

Eventually, the women found the Petit Trianon and rejoined the normal world. Only later, comparing notes, did they realise that each had seen things the other had not.

The Investigation

Moberly and Jourdain did not immediately publicise their experience. Instead, they spent years researching, revisiting Versailles, and attempting to verify what they had seen.

Their findings were remarkable:

The buildings and landscape they described matched the layout of Versailles as it had existed in 1789, not 1901. Features they observed had been demolished or altered.

The costumes matched historical records of dress worn by specific individuals in Marie Antoinette’s household.

The woman sketching on the terrace matched contemporary descriptions of Marie Antoinette herself.

The man with the pockmarked face matched the Comte de Vaudreuil, a member of the Queen’s circle.

The Publication

In 1911, Moberly and Jourdain published their account pseudonymously as “An Adventure.” The book caused a sensation. Here were two respectable academics, with reputations to protect, claiming to have visited the past.

Critical response was divided. Some accepted the account as genuine evidence of time travel or psychic phenomena. Others dismissed it as fantasy, hoax, or misidentification.

The women maintained their account until their deaths, Jourdain in 1924 and Moberly in 1937.

The Sceptics

Several attempts have been made to explain the Versailles experience conventionally:

Misidentification: The figures might have been actors or participants in a historical recreation. But research has found no evidence that any such event occurred on August 10, 1901.

False Memory: The women might have unconsciously embellished their memories after reading historical accounts. But their initial notes, made before any research, already contained specific details that matched historical records.

Hoax: The women might have invented the entire account. But their academic reputations would have been destroyed by exposure. Neither woman ever profited from the story.

Folie à Deux: Shared delusion between the women might explain the experience. But they initially described different elements, which only aligned through later comparison.

The Significance

The Moberly-Jourdain case remains significant for several reasons:

Quality of Witnesses: Unlike many paranormal accounts, this one comes from educated, respectable observers with no apparent motive for fabrication.

Documentation: The women kept detailed notes and conducted extensive research to verify their observations.

Specificity: The details they reported matched historical facts they could not have known through casual research.

Consistency: Neither woman ever recanted or contradicted her account over decades.

Eighty Years Later

The Versailles time slip occurred eighty-one years ago. Both witnesses are long dead. The truth of their experience can never be verified.

But their account endures. Each generation of researchers returns to examine it, attempting to prove or disprove what happened on that August afternoon.

Perhaps Moberly and Jourdain did, briefly, slip through time. Perhaps they wandered into a fold of history where 1789 and 1901 briefly overlapped.

Or perhaps they experienced something else entirely, something we have no framework to understand.

The Palace of Versailles continues to attract millions of visitors. The gardens where two Englishwomen walked into the past are maintained and tended. If the past still bleeds through in those grounds, no subsequent witness has reported it.

But the possibility remains.

Readers with experiences of apparent time slips are invited to contact our research department.