Versailles music

As the author of the overview of the ‘Ghosts of Versailles’ article [FT278:30-35] I enjoyed Roger Morgan’s letter about the music apparently heard by Eleanor Jourdain [FT385:70-71]. I’ll leave the technical answers to his music question to others, but his letter prompted me to bring up a couple of wider related points.

First, it’s worth emphasising Mr Morgan’s assertion that Jourdain’s apparent hearing of the music didn’t occur on the (in) famous initial visit of Jourdain and Annie Moberley to Versailles in August 1901. Rather, it was when Jourdain returned alone some six months later. And although on that occasion she couldn’t match the gardens with the antiquated scenes she and her friend had seen previously, she did indeed still encounter a number of aspects she considered strange, including hearing the odd music.

Even for those who believe some sort of time slip might have happened on the original 1901 visit, this second visit makes that interpretation arguably harder to accept, given that we need to believe pretty much the same thing could happen both on a completely separate occasion, and that it could happen in a far less clean way (for example with the gardens now seeming to be contemporary in appearance rather than from the late 18th century). By the time the two women returned together to Versailles in 1904, all seemed to be back to early 20th century normality.

The letter notes three possibilities about the music: a genuinely psychical experience; an actual band; or an hallucination constructed by her subconscious. A number of researchers have posited it could indeed have been a real band (and potentially not in any strange pitch, a filter added consciously or not by Miss Jourdain). Although Jourdain’s research indicated that no bands were officially playing in the park on that day, it seems quite possible that a military band could have been playing outside its formal boundaries. Various writers have proposed this, and Mark Lamont in his interesting book The Mysterious Paths of Versailles includes a postcard showing French military activity around the park in the 1900s.

As for the idea that the music could have been somehow constructed by Jourdain’s subconscious, psychical researcher Ian Parrott, author of the book about this music that Mr Morgan cites, suggests the source of music could have been from “recollections of her life”. And other researchers have pointed out similarities between the music and a contemporary (i.e. late 19th century) hymn, linking this to the fact that Jourdain’s father was a clergyman. Moreover, Lucille Iremonger in her seminal work on the case (The Ghosts of Versailles) notes a fair amount of evidence that Jourdain had from a young age a tendency to “externalise an eighteenth century background” and that at least one repetitive example of this involved music: apparently as a young girl Jourdain had a recurring dream where she was in an 18th century long room playing the piano or harpsichord, always the same piece. Eventually she found that once she woke she could recall it and write the notes down. It’s an interesting example connecting Jourdain to an ongoing and meaningful dream that included both repetitive older music and a clear 18th century background. There is no evidence I know of that suggests as a child that Jourdain equated the above experience with some sort of time slip rather than simply dreaming.

What Jourdain actually wrote about the music is that “the pitch of the band was lower than usual”. It seems to me that although this may have been a technical musical observation, it could also have been a way to convey a feeling of something unexpected and odd. Her mentioning strange music prompts us to imagine what it might have been like, and helps us recreate the other worldly nature of the scene, in part by layering over it our own otherworldly soundtrack. It’s not unusual for music to be associated with reports of psychical experiences, a point leveraged by moviemakers and theatre directors who often add some strange music (maybe of a lower pitch than usual) to add to the atmosphere of a spooky tale. Many FT readers will instantly recall the ‘strange’ BAFTA winning theme tune to the TV show Tales of the Unexpected, scored by Ron Grainer. That theme is inextricably linked to high strangeness for many of us. The music in the Versailles case is frequently mentioned as ‘ghostly’ or ‘spooky’ or ‘weird’. It’s as if the supposed existence of the music Jourdain heard helps to create an additional level of oddness as we recall the incident.

Interestingly, music and the Versailles incident came full circle in 1980 when the Metropolitan Opera in New York commissioned an opera set in Versailles, featuring the ghost of Marie Antoinette who is devastated at her own early death.

The music apparently heard by Eleanor Jourdain is just one access point into the Versailles adventure. Some people will always consider that a genuine psychical event occurred. And even for the more sceptical it’s hard to advocate initial deliberate fakery (for example the lack of desired fame is hinted at by the original versions of their book using pseudonyms, and Jourdain’s real name only becoming public after her death). However there is certainly the possibility of the original story having been energetically embellished, however subconsciously, by the two participants as they researched and retrofitted their newfound knowledge into all the nooks and crannies of their visit. Potentially, the addition of the music – on the second, solo trip – could be seen as another stage of this embellishment. This post facto embroidering, perhaps building on tired and lost minds in the original visit, and an enthusiasm to rekindle this initial high strangeness in the second visit, can therefore be seen as a legitimate fourth possibility to add to the Mr Morgan’s posited three noted above.

A final thought: more time has now elapsed since the infamous original visit than had passed from the time of Marie Antoinette’s death up until that 1901 ‘adventure’. One way or another, time slips away.

Tom Heywood

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