Versailles revisited . by James Edward Holroyd . in a small black pocket-diary in the Bodleian Library there are various brief pencilled entries which record the owner &apos;s holiday in Paris with a friend in the summer of 1901 : August 7 St Denis . August 9 Louvre buildings . and then : August 10 Versailles . the diary is signed C A E Moberly on the fly-leaf . that laconic entry represents the starting-point of the strange experience of the two English women who saw , or thought they saw , Marie Antoinette and members of her entourage in the grounds of the Petit Trianon at Versailles on that far-off summer afternoon . the experience lasted only half an hour . the two women thought so little of it at the time that they did not discuss it for a week ; did not write down any account of it for three months ; did not publish it to the world until ten years later . when the book appeared pseudonymously under the title of an adventure fifty years ago in 1911 , it aroused controversy which continues today . although the two women , whom we now know to have been Miss Annie Moberly and Miss Eleanor Jourdain , were of high academic standing , their accounts were not without confusion . some of their evidence is careless if not suspect ; some of their research contradictory . they have been accused of altering their stories ; of adding later touches which lifted their experience from the light of common day into the rarified atmosphere of the late eighteenth century . the two women were always somewhat hypersensitive to criticism , and as if to refute any suggestion of collusion or conspiracy , Miss Moberly deposited their letters and papers in the Bodleian . neither of the two is now alive , but the echoes of their adventure - which has been described as the most famous ghost story in the world - still puzzle the inquirer . were they victims of hallucination ? did they only imagine the experiences they described ? could their adventure be explained in natural terms ? or did they , in fact , find a doorway into the past which enabled them to participate , however briefly , in the sunset thoughts of the unhappy queen ? there are few places in the world in which it is easier to imagine ghosts than the vast palace of Versailles . the echoing halls of the great ch&amp;acirc;teau , the labyrinthine walks of the main park with their stone benches and frozen statuary , the haunted gardens of the Petit Trianon - all are alike murmurous with the footfalls of history . Miss Moberly was the principal of St Hugh &apos;s , Oxford , and Miss Jourdain the joint head of a girls &apos; school at Watford on that August afternoon which was to establish their life-long link with Versailles . their respective ages were fifty-five and thirty-eight . both were daughters of Anglican clergy . Miss Moberly was , in fact , the seventh child of a bishop of Salisbury who had previously been headmaster of Winchester . she had acted as her father &apos;s secretary , and although lacking formal academic qualifications was appointed to the headship of the first women &apos;s college in Oxford , a post to which she brought considerable gifts of administration and undoubted authority . in the summer of 1901 she was seeking a vice-principal for St Hugh &apos;s , and the sightseeing holiday , with Miss Jourdain &apos;s Paris flat as base , was to be a mutual exploration of temperament and personality . neither of the women claimed to know more of Versailles than occasional casual reading had brought . we had very hazy ideas as to where it was or what there was to be seen , Miss Moberly wrote of the Petit Trianon . both of us thought it might prove to be a dull expedition . Miss Jourdain was familiar with French and gave lessons on the history of the revolution . Miss Moberly could read French but was not good at the spoken word . let us now follow them on their adventure at Versailles . in the middle of the afternoon , after the usual tourists &apos; round of the palace , they decided to visit the Petit Trianon . they looked up the general direction in Baedeker and walked down through the main grounds until they reached the forecourt of the Grand Trianon . instead of walking along the Avenue des Deux Trianons , which would have brought them immediately to the main entrance to the Petit Trianon , they went along a lane through a gate on the right-hand side of the Grand Trianon forecourt . after walking up the lane they made a sharp turn to the right past some buildings . Miss Jourdain described them as farm buildings and noted that implements , among them a plough , were lying around . in retrospect they always felt that the point at which they passed the buildings marked the beginning of their adventure - that from this moment they trod enchanted ground . only in retrospect , however : at the time they were walking briskly and talking with animation about England and their mutual acquaintances . Miss Moberly recorded that although the weather had been very hot all the week , the sky was somewhat overcast that afternoon and a lively wind was blowing across the main park . passing the buildings , they went along the middle path of three , where they met two men and asked the way to the house . they were told to go straight on . the two men were dressed in long greyish-green coats and , according to Miss Moberly , wore small three-cornered hats . the two visitors first spoke of them as gardeners , but later thought they must have been officials of some kind . Miss Jourdain remembered that when they spoke to the men she saw to the right a detached cottage with stone steps and a woman and girl at the doorway . Miss Moberly apparently did not notice either the cottage or the two occupants . unknown to each other , the two visitors now began to experience a deepening sense of depression . Miss Jourdain noted that she began to feel that they had lost their way and that something was wrong . after leaving the men , they continued along the path until it was crossed by another at right-angles . in front of them , overshadowed by trees , they saw a small building with roofed-in columns . in their original notes they referred to this as the Temple de l&apos;Amour , judging it to be this from the map , but in the published account Miss Moberly described it as a light garden kiosk , circular and like a small bandstand . a man wearing a cloak and a large slouch hat was sitting close to the kiosk . as he turned to look at them , both saw that his expression was evil and repulsive , and their growing sense of depression and unease culminated in a feeling of alarm . Miss Moberly also recorded that everything suddenly looked unnatural , therefore unpleasant ; even the trees behind the building seemed to have become flat and lifeless , like a wood worked in tapestry . there were no effects of light and shade and no wind stirred the trees . it was all intensely still . she thought that nothing would induce her to go to the left - presumably past the seated man . in the silence they were relieved to hear someone running towards them . Miss Moberly connecting the sound with the gardeners , saw it was a handsome young man - distinctly a gentleman - who also wore a large sombrero and a dark cloak with one end flying out in his prodigious hurry . he told them in French that it was not necessary to go to the left and that they would find the house to the right . he then disappeared and they heard his retreating footsteps , still running . the two visitors then crossed a small rustic bridge over a tiny ravine with a trickle of water on the right , followed a pathway under trees , and skirted a narrow meadow of long grass , damp and with an orchard look about it . this , although they did not realise it at the time , was the English garden on the north side of the Petit Trianon . the windows facing them were apparently shuttered . as they went up to the terrace bordering the north and west fronts , Miss Moberly noticed a woman sitting below the north terrace and holding a paper at arm&apos;s-length as if sketching . afterwards she was able to describe the dress with some particularity , and noted , I thought she was a tourist , but that her dress was old-fashioned and rather unusual ( though people were wearing fichu bodices that summer ) . Miss Moberly subsequently identified the woman from a photograph as being Marie Antoinette . later it emerged that Miss Jourdain had not noticed anyone at this point , although they asserted that there was no one else in sight . the two visitors then crossed over the west terrace fronting the French garden and were moving towards an unshuttered window on the French garden side when they heard a door bang and a young man ( afterwards described as the chapel man ) stepped on to the terrace from what seemed to be a second house at right-angles . he told them that the way in was by the entrance court and walked down the French garden with them to an exit in the front drive . the visitors then went through the forecourt of the Petit Trianon to the house , where they followed in the wake of a French wedding-party walking arm in arm in a long procession round the rooms . they were at the back of the party , too far away from the guide to hear much of his story . but they noted that the feeling of depression had passed and that they now felt quite lively . then they drove back to tea at the H&amp;ocirc;tel des Reservoirs in Versailles , and they did not speak of any of the events of the afternoon . because of the wind , Miss Moberly had put on her coat during the drive to the hotel , and as they later returned to Paris by train she noted that the setting sun at last burst out from under the clouds . again and again the thought returned - was Marie Antoinette much at Trianon , and did she see it for the last time long before the fatal drive to Paris accompanied by the mob ? that , in plain terms , was the substance of the adventure ; and a commonplace experience it would have remained , but for the extraordinary circumstances that followed . although the two women stayed on in Paris for a while , they asserted that they never alluded to that afternoon until , a week afterwards , Miss Moberly was writing a letter to her sister in England and suddenly asked Miss Jourdain if she thought the Petit Trianon was haunted . Miss Jourdain promptly answered yes , and then , for the first time , they became aware that their feelings of depression and anxiety had begun at the same point of their journey . talking it over , they realised for the first time the theatrical appearance of the running man and the inappropriateness of his wrapped cloak on a warm summer afternoon . Miss Jourdain also admitted having disliked the thought of passing the seated man at the kiosk . on November 10 , 1901 , three months after the experience , Miss Jourdain was staying with Miss Moberly at Oxford and they returned to the subject , only to discover that Miss Jourdain had not seen the sketching woman . thereupon they resolved to write down separate accounts of the experience to discover how far they had seen the same things . these first accounts , both dated November 1901 , are still in existence and can be seen at the Bodleian . ( for convenience they can be referred to as M1 and J1 . ) during November and December they also wrote two more detailed accounts ( which will be referred to as M2 and J2 ) to show to friends . these longer accounts were the versions that appeared in their book published in 1911 . the original documents of M2 and J2 are no longer in existence , having been lost or destroyed after being copied into a manuscript book in 1906 . it is important to note here that in the autumn of 1901 , before either had written down a single word , Miss Moberly had told friends about their ghost story . 