Summary
Summary of An Adventure
Key ideas
Key idea 1
An ordinary visit becomes a question
Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain went to Versailles as tourists, not as seekers of anything strange. Both held senior roles at an Oxford women's college, and the account places weight on their seriousness and care with words. After visiting the palace, they set off toward the Petit Trianon, a retreat used by Marie Antoinette. They knew little of the grounds. Their ordinary mood and purpose matter because the authors build their case around the contrast between this familiar beginning and what followed.
Key idea 2
The gardens begin to feel unreal
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Key idea 3
Shared unease meets different perceptions
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Key idea 4
A private feeling becomes an inquiry
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Key idea 5
Historical records suggest a possible echo
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Key idea 6
Sincerity does not settle the evidence
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Key idea 7
Ask what each detail actually proves
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For readers who enjoy ghost stories told as case files, love French history, or like weighing evidence for themselves.
What this book is
An Adventure is a short book by two Englishwomen who say they walked out of their own time. Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain were both senior figures at an Oxford women's college. In August 1901 they visited Versailles, went looking for the Petit Trianon, and felt that the gardens around them had changed in a strange way. The book appeared in 1911 under the pen names Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont. It was written to set down what they saw, to compare their separate memories, and to test those memories against old maps and French records.
The book gives you three things. First, the two witnesses tell their own accounts of the walk, with the people they met and the oppressive mood that came over them. Second, you follow their long search through archives, which they believed showed that the garden they had seen matched the Versailles of the 1780s, not the one of 1901. Third, you meet their bold idea: that they had somehow slipped into a memory of Marie Antoinette. Whatever you make of that idea, the book is a careful and sincere document. Let us begin on a hot August afternoon in 1901.
In this summary
- 1Two Oxford women set out for VersaillesFree
- 2A wrong turning leads into odd company
- 3The kiosk, the bridge and the sketching lady
- 4A door opens and the spell is broken
- 5Maps, archives and a queen's memory
- 6Doubts, debates and how to read it today
Key point 1 of 6
Two Oxford women set out for Versailles
The two authors were not casual storytellers. Charlotte Anne Moberly led St Hugh's Hall in Oxford, a college for women, and Eleanor Jourdain worked beside her there and later led it herself. They were educated, serious and used to weighing words. They knew France well, and Jourdain in particular loved French history and culture. That matters, because the book depends on trust in their honesty and their care.
In the summer of 1901 they were in Paris, and on a hot day in August they took a trip to the palace of Versailles. They toured the great state rooms and then went out into the gardens. Neither of them knew the grounds well. They had a guidebook, and they planned to walk on to the Petit Trianon, the small country house that Louis the Sixteenth gave to his queen, Marie Antoinette. It was a place she used to escape the strict routines of court life.
The Petit Trianon stands in a park a good walk from the main palace. Moberly and Jourdain first came to the larger house called the Grand Trianon, then set out to find the smaller one. They were not looking for anything strange. They were two tourists with a wish to see a pretty building and a bit of royal history.
The authors stress this ordinary start, and so should we. They describe themselves as sensible people in a normal mood, neither tired nor excited, talking as they walked. This framing is part of the book's argument. If the day began so plainly, they ask, how are we to explain what happened next? The question is where the book finds its force, and it is why the story begins with such careful details about the weather, the path and the time of day.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
Why did the women turn to historical research after their visit?
Right. “They write down their accounts separately, and then they set out to see whether history can say anything about what they saw.”Not quite. “They write down their accounts separately, and then they set out to see whether history can say anything about what they saw.”
What important difference appeared in their accounts of the woman near the house?
Right. “Jourdain, walking beside her, did not see the woman at all.”Not quite. “Jourdain, walking beside her, did not see the woman at all.”
How did the authors present their explanation involving Marie Antoinette's memory?
Right. “The theory is bold, and the authors present it as a guess, not a fact.”Not quite. “The theory is bold, and the authors present it as a guess, not a fact.”
Questions about An Adventure
What is An Adventure by Moberly and Jourdain about?
It is the authors' account of a visit to Versailles in August 1901, when they believed they had stepped into the gardens as they were in Marie Antoinette's day, followed by their research into what they had seen.
Is the Versailles ghost story true?
The authors told it as a true, first-hand experience, and they backed it with research. Critics have offered other explanations, such as costumed people, shifting memory or suggestion, so the question remains open.
Who were Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont?
They were the pen names used on the first edition in 1911. Elizabeth Morison was Charlotte Anne Moberly and Frances Lamont was Eleanor Jourdain. Their real names appeared in later editions.
What is the Petit Trianon?
It is a small country house in the park of Versailles, given by Louis the Sixteenth to Marie Antoinette. She used it as a retreat from the formal life of the court.
Is An Adventure hard to read?
No. It is short and written in clear English. The accounts are easy to follow.
