Time Warp

leaving them to be cared for by the state. As a result, Madeleine grew up in the foster system, but as she got older she worked as a servant on local farms. Her story doesn't end there, though. In her teenage years, conflict of did across Europe, sending countries around her into a Second World War. To find safety, Madeline fled to Orleone, where she found refuge inside a convent.

During her time there, the war claimed two of her brothers, but her remaining siblings, her brother Renee and her sister Nancy, both remained close for years to come. In fact, Madeleine would later work in a factory just one town over from Nancy. All the way up till nineteen sixty seven. That's when she met and married a railway worker and the two of them moved to Algeria to start fresh, and Madeleine never moved back to France after that. She lived out the rest of her life with her husband

in the Mediterranean. It's a nice story, isn't it. A life that began with tragedy, only to be torn apart by wars, ends up full of peace and tranquility. But even after all of that, Madeline's story doesn't end there. In fact, it was just beginning in her eighties. Madeleine had to return to her hometown in talon Court in two thousand six to renew her I D card and

secure her government pension. She brought with her the usual documentation like her birth certificate and her passport and presented them in what should have been a pretty simple process. There was just one problem. Madeline Moore had already claimed her government pension. Her checks were sent to Saint Etienne, her home of the past twenty years. Obviously, our Madeline

was confused and possibly even upset. Sure she had lived in Algeria for nearly four decades, but she was the real Madeline Moore she had the paperwork to prove it. Of course, the authorities assumed it was just a simple case of identity theft. Someone else was pretending to be Madeleine in order to claim her pension as their own. They just needed to spend some time investigating it to sort it all out, and then all the confusion would

go away. Except it didn't. When this new Madaline arrived from her home in Saint Etienne, she produced the exact same documentation, a birth certificate, I D card, even old past dubs, all of them clearly showing identical details to our Madaline. More both women gave detailed descriptions of their upbringings to the police. Each of them explained how their mother had died young and their father had abandoned them.

Each woman described living in foster care after that. This new Madaline seemed to know every single detail of our own Madaline's life, right down to the most tragic pieces. Clearly, this was no longer a case of a stranger getting ahold of forged documents to steal a little money. This

was something else, something stranger. But being the twenty one century, they had new tools to lean on, tools like d n A, so they acquired a sample from Renee, Madeline's brother, who had survived the war, and then took samples of both women to compare them, and the results were conclusive. Our Madaline was the real Madeline, and I'm sure you're

as relieved as I am to hear that. But it still wasn't over because there was a new piece of evidence that muddied the waters rather than making them more clear. It was an old black and white photograph that Renee had sent to his sister. It had been taken during their time at the orphanage when they were children. In the photo, the police could clearly see young Madeline posing in a sun filled field with a smile on her face. But she wasn't alone. Renee was there and he had

his arms around another girl. It was clear that the first girl was Madeline, our Madeleine, of course, but everyone wondered who the second girl was. Renee didn't remember when he handed the photo to his sister, but someone did recognize the second girl. One of the policemen, the one who had been interviewing the new Magdaline for hours that day, was absolutely certain that the stranger in the photo was

the elderly woman sitting across the table from him. After he pointed it out to the others, everyone else agreed, which was weird because neither of the women had any memory of the photograph being taken. It's understandable, really, the photo must have been seventy years old. I have a hard enough time remembering what I did two weeks ago,

so seven decades must have felt like an eternity. They had no memory of the photo, no memory of ever meeting, but clearly they lived at the same orphanage way back in the nineteen thirties. None of this explains how both women came to think of themselves as Madeline More. Perhaps the war had been too rough on the second woman and she began to slowly think of herself as the

girl she'd spent time with at the orphanage. Maybe she pretended for a while, and as time went on that new persona took over and replaced the woman and she had once been. Or maybe it was all an intentional lie and she was just really committed to it. Whatever the reason, I'd like to think there was more to the story, don't you. Time is a tricky thing. Some believe it moves in a straight line, while others believe

it's destined to repeat itself. Nietzschie referred to it as eternal return, that the universe and everything inside will loop forever across infinite time and space. That's pretty heavy stuff, I know, and it might be a strange concept to grasp if you haven't experienced it. They must have felt that way to Charlotte and Eleanor too, who got to experience it firsthand for themselves. Six Charlotte Mobley was appointed as the principal of a school for young women in Oxford.

As her duties became more overwhelming than one person could handle, she considered bringing on someone else to help with the day to day operations. Someone suggested she talked to a woman named Eleanor Jordaan, who ran a school of her own. She had an apartment in Paris, and Charlotte took the opportunity to stay with her as both a vacation and a job interview. Both women had a love for travel, and in nineteen o one, during Charlotte's stay at Eleanor's place,

they toured several locations around France. One such landmark was the Palace of Versailles, built by Louis the palace had been home to French royalty for generations, including two of its most famous residents, Louis the sixteenth and his wife Marie Antoinette. After a tour of the place and its vast marble interiors, elaborate tapestries, and sprawling corridors, Eleanor and

Charlotte found the whole thing underwhelming. I'm not sure what they were expecting, but Versailles didn't do it for them. So instead of going home right away, they decided to explore more of the grounds and see the Petit Trianon, a chateau built by Louis and where Marie Antoinette was known to spend most of her time. But they got lost. Eleanor and Charlotte spent more time looking down at their guide book then at the path they were walking on, and as a result, they wandered off the main route

and couldn't find their way back. As they did, the overall mood of the world around them seemed to shift. They later recalled that they both felt a wave of nausea washed over them, so much so that they had to flag down to gardeners for help. At least that's what they thought. The two men were, since both men had been pushing a wheelbarrow nearby. But there was something

different about them, something off. Rather than wearing modern clothing of nineteen o one France, their outfits seemed two centuries too old. Despite being dressed in an odd manner, the men were helpful and they guided the two women back toward the Petit Tree Anon. Charlotte and Eleanor considered the men as they walked with them. Maybe they were actors dressed up in period clothing for some performance elsewhere at the palace. Before they could decide, however, events took an

even weirder turn. They passed a cottage where a woman in rustic clothing handed a little girl a jug of water. At another building, a man wearing a thick black coat and a wide brimmed hat looked straight at them, his face covered in the tell tale marks of smallpox. They were startled by yet another man, who ran up behind them and ushered them towards the Petit Tre Anon, where Charlotte witnessed the site that would haunt her for the

rest of her life. It was a woman, also in vintage garments, and she was sketching on the grass in front of the palace. She wore a summer dress and a large white hat which sat upon a head of thick yellow hair. Eleanor didn't see the woman, but Charlotte thought back to the gardeners in their green jackets and eighteenth century hats, the man with the thick cloak and smallpox, and the poor woman with the child. This woman was

no different. Her clothes appeared new, but of a style much older than anything Charlotte and Eleanor were used to. And this beautiful, fair haired woman bore a striking resemblance to the palace's former homeowner, a woman who had well lost her head. The woman Charlotte was looking at was none other than Marie Antoinette. The women didn't talk to each other about what they had seen until a week later.

They compiled their story of what they called a time slip into a book titled An Adventure, which they published in nineteen eleven under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Morrison and Francis Lamont. The tale and its authors were widely ridiculed in publications all over the world. One critic had written a biography of a French aristocrat by the name of Robert de Montesquieu, who had been known to have thrown lavish parties, were guests dressed in period clothing and post for living paintings.

It was possible that Charlotte and Eleanor had stumbled into one of these gatherings, but some things didn't quite add up. The young girl and her mother, who had been dressed in peasant clothing, as well as the man with smallpox, didn't seem like they would be welcome at such an extravagant party, and the dreadful feeling that washed over the two academic women as they ventured deeper into the gardens

couldn't be explained away either. It's easy for us to scoff at stories like the one told by Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jordan. If we can't see it for ourselves, how are we to know if it's true or not. Tales of alien abductions, Bigfoot, and the Lockness Months have survived because our fascination with the unexplainable, and this story

was no different. Charlotte and Eleanor swore that they had caught a glimpse of a time gone by, that they had experienced life in a time that was very much not their own, and they wanted us to know about it. I'd like to believe it all really happened, and that someday it might happen again. A tourist might stumble through the garden paths of Versailles and find themselves standing beside a historical celebrity. And if they do, though, will anyone

believe them? Today? Maybe? Maybe not, Only time will tell. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the

World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.