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Haunted Nights in the Château des Fougeret

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Dive into the world of French castles and explore the Château des Fougeret which host paranormal evenings and nights in their supposedly haunted rooms. Each room has its own story with its own ghosts rattling the doorknobs, moving objects across the room and keeping a watchful eye on the guests sleeping.

Overlooking the Vienne Valley on a high cliff, Château des Fougeret is an amazing example of French medieval architecture, looking like it came straight from a dark fairy tale with its round towers and rumors of being haunted by the previous occupants.

Read more: All our ghost stories from France

The castle in Queaux has been through many centuries of tumultuous history and caters today to those seeking the thrill of ghosts and the paranormal inside of the old French châteaus as they are roaming the corridors and crying about the past and fearing the present.

Discover the History of Château des Fougeret

First mentions of the Château des Fougeret dates back to the 1300 has a varied history as this castle has seen countless battles from the Hundred Year Wars and seen many changes throughout its history.

The Château des Fougeret is located in the verdant Vienne Valley of central France. Follow the winding river and explore the charming villages dotted along its shores. Spend an afternoon wandering through the breathtaking forest which encompasses this magical castle.

Read More: Château des Fougeret is not the only castle that are thought to be haunted. Read more ghost stories from the haunted castles around the world.

Inside the Haunted Rooms: The Château des Fougeret is filled with old trinkets and stuff from way back, helping to uphold the haunted aura from the gothic castle that have been restored since 2009.//Source: Wikimedia.

Admire the abundance of wildlife which roam freely in these parts and take in nature’s ever-changing colors. The big park around the castle was filled with plants from the New World like American Walnut Tree and giant sequoias, and must have looked otherworldly to people visiting this seemingly exotic place.

However, when the dark befalls on this Château, shadows in the corners and whispers in the dark take over. Today, the Château des Fougeret is mostly known because of the alleged paranormal activity. 

Paranormal Activity Nights at the Château des Fougeret

Much like other historic French castles, Château des Fougeret is no stranger to tales of paranormal activity. Many locals claim to have seen ghosts wandering the grounds and some even report hearing strange noises emanating from the chapel. Whether you believe these stories or not, there’s no denying that this legendary castle is an enchanting experience, full of culture and history.

In 2009, Véronique Geffroy and her husband François bought the empty Château des Fougeret, after it had sat alone for years of abandonment and decided to restore it to move in. After they moved in, they claim that they experienced a lot of paranormal activity in their home, and instead of fighting it, they decided to welcome it.

The House of Spirits: The owners felt a paranormal presence and to help pay for the renovations, they decided to held workshops, and ouija board sessions with their guests to try to come in contact with the spirits said to haunt the castle.// Source:Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

To help pay for repairs of the old and decaying castle, they started organizing paranormal nights in the château, even despite lack of safety like emergency exits, fire alarms and the weak floors. However, the nights turned out to be a success and they attracted a lot of media attention to their supposed haunted château.

Spend a Night in the Haunted Rooms

Now visitors can join workshops inside of Château des Fougeret of the paranormal sorts were mediums shows you the art of the turntable as well as a seance of the ouija board. After an evening of this you can spend the night inside one of the haunted rooms. The mediums that have held seances and tried to communicate with the castle claimed to have come in contact with not only one ghost, but many, each sitting in their former homes.

Paranormal Evenings: Care for a board game of Ouija board to summon the dead in the haunted castle? The owners of Château des Fougeret have become known for catering towards paranormal activity and are hosting seances to connect with the dead.//Source: wikimedia

Today the Château des Fougeret operates as a guest house and they have a few rooms they claim are more haunted than others, like what they call the Knights Room for instance that used to be a guard room and where they allegedly got in contact with a knight asking them to recite Our Father in latin.

There is also the Nurse’s Room where the former occupant is said to caress visitors’ hair in their sleep, crying children in the Master’s Room and the ghost of a little girl playing with the toys in one of the rooms and a man in a bowler hat in the Room with Watchtowers.

Read More: Ghost stories set in hotels and bed and breakfast places you can spend the night.

The Ax Murdered Usher’s Room

One of the haunted rooms called The Usher’s Room is one where a man was killed in the 18th century with an ax and has haunted the rooms and the guests staying there ever since. The owners of Château des Fougeret claims that people sleep poorly when visitors stay the night.

According to the legend it all happened in the 18th century when the Lord of Fougeret at the time, Louis Taveau didn’t pay his taxes and when the usher threatened to seize his property the lord of the Château killed him and buried him in the crypt. 

People who have stayed in this room tell about being disturbed throughout the night, hearing footsteps and that objects in the room are moving and even being thrown around. Some even claim that they have been left with scratches. 

The Ghost of the Sickly Alice and Marie’s Room

This is the room that used to belong to two young girls in different spots in history that are said to haunt the Château des Fougeret. They believe that the room is haunted by the girls because an alleged voice recording of a female voice calling for a Marie.

The first of the ghosts haunting the room is thought to be one named Marie who died suddenly in 1854 of meningitis in a time were this disease could be an epidemic outbreak. 

The other girl who is haunting this room is a girl named Alice who died when she was 23 in 1924. After her death her body was moved back into this room, and it is said you sometimes can smell the church incense used back then. People report feeling watched as well as the door handle turning by itself. 

According to the legend the daughter of the current owners moved into this very room and ended up developing the same kidney disease as Alice died of when she was the same age. Thankfully the disease is curable today. 

Haunted Porcelain Dolls: In the former bedrooms for the young girls, a porcelain doll are said to just appear in the middle of hte room. //Source:Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

In this room it is said that a funeral box suddenly appears and leaves a strange smell. It is said that this was a thing Marie had were she stashed her clothes and teeth.

Another strange thing known to appear in the room is a porcelain doll with a smashed head in the middle of the room. And we can perhaps agree that a haunted porcelain doll can be some of the scariest things there is.

Read also: There are plenty of stories about haunted dolls. Read about the haunted Okiku in Japan growing hair, Ruby that are making people sick, the crying doll called Mandy or Letta the doll from hell in the Moonmausoleum.

The Heartbroken and Bankrupt Felix’s Room

The most famed ghost in the Château des Fougeret is the heartbroken and broke Felix. He was weighed down after his father went bankrupt, losing his fortune as well as being heartbroken over a love he couldn’t have. He ended up taking his own life in 1898 and is said to haunt the room which was his former office. 

The people that have stayed in this former office talk about moving objects, turning door handles and stamping footsteps in the hallway outside. Someone also claims to have seen Felix’s ghost in the corridors outside his former office. 

Celebrating the Haunted Rumours

Today the Château des Fougeret is celebrating the paranormal and haunted legends that came with the place and keeps expanding during the course of the workshops by the mediums as well as their countless of ouija sessions, welcoming the thin veil between this life and the next.

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Château de Fougeret – Wikipedia

Enquête Paranormale au Château de Fougeret ft. @JORDANPERRIGAUD ! (Le plus hanté de France) 

The Fougeret

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Paris’ Haunted Père Lachaise Cemetery

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The mysterious grounds of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is the final resting place for many celebrities and if we are to believe the rumors, ghosts! Walk among the strange haunted graves of Jim Morrison and Marcel Proust as well as graves may or may not belonging to a vampire.

Have you heard about the mysterious tales of hauntings at Père Lachaise Cemetery? Located in Paris in France, this historic cemetery has been a popular tourist attraction for centuries and is the largest one in the city. 

Famous people like Jim Morrison and Marcel Proust are buried there and if we are to believe the legends, there is a ghostly tale or two that have become part of its history.

Read Also: All our ghost stories from France

The History of Père Lachaise Cemetery

The Père Lachaise Cemetery was established in 1804 by the French Emperor Napoleon as the first cemetery of its kind. Throughout the centuries, it has grown to become a vast necropolis that covers more than 110 acres of land. 

Here, you’ll find graves and monuments of notable public figures such as Oscar Wilde and Édith Piaf — among many others. The history of this site certainly adds to its mysterious allure, and is part of what draws tourists from around the world to experience it first-hand.

Read also: More ghost stories from haunted cemeteries from all around the world: Here

The holy cemetery was also the location of a battle and the fallen soldiers are said to still linger.

Ghosts of the Père Lachaise Cemetery

There is not only one ghost that are talked about at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tourists have reported being chased away or startled by mysterious figures among the graves and mausoleums — like the former prime minister of France, Adolphe Thiers, who doesn’t seem to get any rest around his tomb. People working in the cemetery have also ghost stories to tell about multiple of the souls resting here. 

There are also peculiar tales behind some of the graves you can find in Père Lachaise Cemetery, like the Polish composer Chopin who was buried without a heart because he was scared he would end up being buried alive. 

The Cemetery as a Battle and Execution Ground

Although the idea of a cemetery is that it is supposed to be a place of eternal rest, living life often comes in conflict with it. 

Within Père Lachaise Cemetery you will find the Communards’ Wall or Mur des Fédérés. This is the site of a bloody murder as 147 of the Communards were executed by the French army in what would be called The Bloody Week. 

A place for execution: Once a group of rebel soldiers were lined up and shot to death inside the cemetery. The wall they used for the executions of the revolutionaries are now called the Communard’ ‘Wall.

The semaine sanglante or the Bloody Week was a weeklong battle in Paris from 21 to 28 May 1871, when the French Army recaptured the city from the Paris Commune. The Paris Commune was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871.

Read Also: This is not the only haunting connected to the Paris Commune: The Red Man haunting the Jardin Tuileries in Paris

One of the last remaining strong points of the National Guard was the cemetery of Père-Lachaise that was defended by about 200 men. In the army used cannon to demolish the gates and stormed the cemetery. There was a bloody and savage fight around the tombs until nightfall, when the last Communards were taken prisoner.

The prisoners were taken to the wall of the cemetery and shot and then buried with them in a common grave. This group include one woman, the only recorded execution of a woman by the army during the Bloody Week. The wall is now called the Communards’ Wall, and is the site of annual commemorations of the Commune.

This was the final battle of the Paris Commune and it is believed that in that one week between 10 and 15 thousand people died.

The Ghost of Jim Morrison by his Protected Grave

One of the more famous ghosts said to haunt the cemetery is Jim Morrison. He was the lead singer of the Doors until his death in 1971 when he was only 27 years old. Still today the exact cause of his death is unclear, however, many speculate that it was drug-related. 

He had moved to Paris not long before his death to focus on his poetry writing after making hits like Light My Fire, Riders on the Storm and People are Strange.

His grave is covered in graffiti in Père Lachaise Cemetery as he is still a legend to many and the bust was even stolen in 1988, and ever since, a security guard protecting the grave. But during the night, people claim to have seen his ghost wander around the cemetery. 

The Ghost of the Writer Marcel Proust Looking for his Lover

The French novelist remains a legend in literature, and so many students struggle through his heavy books before finding solace in his genius writings when they finally understand its meaning. Many reading fans leave chestnuts in his honor at his grave today.

Perhaps fine way to have the afterlife, surrounded by fans still reading his works. But according to legend, this is one of the graves that are alledgedly haunted and people claim to have seen his ghosts wandering the cemetery today.

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust: Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist who wrote the monumental novel In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu).

Apparently, he is still distraught that no one listened to his dying wish. Proust spent the last three years of his life mostly confined to his bedroom of his apartment 44 rue Hamelin in Chaillot, sleeping during the day and working at night to complete his novel. He died of pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess in 1922.

Alive he had a final wish of being buried next to his lover, composer Reynaldo Hahn. 

However, he was a homosexual in a time when same sex love wasn’t considered true love, so when he died at 51 of pneumonia his wish wasn’t granted and he was buried alone. 

It is said he rises from his grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery every night to search for his lover who he dearly wanted to be buried next to. 

The Spiritualist Allan Kardec Granting Wishes from Beyond his Grave

A peculiar grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery is that of Allan Kardec, born Hippolyte Rivail from Lyon. He is seen as the founder of spiritism that took the world by storm in the 1800s and a medium with wealthy and famous clients like Victor Hugo and Sir Conan Doyle. 

On his monument it is written Naitre, mourir, renaitre encore et progresser sans cesse, telle est la loi . This means To be born, to die, to be reborn again and keep progressing, that is the law.

This is not exactly a ghost story per se, but there is definitive something mysterious stuff going on with it. According to the legends, Allan Kardec said that after his death you should put your hand on the neck of his bust on his grave and make a wish. If the wish was granted, you should come back with flowers. 

There are according to rumors, almost always fresh flowers by his grave.

A Years Stay at Elisabeth Stroganovas’ Mausoleum

Baronne Elisabeth Alexandrovna Stroganoff: painted by Robert Lefèvre.

The strangest grave though found at Père Lachaise Cemetery must be that of Baroness Elizaveta Alexandrovna Demidova (Елизавета Александровна Строганова) a wealthy Russian aristocrat from the Stroganov family who resided in Paris in her final years. When Elisabeth Stroganova died at 40 in 1818 she gave a strange clause in her will with a huge cash prize. 

Anyone who dared to spend a full year, 365 days and 366 nights inside of Elisabeth Stroganova’s mausoleum would inherit a big chunk of her inheritance. Why this was a clause is unclear. Her sense of humor? Maybe a fear of being alone? Something else?

There were at least 3 people who tried to the insane clause to try to get their hands on her inheritance. The brave, or desperate depending on how you look at it, had food served to them through a bucket, and on their own they were to stay there for a full year.

To this day there is still no one who managed to endure the challenge. People went crazy and they started seeing and hearing things. Perhaps worst of all was the retelling of how they claimed to feel the very lifeforce were sucked out of them. Could this be the ghost of Elisabeth Stroganova still being there, not wanting to be alone for eternity?

The White Lady or Vampire of Père Lachaise Cemetery

The clause in the will and challenging people to stay inside her mausoleum is strange in and of itself, but the rumors surrounding this grave doesn’t stop there. One of the so-called Lady in White ghosts that roams among the dark graves of the Père Lachaise Cemetery is most often attributed to Elisabeth Stroganova. But there are also rumors of her being something much more sinister.

Some also claim she is a vampire because of the date of her death with the number 8 being the number linked to vampires as well as wolfs head ornaments on her mausoleum, also symbolizing vampirism. Perhaps that is stretching for many, but the reasoning of keeping alive people in her mausoleum and their feeling of their lifeforce being sucked out of them has also contributed to rumours of her being a vampire.

Read Also: Another place rumoured to be haunted by vampires: Poveglia Island — The Most Haunted Place in the World

Well, that and the legend that says her body didn’t decompose as it should have. Keen to try her challenge?

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Featured Images: Jeanne Menjoulet/wikimedia

Elizaveta Alexandrovna Stroganova – Wikipedia

The ghosts of Pere Lachaise – le paris de Patrick

Élisabeth Alexandrovna de Demidoff | The Tombstone Tourist 

Allan Kardec – Wikipedia

Père Lachaise Cemetery – Wikipedia

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The Legend of the Ghost in the Louvre Museum

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Find out about the Red Man haunting the gardens that has reportedly been seen by visitors to Louvre Museum since before its opening and many strange and haunting rumors started to unfold from this world famous museum. But how many of them are actually rooted in other than fiction and fear?

Since its opening as a museum in 1793, Louvre Museum has had a mysterious supernatural entity lurking within its walls even before they started to bring all the historical artifacts inside. It is the most visited museum in the world and around 15 000 people visit this museum each day, many of them claiming to have seen a ghost or two. 

It is said if you spend 30 seconds looking at each piece of art without any sleep or breaks it takes 100 days to see all the artwork they display to this day inside of the Louvre. The museum is covered in urban legends, everything that Mary Magdalene is buried underneath, That the Mona Lisa is bigger than she is and that the pyramid in the courtyard contains 666 panes of glass like the mark of the beast. 

Read about more Haunted Museums across the world: Here

The History of the Louvre Palace in Paris

The building that Louvre in Paris is in has been a part of French history since 1190 when it was built as a fortress against the vikings by King Philippe Auguste. From the 1300s it worked as the official royal residence and was known as Palais du Louvre and saw kings and queens come and go for centuries. 

Read about more Haunted Castles from the world

The Louvre palace in Paris was the palace where the royal family resided and held court until the sun king Ludvig XIV had built the Chateau de Versailles and moved there in 1682. 

Too much Art from all over the World to See in one Lifetime

Putting all this culture and history into the same building kicks off the dust of the haunting these artifacts bring with them, and many of the haunted rumors in the Louvre come from stories about haunted objects or paintings or cursed artifacts from the ancient world. 

One of the most iconic features of the Louvre Museum is its vast collection of famous paintings, including Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese. 

Read Also: Cursed and Haunted Paintings

In addition to these celebrated works, visitors can also explore the museum’s numerous galleries filled with masterpieces from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome; 18th century French art; and many more. Despite being known for its wealth of artworks, the Louvre also holds its place in history as one of Europe’s most haunted buildings.

Reports of visitors experiencing supernatural occurrences have been documented since the museum’s opening in 1793 after the French Revolution and the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture decided this was where they would show the masterpieces the nation had to offer. 

Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre – The Mummy Haunting the Museum

One famous story comes from fiction, just like the pyramid actually contains 673 panes, not 666. It is true that the Louvre Museum has a mummy inside, but the haunted legend that is about the spirit of a mummy at the Louvre comes from fiction. 

Stories about mummies coming back to haunt or leaving curses at those who disturb their graves are plentiful, and the Louvre has one of them. Belphegor was a 1927 crime novel by the French writer Arthur Bernede and was made into a tv-series as well as a film later. 

The Louvre museum actually does have a mummy embalmed and it is the only mummy there is in the Louvre. Throughout the years there have been more mummies displayed at the Louvre, but today this is the only one.  

It is a man who lived in the Ptolemaic Period (305 BCE). The mummy is called the Mummy of Pacheri and has been at the Louvre since 1826. His name is either Pacheri or Nenu as the writing is hard to make out and his face is covered with a mask and many attribute the supposed hauntings to the mummy. 

This story has made people actually think that the Louvre is haunted by a vengeful mummy. Or was it the haunting that inspired the novel?

Read the Khonsuemheb and the Ghost of Theban Necropolis for an actual Egyptian ghost story.

The Red Man Haunting the Gardens

Another supposed ghost that is often talked about in connection to the  Louvre is the Red Man of the Tuilerie gardens that are adjacent to the museum. According to this legend there was a henchman of Catherine de Medici who was assassinated because he knew too many of the dark secrets of the royal family. 

After his death he came back to curse the entire royal family and the people living there in the palaces that existed, including those living in the Louvre Palace. 

Read the full story of The Red Man haunting the Jardin Tuileries in Paris

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12 things you should know about Louvre: A haunting history | Arts Culture – Gulf News

The Guardian of Egyptian Art

momie d’homme ; garniture de momie – Louvre Collections 

Mummy of Pacheri – Egypt Museum

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The Red Man haunting the Jardin Tuileries in Paris

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In the beautiful Gardens of Tuileries outside of the Louvre in Paris there is sometimes spotted a Red Man. This is thought to be the ghost of Jean l’Ecorcheur, an assassin to Catherine de Medici who ended up being assassinated himself.

The Tuileries Palace was a royal palace directly in front of the Louvre Palace before it was burnt down in 1871 by the Paris Commune, a French revolutionary government that seized power between March to May that year. 

It was built by Queen of France, Catherine de Medici in the 1500s after her husband died to have space for a large garden. Today, the only thing that remains of it is the Tuileries gardens that covers the ground around the Louvre until the Seine and the Place de la Concorde, and if we are to believe the legend, the ghost of the The Red Man. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from France

It is in this stately garden that reports that go over centuries tell about the ghost of a red clothed man appearing throughout history to the visitors. And if we are to believe the legend, the ghost belongs to one of the assassins to the Queen of France.

The Tuileries Palace: Was a royal palace the royal family lived in next to the Louvre Palace. It was burned down by revolutionaries and legend has it that one of those working for the royal court cursed those living inside of the palace as long as it existed. Here the burning of the palace is depicted.

Queen of France Catherine de Medici

One of the people who are supposedly haunting the Louvre was one of the henchmen belonging to Queen Catherine de Medicis who ruled as queen in France from 1547 to 1559 at a time when the country was at constant edge because of brewing civil and religious wars. 

Although her husband, Henry allowed her almost no political power or influence as his queen, she found her own way and is regarded as one of the most powerful and influential women in Europe. 

Catherine De Medici: The Queen of France were a highly controversial queen during her reign, but managed to be a strong political figure in a time of unrest. Portrait by Germain Le Mannier.

She was also known for being interested in the occult, especially because she had problems conceiving in the start, something people attributed to witches among other things people found “unnatural” in a woman. She was also linked to being the creator of the Satanic Black Mass, teaching her son in the Dark Arts as well as being Italian. 

The Butcher Jean the Skinner

Who can this The Red Man be? What we know is true however, was that Catherine had a political agenda and needed people to put that agenda into life. But to act on the Queen’s behest came with great danger. 

The most famed legend of the identity of the The Red Man is about a man named Jean. Jean l’Ecorcheur was a butcher living in the palace and Catherine de Medici’s hired assassin to kill on her demand, both for political as well as various occult reasons according to the legends. Through his work as a butcher as well as assassin, Jean l’Ecorcheur earned his charming nickname, Jean the Skinner or the Flayer. 

Acting as the Queen’s henchmen, he also knew about her and the royal family’s secrets, which were plentiful and the Medici family was known to be a scheming family as well and Catherine de Medici had more enemies than most. Because she feared he would spill these dark secrets, she had him murdered before it happened. There are also rumors that she did it because he tried to quit or make her pay up. Nevertheless, he died a bloody death, but it wasn’t the end of him.    

He was according to legend killed by a man named Neuville in the Tuileries garden where he lived in a hut. Neuville left the corpse in the garden, but when he returned, he was gone. 

The Curse on the Royals of The Tuileries Palace

Catherine de Medici was according to popular belief a spiritual woman with a strong belief in the occult and she went to her astrologist Cosme Ruggieri who had a vision. In the vision the astrologist claimed that Jean would haunt the garden and had cursed all those living there. 

Legend has it that The Red Man rose from the dead and cursed all the French Royals who lived in the palace that were the cause of his death. After this they say many of them died under mysterious circumstances they blamed on Jack the Skinner’s ghost and curse and he was reportedly seen before many deaths almost like a dark omen. 

After this he became known as the Red Man, or the L’Homme Rouge of the Tuileries and if we are to believe the legends, he is still dressed in red and haunts the Tuileries Garden. 

Many claimed to have seen the Red Man before King Henry IV was assassinated on 14th of May in 1610, when Louis XIV died of gangrene in 1715. 

The Red Man was also seen before Louis XVI was executed by the guillotine as a traitor in 1739 during the French Revolution. 

The Lady in waiting for Marie Antoinette supposedly saw The Red Man a few days before the Tuileries Palace was stormed in 1792 in the Salle des Gardes and there is even a written account of it:

“Marie Antoinette’s women were sitting in the Salle des Gardes, when they became suddenly aware of the presence of a small man clothed from crown to heel in scarlet, who looked at them with such unearthly eyes that they were frozen with terror. They rushed to the apartments of the Madame la Dauphine and related their adventure.”

Fleeing the Palace: The Royal Family saw a lot of unrest over the generation, none greater than the many French Revolutions. Louis Philippe and the French royal family fleeing the Palace of Tuileries during the French revolution of 1848

Even Napoleon Bonaparte claimed to have seen what could have been him several times during his reign as the head of the state in France, before the battle of the Pyramids, the Battle of Wagram at his coronation and lastly at the battle of Waterloo. And although he wasn’t really a part of the royal family, he did reside in the palace as the king of some sort. 

However, in many sources they claim that The Red Man was acting more like a warning omen about danger to come than a vengeful spirit after his revenge. 

The Last Sightings of the Red Man

Written accounts went on for ages until the Tuileries Palace burned to the ground in 1971. Twelve men were ordered by Jules Bergeret to pour petroleum, tar and turpentine and light the palace on fire, burning it to the ground. And with tearing the once royal palace, did they perhaps succeed in breaking the curse of Jean the Skinner?

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References

Red Man: The Tuileries Palace Ghost – Geri Walton

Paranormal Paris: The Legend of the Red Man of Tuileries Palace

Phantom of the Queen’s Assassin

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Exploring the Ghost Stories on top of Paris’ Eiffel Tower

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Take a journey through the haunted legends and myths surrounding Paris’ Eiffel Tower, thought to be haunted by the ghosts of a romance gone wrong in the city of love. 

Step into the world of mysticism and supernatural entities surrounding the iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris locally nicknamed La dame de fer, or Iron Lady. This popular sign of romance has many urban legends and tall tales surrounding it, everything from secret rooms, the meaning behind its shape and the history of its construction. It also has a ghost story or two.  

The rumored ghostly sightings, mysterious events, and local folklore paint an intriguing picture of this famous landmark. To this day, visitors swear they’ve encountered spirits surrounding the Eiffel Tower, perpetuating its reputation as one of Paris’ most haunted sites and a full stop on the ghost tours.

The Origin of the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower was built from 1887 to 1889 as the centerpiece to the 1889 World’s Fair to showcase a certain level of grandness and modernity. Because of its design and size it saw a lot of criticism by writers and artists in France for the design at the time and for a long time it was seen as an eyesore to the critics. But after the construction, people were amazed at the sight of the enormous tower. 

For 41 years it was the tallest human made structure in the world until 1930 when the Chrysler Building in New York was made. It was only meant to stay up a few years and it was designed to be dismantled after 20 years, but it is still standing today.   

Paris, the City of Love

“City of swarming, city full of dreams
Where ghosts in daylight tug the stroller’s sleeve!”
– Charles Baudelaire, ‘The Seven Old Men’, Part: ‘Parisian Scenes’, ‘The Flowers Of Evil

As the most visited city in the world, Paris has a mysterious air all around it. With its cobbled-stone streets and magical architecture, the city evokes romance and intrigue despite the very same picturesque cobbled stone streets that have been drenched in blood over wars, revolution and dark times. 

It’s no wonder that it’s considered to be one of the most haunted cities in Europe, complete with stories and legends abounding regarding unexplained activities occurring around iconic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower.

At the Eiffel Tower’s restaurants it is said they get at least two proposals a day from people that seek out the romance of the place. But it is not only romance and happy proposals at the Eiffel Tower as it is also a place where many people choose to take their own lives. And sometimes there are stories about how pure love turned dark pretty quick:

The Jilted Lover at the Eiffel Tower

Of course the ghost story at the Eiffel Tower must contain romance, passion and heartache. And contrary to the dreamy and whimsical notion of the romantic city where love is true and everlasting, it tells what happens when love goes wrong and not returned. When the color red turns to eternal black. 

According to local legend of the ghost story in the tower, a jilted lover who was heartbroken years ago still wanders around on the upper floors. In some versions, it is the heartbroken man who haunts the place. In other versions it is the woman who went to the tower with him to break up that is now trapped at this romantic landmark forever. 

The story goes that a couple agreed to meet at the top of the Eiffel Tower sometimes in the 1920s, when the tower was younger, but already the symbol of love and Paris. The man went down on his knees and asked his beloved to marry him in front of the famous monument, but she refused. 

She was there to break up with him and the shock of her rejection broke his heart and sent him into a fit of rage. He pushed his girlfriend over the railing and she fell to her death. In some versions she backed away, either in shock or pure disgust and fell over herself. 

The man was never seen alive again afterward, leading some people to believe that his spirit remains behind and continues to wander the grounds of where his hopes for love perished. What happened to him? Did he also end his life then at the tower? Or did the spirit return to the place long after as he never forgot?

The story has turned into an urban legend of both the Eiffel Tower and Paris and it is hard to track down a specific time or person. Some believe that this story can be traced back to the 1920s, and many claim to have seen a woman in clothes from that area wandering up in the tower before she suddenly vanishes. Some even say you can hear her nervous giggles as she is rejecting the proposal before her horrified screams at the anniversary of her death. 

The Haunted love

So there you have it, the dark side of romance and love in the heart of Paris. A reminder that not every love story has a happy ending and not all types of love are true love. And with that said, Happy Valentine. 

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The Prisoner of Château de Puymartin

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After a husband caught his cheating wife, the punishment for her lasted into the afterlife. After she was discovered, the husband imprisoned her in the tower of Château de Puymartin, and according to legends, the wife is still haunting this French Château as a Dame Blanche, or the Lady in White.

The honey colored towers of this elegant castle in France called Château de Puymartin is like taken out of a fairytale romance. But the tales about this castle in Southwestern France, is by no means fairytale-like, but more of a horror story without a nice ending.

The Château de Puymartin was constructed in the early 1200s and the castle went through a lot of hands throughout history. In 1357, the castle was taken by the british before being bought back by the council of Sarlat. They didn’t stay though and the castle was left abandoned.

Read also: Check out all of our ghost stories from France

The castle was abandoned for a while and it wasn’t until the 1450s Radulphe de Saint-Clar rebuilt the Château de Puymartin and making it bigger that people started living in it. But can anyone really say they lived peacefully in it?

The Prison in the castle: The castle that used to be the Lady in White’s home at Château de Puymartin turned into her prison were she lived her remaining years in the tower and the rest of eternity walled up in the walls of her former prison.
Photo: Manfred Heyde source

Dame Blanches in French Folklore

All French Château’s must have its own legend of a Dame Blanche or the ghost of a Lady in White roaming around the castle halls at night. The Château de Puymartin is no exception from this and has it’s own twisted tale of the Lady in White. But really what is this types of ghosts that we always hear of wandering the castle halls?

One of the most pervasive supernatural mythologies associated with haunted castles and Château’s is the Dames blanches, or White Ladies. These mysterious figures are said to wander through fields and forests near the city, bringing with them both luck and misfortune to those who encounter them. 

They are known way back from myths and folklore as well and quite well spread in European ghost stories. Tales of these enigmatic creatures have been told for centuries, inspiring many artistic interpretations and offering a glimpse into a fantastic world beyond our own.

Read Also: Check out more ghost stories about the Lady in White or la Dame Blanches in France like The Buried Alive Ghosts of Château de Trécesson in the Enchanted Forest or The Hitchhiking Woman in White in Palavas-les-Flots

There’s also a long-standing local legend involving the castle’s ‘Dames Blanches’, or ‘White Ladies’. According to folklore, these female ghosts are said to inhabit the castle and torment its inhabitants with misfortune, calamity, and sometimes even death in many stories in French folklore.

Lady in White Ghost: The most common ghost you hear about is the ghost of a lady, often described as wearing white. The legends is different from every culture, often described as a sorrowful ghost in European ghost stories and taking a more vengeful spirit take in Asian ghost stories. What they all have in common though is they experienced something unfair in their life and in their death they can’t see past in their afterlife.

What used to be vague figures from old mythology and legends, now tells the tragic ghost stories about real women who died in horrible ways and have unfinished business in their afterlife. Such is the tale of the Dame Blance in Château de Puymartin.

The Legend of the Dame Blanche in the Castle

The legend of la Dame Blanche, or the woman in white that is said to reside inside of Château de Puymartin is said to be the spirit of a woman called Thérèse de Saint-Clar. She was married to Jean de Saint-Clar, the man of the Château de Puymartin in the 1500s. Her name is not set in stone, as the legends most often specify her name at all.

The husband could also have been Raymond de Saint-Clar who fought in the French Wars of Religion, a war between the Catholics and Protestants. He is well known to be the one who managed to get rid of the Huguenots from Sarlat. The timeline with the names in this legend can get a bit messy as we can neither confirm or deny all of the details.

But either way, the story goes that the man of Château de Puymartin was away at war and while he was away, the wife stayed home and took a lover. 

Read more: Interested in haunted castles? Check out all of our ghost stories set in haunted castles around the world. What about readling about more haunted French Châteaus like The Haunted Château de Commarque, Haunted Nights in the Château des Fougeret, The Time Travelling Ghost Haunting Château de Versailles or Ghost Stories from Greoux-les-Bains and the Château des Templiers?

But the affair would not stay secret for long at the Château de Puymartin. After distinguishing himself in the battles, the husband was allowed to return home to his home and wife for what he thought would be a happy reunion and he would be recieved by his wife as a war hero.

The homecoming was anything but thought and when he went to her, his wife was found in her lover’s arm.

The husband went mad and ended up killing her lover out of jealousy in a fit of rage. His wife was also punished but in a much slower and torturous death. He ended up imprisoning his cheating wife in a tower in their Château as he no longer could trust her on her own and their marriage was in all sense of the matter over. 

Imprisoned at the Tower of Château de Puymartin

For years the wife was trapped in the northern tower of Château de Puymartin, never allowed to leave or go outside, not even after her death. One could almost argue that she is still not allowed out in her afterlife.

Immured: Throughout the years, there have been plenty of stories about women sealed inside of walls for punishments or for religious purposes. Who knows just how many old walls are hiding a secret?

The wife lived trapped inside of the tower until she died in what was called a ‘fifteen long years of repentance’. 15 whole years she stayed in the same little room never allowed to leave.

The door leading into her tower was supposedly walled up to keep her from escaping, only leaving a small trap door for the servants to bring her food while she was alive. She was stripped away from the fine living she was used to being the mistress of this grand castle and they only left a bad mattress for her to sleep on in a corner.

The only view she had was to look out from the window through the barrs they put up for her to prevent her from escaping. There she could see just how close freedom was, past the garden, over the hill and into the forests. This almost seems more cruel than shutting the window off completely.

It doesn’t say if she had any visitors, but over the years it looks like the husband never pitied her and let go of her anger. And if she spent 15 years inside the tower without anyone to talk to, she most likely went mad after the first few years.

According to legend her body was sealed inside the walls of the room when she died, trapping her there, even in her afterlife and she never got a proper burial in the ground, and was laid on the cold stones of the castle walls. Since then, she comes back to haunt the castle at night. At least now she can move outside the tower. She wanders the stairs, her room and on the pathways around the grounds. 

Read More: Check out all of our ghost stories concerning women that were supposedly walled up inside of a building like The Evil Bishop Against the Maiden in Love – The Ghost of Haapsalu Castle, Dracula and Ghost Nuns in Whitby Abbey and O-shizu, Hitobashira — The Human Sacrifice of Maruoka Castle

The Château de Puymartin Today

Today you can visit the Château de Puymartin for a fee to try to get a glimpse of the sorrowful ghost that have been spotted by its owners and visitors over the centuries.

The Château de Puymartin have in its later years embraced their Dame Blanche legend and it’s a part of the experience when visiting the castle. They have even made the story into an escape room play during Halloween season. Would you like to play?

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Château de Puymartin – Wikipedia 

La légende de la Dame Blanche – Puymartin un château hanté en Périgord The castle of Puymartin and the shadow of the White Lady… – Sarlat-la-Canéda – Dordogne –

Evènements au château de Puymartin 

Dark Tourism, listicle, Review

5 Haunted Attractions to Visit

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Perhaps this is not the greatest summer to travel, but as the borders are opening up, so do we as well move over greater distances than we have. Perhaps some of these places are even closer to you than you think? Here we have gathered some of the most haunted attractions around the world you can visit for a ticket.

Winchester Mystery House
San Jose, California

The Mystery House: Front view of the Winchester Mystery House/Ben Franske

This strange house, built upon the money, wealth and grief of the family fortune, the gun trade, this house is something else. Wind winding staircases going nowhere, doors leading to unknown destination and who know how much else secrets and hauntings the house holds.

Akershus Fortress
Oslo, Norway

By the Sea: Akershus Castle in Oslo, Norway/Pudelek (Marcin Szala)

The fortress was built in medieval times, withstanding plague, starvation from the cold winters and as a last stand during wars. It is also the location of several ghost the fortress has claimed as its own over the years. Smacked in the middle of the modern city of Oslo, it stands as a stark contrast of old and new, living and dead.

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Island of the Dolls, (La Isla de las Muñecas)
Mexico City, Mexico

Isla de las Muñecas: nearby the Xochimilco canals/Esparta Palma/wikicommons

If not for the ghost, go for the creepy decor. Allegedly a man found a dead girl and her doll. He started collecting dolls to appease the girls spirit. Now the island is full of them, hanging from trees, looking at all the tourists taking their holiday at this peculiar place. For around 200 pesos you can get a boat to take you there. On the island, there is also a bar. So, hey, holiday!

The Catacombs
Paris, France

Bones: Wall made of skulls, catacombs of Paris/Djtox/wikicommons

A final resting place for some, not so restful for others. The catacombs were created in 1786 and are 500 miles of an underground maze, built of bones of the dead. And for a ticket, you can walk them. It has been held several scary paranormal claims, and it will only probably be more of them.

The Tower
London, England

The Tower: This is a picture of the so called White Tower of the Tower of London/Dietmar Rabich, London, Tower of London, White Tower — 2016 — 4679, CC BY-SA 4.0

Yes, the tower, how many ghosts do you have captured? The fortress smacked in the busy streets of Londong have been a infamous spot for death and misery for over 900 years. It also holds some royal ghosts that never found peace, among them Anne Boleyn and Mary, Queen of Scots.

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