1. One of us has to own to having powers of second sight, etc., deliberately undeveloped, and there are psychical gifts in her family. She comes of a Huguenot stock. The other is one of a large and cheerful party, being the seventh daughter and of a seventh son; her mother and grandmother were entirely Scotch, and both possessed powers of premonition accompanied by vision. Her family has always been sensitive to ghost stories in general, but mercilessly critical of particular ones of a certain type.
2. Both of us have inherited a horror of all forms of occultism. We lose no opportunity of preaching against them as unwholesome and misleading; because they mostly deal with conditions of physical excitement, and study of the abnormal and diseased, including problems of disintegrated personality which present such close analogy to those of insanity. We have the deepest distrust in, and distaste for, stories of abnormal appearances and conditions. We find narratives of revenants unconvincing, and studiously avoid (as utterly lowering) all spiritualistic methods of communication with the dead. We have never had the curiosity, or the desire, to help in the investigations of psychical phenomena.
3. We belong to no new schools of thought: we are the daughters of English clergymen, and heartily hold and teach the faith of our fathers.
4. We are quite certain that neither of us exerted any conscious influence over the other; for though we saw much in common, yet each had independent vision. We should think it wrong either to exercise, or to submit to, influence of that nature. We are independent people and accustomed to stand on our own feet.
5. Our condition at the time was one of perfect health and enjoyment of a holiday in the midst of very hard work.
6. We were entirely ignorant of the history and traditions of the place, and continued our conversation about other things after every interruption. We did not even know that we were in the grounds of the Petit Trianon until we saw the house.
7. At the time Miss Lamont thought that there was something unusual about the place and was puzzled; the same idea returned to her occasionally during the following week. Miss Morison put her feeling of oppression down to some physical fatigue in herself, and so said nothing; for we did not know one another very well at that time, were in the relation of hostess and guest, and neither of us thought of enlarging on uncomfortable sensations. After some days, when Miss Morison was writing an account of the expedition, she thought it over with care, and realised that her sensations had not been caused by fatigue, but had produced fatigue. She became convinced that the oppression had been due to some unusual cause in the place itself, and instantly turned to Miss Lamont and said so. Miss Lamont agreed. We then discussed the man by the kiosk and the running man, but said that there was much besides which had caused dreamy depression. Miss Morison returned to her letter and wrote down: “We both think that the Petit Trianon is haunted.”
When we met next (three months later) we talked it over again, and finding that Miss Lamont had not seen the lady, and that Miss Morison had not seen the plough, cottage, woman, or girl, we resolved to write separate accounts of our visit in order to find the discrepancies, but with no idea of making exhaustive histories. These papers are still in existence. Miss Lamont, in her story, used the words “uncanny” and “eerie” to describe her feelings, but they did not mean that she had the least idea at the time that any of the people encountered were unreal or ghostly; this was still more true of the scenery.
8. During the next three years, Miss Lamont repeatedly took parties of girls over the Trianon, and she reported that the place was changed; but Miss Morison could not believe it, and even made maps to remind her what their old route had been. After Miss Morison had paid a second visit to Trianon in July, 1904, and had found out for herself that the place was entirely changed, it was resolved to undertake a personal research into the matter, and to say no more until we had discovered for ourselves whether our vivid recollections of the people and the place tallied with any ancient reality or not.
Up to that time we had told the story freely, with the result that we have constantly traced it inaccurately reported in histories, sometimes purporting to have come from other sources, and even in newspapers and small periodicals. After research had begun to yield interesting results, we were obliged to be silent, finding that publicity prevented our getting at evidence.