The Lost Lovers of the Eiffel Tower

It is appropriate that I end my week of French hauntings with the most famous location in France.   Whenever you think of France,  this is the first structure that comes to mind.   The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of France.   It can be seen in every souvenir shop in Paris in miniature.   If you know nothing else about France, you know the Eiffel Tower.  The Eiffel tower is one of the most recognizable structures in the world .  It was built for built for the 1889 world fair and was a marvel of modern engineering.  It awed visitors of the fair and became the golden mean to be met by all world's fairs to come.  At the time of its completion,  the tower was the tallest man made structure in the world.

It is not surprising that legend speaks of the Eiffel Tower being haunted.  Legends cling to historically ssignificant locations like moss on a rock.   The legend of the ghost of the Eiffel Tower is a sad one.   According to legend,  a young couple once met atop this romantic tower.  They met at the Eiffel Tower set on singular purposes. But, sadly, their purposes were divided.  The young woman was determined to end her relationship with her lover and thought that the beauty of the view from the tower might soften the blow.  The young man was taking his belle to the tower to propose marriage.  So the two ill fated lovers met atop the tower and declared their purposes.   The young man didn't take it well and became enraged.  Perhaps his temper was part of the reason the young woman didn't want to marry him.  He became so enraged that he gave his belle an ultimatum.  He told her that if she didn't marry him, he would kill her.  The young woman was set.  She would never marry him.  He gave her one last chance and offered to spare her life if she would consent to marry him.  The woman stood firm.

The young man pushed his belle from the top of the tower, ending her life.  It is said that the young woman still haunts the Eiffel Tower.   Her laughter can be heard atop of the breath taking structure and sometimes it is accompanied by her scream.

A Week at the Haunting Chateau Larcher

I am revisiting this old post again as part of my week of France. I love to travel and I love to rent houses when I travel. I avoid hotels when possible and look for rare and interesting places to stay. When I went to France, I found an old medieval castle that had been broken up into 4 town houses. I was able to rent one portion of this castle. The castle, Chateau Larcher, was a bit of a mystery and still is. I travelled during the off season and the small village's tourist information center had been closed, so I was never able to learn much about the history of the castle. I read the plaque by the Cathedral which dated the Cathedral built into the church at around 980 and the castle itself wasn't finished until 1070. Outside of this, I found nothing to denote the castle's origins. It was located in the Poiters region of France just South of the Loire valley and would have been in Aquitaine during it's highest uses. The location of the castle must have been a sacred place at one time because the area is also known for it's dolmen. These are the types of rock arrangements that have been made most famous by Stonehenge. They are usually places in a sacred or important location.

Staying in the castle was wonderful. I loved it and I snuck away every evening to walk in the dark. One time I enlisted help to break into a roped off section of the castle and sneak around. The castle was mostly ruins and in the night as I wandered alone, I found myself chilled. There is nothing tangible I can use to prove that this castle was haunted. There was only a profound feeling that I was not alone. As I have little else to offer, I have posted pictures of the castle.  If you saw my first post on this castle,  the pictures are different from the first posting.  I have hundreds of these pictures.  T

Brissac Castle

I have always been in love with France and its turbulent history.  My husband is French and my grandmother claims to have a copy of our family tree going back to the 12th century.  She says she can trace our ancestry back to Henry de Navarre. Brissac Castle, located in the stunning Loire Valley,  was once owned by Henry de Navarre.  It was once owned by many people and, like many castles, has a history that is full of war and strife.

Brissac Castle was built as a fortified castle by the Counts of Anjou in the 11th century.  During the French wars of religion,  the castle was given over to Henry de Navarre in 1589.  It was badly damaged during the civil war that followed between the protestants and the catholics.  The catholics were lead by the infamous Catherine de Medici and her sons and the Protestants were lead by Henry de Navarre.  The damage to the castle was so severe that for a time, it was scheduled for demoliton, but was purchased and renovated by the Duke of Brissac only to fall into disrepair again during the French Revolution.  Again it was saved in 1844 by the Duke of Brissac's family.  Brissac is the tallest castle in France.  It is seven stories high and it towers over the French Countryside reminding  with its gothic towers and shadowed windows.

The ghosts of this castle are not ghosts of war.    They are the ghosts of a thwarted husband and his unfaithful wife.   For a period,  the castle was owned by a noble named Jacque.   Jacque was a successful man with a beautiful and faithless wife.  His wife, Charlotte,  took a lover and was completely indiscrete in her affair.   The legend says that she would make love to her young man in the room next to her husband, keeping him awake with her moaning.   Jacque couldn't take the abuse and it wasn't long before his wife and her lover vanished.  But the two murdered lovers had their revenge,  their moaning continued, even after their death.  It filled the castle, driving Jacque mad and making him flee his own home.  Visitors to Brissac say that the two lovers still fill the night with the sounds of their passion and their ghosts forever linger in the shadows of Brissac Castle.