It's not yet Halloween, and yet ghosts are roaming the streets of Paris, especially haunting theOpéra Garnier and the Jardin des Tuileries! If you don't know the story behind these two emblematic figures in the capital's history, find out why they're stuck in these touristy places...
The Phantom of the Opera is certainly the best-known and has inspired numerous works of art. The legend dates back to the 19th century, and involves several fires based on real events. In 1863, an opera dancer burned to death during a rehearsal, and her son Ernest became an excellent pianist. As he grew older, he became engaged to a ballerina, who also died in the fire at the Opéra Le Peletier.
Ernest couldn't get over the loss, and hid in the Garnier Opera's underground passageways, the ones that hide a lake, without ever reappearing. Since then, the opera's employees say that his ghost continues to haunt the opera house, due to strange phenomena... All you have to do is visit the Opéra Garnier and hope to meet him!
The ghost of the Tuileries is rooted in a much darker story of murder and other crimes. In 1564, Catherine de Médicis was regent of the kingdom of France and decided to build herself a palace, the Tuileries. But this doesn't sit well with Jean l'écorcheur, a butcher and boner whose slaughterhouse is located near the Tuileries, and who is said to have rendered services to the sovereign, including the disappearance of bodies. He refuses to leave his store and threatens to reveal the Medici's secrets, which is why he is murdered.
But the ghost has not finished tormenting the queen, and returns in the form of a bloodied figure, hence the nickname Little Red Man! Catherine de Médicis' astrologer was visited by the ghost, who told her that "Saint-Germain would see the queen die", a prediction that would eventually come true, despite the queen's attempts to avoid it by avoiding the Tuileries, close to the churches of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and Saint-Germain-des-Près!
And the ghost's apparitions didn't stop there: Marie-Antoinette issaid to have seen him on several occasions, a few months before her death, asdid Napoleon, before the debacle at Waterloo, and Louis XVIII on the eve of his death, or during the Commune, when the Tuileries burned down. A true bird of ill o men! Although he hasn't appeared since 1871, you can still hear him laughing in the garden in the middle of the night!
