The House in the Rue de Couedic.
Paris is in the possession of a popular feature in the shape of a haunted house, which crowds are flocking to see. It is situated in the Rue de Couedic, and is inhabited by a certain Madame Boll, who for some days past has been annoyed by the visit of ghostly intruders. The mere appearance of those spectres would not have been so bad; but it seems they have taken a fancy to shying about Madame Boll’s crockery and to doing other damage in the house. The most mysterious part is, however, that on the police being called in the ghosts disappeared, and as soon as the police were gone they returned. These “spirits of health or goblins damn’d” are evidently “more than seven.”
Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 11th January 1892.
The Haunted House in Paris.
An Interview with the “spirit”.
A Paris telegram states that as soon as it became known that seemingly inexplicable phenomena had taken place in the suburb of Montrouge, a number of Spiritualists visited 38, Rue Ducondie, the scene of the strange occurences and attempted to interview the spirit, who they supposed had been at work. Le Temps gives a lengthy account of the seance, as described by one of the witnesses. The medium first asked if the spirit was willing to give an unmistakable sign of its presence. With the requisite number of taps an affirmative reply was given, and in about five minutes time the flame of a lamp which was burning in the room, lowered perceptibly. Continuing his conversation the medium inquired whether, as a proof of its power, the spirit would extinguish the flame altogether. The answer was again “Yes,” and almost immediately the flame flared up, and as suddenly went out, leaving the room in darkness. However, as it was subsequently discovered that the lamp in question was devoid of oil, these manifestations do not serve to elucidate the mystery. The most probable explanation of the affair is that given to the Commissary of Police of the district, to the effect that Madame Boll herself has perpetuated a hoax for the purpose of attracting customers to her house. Meanwhile the papers are devoting much space to the subject, and the excitement in Montrouge is by no means allayed.
Northern Daily Telegraph ,11th January 1892.
Mysterious Phenomena.
A gruesome explanation of ghostly occurrences.
In the Rue de la Couédic, writes our Paris correspondent, lives an elderly lady named Boll, with two orphans whom she has adopted. On the evening of the 6th inst., while waiting for her proteges to return home, she was startled by a noises as of sand rattling against window panes, then a sound of broken glass, and she saw with astonishment a glass water jug fly off a sideboard and break upon the floor; presently everything of glass amongst the chimney ornaments broke. Madame Boll, terrified, called her neighbours, but when they arrived the phenomena had ceased, and the neighbours only laughed at her, and left under the impression that she had gone suddenly mad.
Later, however, the destruction recommenced, the glass in the picture frames broke at three in the morning. The poor woman arose; called her neighbours again; they searched the house throughout, but found nothing to account for the strange self-destruction of the crystal ware. Suddenly a glass knob on the bed exploded with the noise of a child’s cannon, flew through the window, and fell into the courtyard.
Next morning Madame Boll went to the Police Commissary. M. Percha, who commenced by laughing at her, but upon her earnest entreaties he proceeded to her house, and found her statements perfectly true. While he was there a glass he had placed upon a chest of drawers suddenly burst; the tables and chairs reeled to and fro, and a large pier glass fell nearly upon him. The door which he had shut behind him refused to open, and in order to return to his office the magistrate was compelled to get out of the broken window.
The Commissary has ordered an investigation into the circumstances, and Madame Boll has summoned her landlady for the damage caused to her furniture, but the landlady is keeping out of the way. The only possible explanation offered up to the present for these remarkable freaks of glass and crystal ware is that the house is built over the catacombs and almost above the large space known as the dead asylum, in which are collected the bones removed from cemeteries, and of soldiers killed during the war of 1870. It is suppose that some accumulated gas from the bones must have penetrated the house and caused the phenomenon.
Madame Boll is too frightened to remain, and has accepted the hospitality of a neighbour. When I called to-day her apartment very much resembled one in an earthquake country. Windows, glasses, lamps and everything of crystal were completely destroyed. The official report of the authorities will be interesting to read. In the meantime the qhole quarter is in a state of terror as to what will happen next.
Evening News (London), 11th January 1892.
A haunted house in Paris.
For the past week (says a Paris telegram) the Parisian suburb of Montrouge has been in a state of extreme excitement, which on Thursday reached such a height that an appeal was made to the civil authorities, and a commissary of police was deputed to proceed to the spot and institute careful inquiry in to the circumstances which were occasioning so much alarm. The cause of all the trouble was that number 38 Rue Ducouedic was positively declared, on the authority of a number of witnesses, to be haunted, or at least to be subjected to mysterious visitations which seemed inexplicable by any theories based on natural causes. The police official accordingly repaired to the house of mystery, and there examined and cross-examined the inmates who had testimony to give regarding the strange phenomena of which their dwelling had been the scene. The visitations had confined themselves to the suite of apartments on the ground floor occupied by an elderly lady named Boll.
The story told to the commissary of police by this lady and her daughter was that on the night of January 1st, while Mademoiselle Boll was in bed, she heard an extraordinary noise like the fall of a shower of sand down the window panes of her room. She got up and opened the window, but could see nothing. On the casement being closed again, the peculiar sound was repeated. At the same time the frames of the pictures in Madam Boll’s room were broken, and the chairs rattled and jumped as if possessed. The same phenomena occurred on the following night, and the crockery in the kitchen was smashed. Two days later Madame Boll’s wardrobe fell to the ground with a crash, and the glass front was broken. Finally, next day the iron knobs of Madame Boll’s bedstead were projected into the courtyard by an invisible force. The commissary of police, having heard all the different statements, drew up a plan of the house, and informed the alarmed occupants that in his opinion the explanation of the mysterious occurrences was to be found in the emanation of foul gases from the catacombs on which the house was built. This, at least, is what the official told Madame Boll, but at the same time he made arrangements for a most careful watch to be kept over the haunted house.
Linlithgowshire Gazette, 16th January 1892.
Chit Chat.
A brace of ghost stories: – one from Paris, where an elderly lady has had a visitation from a veritable Cock-lane ghost, which so puzzled our great grandfathers, pictures falling, chair jumping about, kitchen crockery smashing itself out of sheer wickedness, &c. The Commissary of Police was called in, looked immensely wise and important, and, feeling that it is expected of a Commissary of Police that he should say something too profoundly clever to have occurred to any ordinary person, gravely informed the alarmed occupants that, in his opinion, the explanation of the mysterious occurrence was to be found in the emanation of foul gases from the catacombs on which the house was built.
The other story comes from Peterborough […]
Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard, 16th January 1892.
Parisine. (From our correspondent). Paris, Tuesday.
Every two or three months we hear of a haunted house somewhere in Paris. Last year the haunted house was in the north of Paris at the Batignolles; a few months ago it was a house in the east end that was haunted, and last week the ghosts transferred their pranks to Petit Montrouge, a southern suburb of the city, where they broke ever so much crockery in the rooms of Mrs Boll, and unscrewed a brass ball from a bedstead and threw it at a dresser. The ghost or ghosts appear to have been armed with a hammer, judging from the neat way in which the crockery and glasses were broken. The house has ceased to be haunted now, in consequence of a visit from the police commissary. These police commissaries are sceptics in the matter of haunted houses, and whenever they visit one of the ghosts take offence and remove to another.
The crowds that visited the house at Montrouge got up collections for poor Mrs Boll, who will now be able to buy more and better crockery and glasses than those broken by the spirits. The brass ball has also been screwed on to the bedstead again, and has not moved since. The adepts of spiritism naturally took advantage of the supernatural manifestations at Mrs Boll’s and that worthy woman allowed the disciples of Allan Kardec to hold sittings in the haunted rooms, on payment of an entrance fee. As I have already said, there was a very good gate, which is some compensation to the poor widow so tormented.
One pontiff of spiritism succeeded another in lecturing at the foot of the bed on their cherished doctrine, and tried to instil into the overheated brain of their hearers the convictions that fill their own pates. Naturally they know all about it, being in the habit of conversing with spirits every evening. The ghost they evoked on this occasion was that of a corporal who had committed suicide. He confessed by a series of very elegant raps that it was he who had broken Mrs Boll’s pots, because she had adopted a little orphan nephew of his who had formerly given him offence.
A photographer of spirits was also on hand to take the ghost’s carte by means of magnesium. The ghost was just vanishing as the artist lit his lamp for a quarter of a second, so that he saw it but indistinctly. Nevertheless, the outline he did get was very striking; it resembled a naughty boy with his fingers stretched out in a row and the thumb of the hand applied to the tip of the nose. Another of the ghost’s pranks, no doubt.
Manchester Evening News, 20th January 1892.
The ghosts are at their old games again in spite of modern science, which throws the cold water of ridicule upon them, or may be in consequence of the revival of occult science which is not less a sign of the times. However the matter is to be explained, the ghosts are playing all the tricks here in Paris, which Walter Scott renders them responsible for in “Woodstock.”
Indeed, the French ghosts seem to have an even keener sense of humour than those of Old England. In the Rue Du Couedie, an elderly woman, Mme. Boll, who occupies a lodging upon the ground floor of a house that stands immediately over the catacombs, the magazine of skulls (mark this detail), was much horrified on Sunday evening, when she was left alone, by the unaccountable antics of her furniture, especially the crockery.
First a pitcher of water exploded like a shell and frightened the old lady out of her wits. She had hardly recovered from this shock when a basin, which she had place upon the table, made a bound into the bed room and smashed itself there. Then a glass globe, beneath which Mme Boll had piously treasured up the orange flowers she wore upon her wedding day, split into pieces, and almost at the same moment a lamp committed self-destruction. Observing that varous cups and platters were afflicted with St. Vitus’s dance, Mme. Boll could bear up no longer, and so she called for help. an optician, who lived on the next floor, came, and he thought that his neighbour had gone made until he saw two pictures jump from their places against the wall, and another article of furniture with a more frivolous reputation spring from the bedroom through the open door and dash itself to pieces in the salle a manger.
When her son came home Mme. Boll went to bed, for the strange phenomena had then ceased, but in the early morning they recommenced. Hearing the sound of breaking glass, the young man got up, and lighting a candle found that a metal ball on his iron bedstead had unscrewed itself and jumped through the glass window of the entrance door. It was then decided to fetch the Commissary of Police.
This functionary came in a very scoffing mood, but while he was casting sceptical eyes around, the wardrobe nearly fell upon his head, and then the chairs and table began to dance. But what was more extraordinary, was that he was made a prisoner by the ghosts. He had closed the door of the room on entering, and when he tried to reopen it all his strength was of no avail. He was obliged to make his escape by the window.
The lodging is now deserted, and the excitement of the neighbours is great, because they attribute these strange doings to be ghosts that haunt the catacombs below the houses, and each is asking when his turn will come to be visited. Curious to say, the landlord of the house cannot be found. Perhaps he knows more about this ghostly business than he cares to tell.
Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 6th February 1892.