Holiday at The Chateaux

Back in July 2017, a friend of mine asked if I wanted to use their holiday home in France, it was not far from Normandy. Well, I wasn’t going to say no as it was a grand chateaux with plenty of land and a heated pool, Ideal for the kids. My sister's family also came along as there were plenty of rooms to go around.

The History of the Chateaux

The Chateaux its self was seeped in history right back to the French revolution, during this time Louis Antoine de Saint-Just family lived here and during the nine years of terror, some of the family were executed by the guillotine for their pollical beliefs. Through the years different families lived there was the Donnet family in 1811 Lucien Donnet, his wife, and four children moved in, they had servants, tutors for the children, and a coachman. The story goes that Mrs. Donnet had an affair with the coachman and fell pregnant she had a daughter, Mr. Donnet only found this out when the child was 8 years old, in a fit of rage he murdered his wife and the young girl. The thing is their bodies were never found he only confessed to this crime on his death bed and said they were buried somewhere on the estate. The Chateaux was also used in the first and second-word war for injured soldiers then it was privately bought and sold to my friend 15 years ago.

Back to my story, we all arrived safely and started to unpack the car, the kids ran inside to pick the best bedrooms. My wife had one big bedroom with my young daughter and me and my son had another room just down the corridor. My sister and her family were at the other side of the Chateaux with my mother who had her own room.

Two days into our stay we were in the living room, which had a Television and a pool table, I had just set the balls up to play pool and it was time for tea so we all went into the kitchen to eat, a proper French tea with crusty bread, cheese and different kind of meats and of cause wine. Now when I left that pool table I was sure I left all the balls in a triangle, as you do but when I came back the pool balls were all over the pool table. I asked the kids if one of them had done it which they all denied they had and after a couple of glasses of vino I thought they were just having me on. Later that evening myself, wife, sister, and mother were finishing off another bottle of wine and I mentioned the pool table, my mother said that the kids had not left the kitchen until I went into the other room, I just brushed this off as I thought they were all having a joke on at my expense, as I kept saying I found the place a little spooky.

We spent most of the days out site seeing on the evening we had a few barbeques and just sat talking catching up on family gossip and the wine. I think it was Thursday night, downstairs was lit up as we were going in and out of the kitchen but the upstairs was in darkness. The kids were out playing in the wooded area of the grounds. I got up from the patio to get some more meat for the barbecue and noticed the landing light was on, thinking it was the kids I went up to tell them to come outside as it was a warm evening. As I climbed the stairs I realised the land was not on strange I thought, I got to the top of the stairs and at the end of the long landing I could see a light coming from my mothers' room, now I knew she was not in there! I have watched too many scary movies to go and investigate so I went back outside, where all the kids greeted me. I didn’t want to say too much as not to frighten the kids but later that night my mother asked me why was I in her bedroom, I said I didn’t go in. My mother said she was sure when she looked up she could see me at the window and waved. Things were starting to make me a little uneasy but as we were leaving on the Saturday I felt I could last out.

Anyway, on the very last night we were all in bed asleep, I thought I had heard someone whispering in my ear so I opened my eyes thinking it was just a dream I got my phone and turned the torch on and scanned the bedroom expecting to see my son next to me but he wasn’t as that night he said he was going to sleep with his mam. I checked the time it was 2 am, I turned my phone off and lay back down within a few minutes I heard a child’s voice in my ear well that was enough for me I jumped up and sent the rest of the night in the living room with the TV on and all the lights on.

On Saturday morning, all the cars were loaded up, my sister had set off with her family and I was left to lock up. I checked the car ‘Yes’ everyone was there. My wife asked me to take a photo of the front of the house so she could share it with her friends on Facebook, which I did. I locked the house up and away we went.

When we got back home my wife shared many photos of our holiday and the one I took of the front of the house. My brother phoned me and asked who was the little girl in the window I said there was nobody there as we were all in the car. When I enlarged the photograph there looking out of one of the upstairs windows is a little girl and next to her it looks like a tall ark figure. Was this the mother and child who were murdered and their bodies never found.

Who knows but I am not going back to find out!