Missing Person At The 1889 Paris Exhibition

[carole]

I can remember reading an article about this true occurrence many years ago.

A girl and her mother were visitng the 1889 exhibition in Paris (the one that unveiled the Eiffel Tower). The mother complained of feeling ill and took to her hotel room while the girl continued to enjoy the exhibition. When she returned to the hotel room, the mother was not there, her room had been cleared of all traces of her occupancy and the hotel staff denied any knowledge of her evefr having stayed there. The girl tried to trace her mother but never found what had happened to her.

The 1950s film, So Long at the Fair, starring Jean Simmonds and Dirk Bogarde was based on this story.

One of the theories behind the woman's disappearance was that she'd fallen ill with some very serious, contagious illness and the hotel proprietors, anxious to avoid any panic or loss of trade at that busy time, had whisked her body and personal effects away.

Has anyone any further info on this happening, was the mystery ever solved?

I've tried a Google, but without success.

Carole

 

[Anonymous]

I read about this in the Unexplained i think; it was a while back but i think their conclusion was that it was a literary construct, not unlike the American one discussed on another thread (can't remember any pertinent details right now). I'll have a look tomorrow, if the libraries are open tomorrow...

 

[taras]

The UnXplained: Strange Encounters Paragon Books 2000 (my favourite fortean volume!) pp234-6:

TEN MYSTERIOUS DISAPPERANCES
1. The Mother Who Vanished
In 1889 a mother and daughter from London were returning from a holiday in India. They stopped off at Paris to see the city's exhibition, and booked a room at a prestigious hotel. They signed their names in the register and were taken up to their room, which was numbered 342. Room 342 was a luxurious apartment with heavy plum-coloured curtains, exquisitely designed velvet rose-patterened wallpaper, and lavish furniture. Within minutes of her arrival in the apartment, the mother fell ill and started to feel dizzy. She was put to bed and the hotel doctor was brought up to her room. After examining the woman, the doctor summoned the hotel manager, and after he had arrived the doctor started to argue with him in French. The manager suddenly turned to the ill woman's daughter and said, "Your mother is seriously ill, mademoiselle. The only medicine that can help her is at a doctor's surgery on the other side of Paris. I cannot leave her for a moment, so you must go at once and fetch the medicine.

The girl nodded and was escorted to a carriage which took her to the doctor's address. She had to wait there for almost forty minutes while the medicine was made up, and by the time she returned to the hotel, almost two hours had elapsed. The girl stopped the manager in the hotel foyer and earnestly asked him, "How is Mother?"

The manager returned a blank expression. "I have never set eyes on your mother, mademoiselle."

"You have. We signed in this morning in front of you. Don't you remember?" said the girl with a puzzled look.

"You came here alone," replied the manager, and he went over to the reception dek and brought over the hotel register. He pointed to her signature, and the girl could see that her mother's name was not there. The manager even allowed the confused girl to flick through the register's pages to search for her mother's signature, but she could not find it. In desperation she tugged the manager's arm and took him up to the room she and her mother had booked - room 342. Upon opening the door of that apartment, the girl was startled to see the room bore no resemblance to the room her mother had booked. No plum-coloured curtains or rose-patterned wallpaper. No exuberant furniture or plush carpets either. The girl suspected that the room number on the door had been switched, but the hotel manager allowed the paranoid girl to inspect every room on that floor - but none of the other apartments looked anything like room 342. The girl ran downstairs and called for the hotel doctor. The physician who had treated their mother two hours before came to see her, but he also denied that he had ever met the girl or her mother.

When the girl returned to England, she told the authorities she believed her mother had been kidnapped, but they didn't believe her incredible story, and the girl later suffered from a s evere mental breakdown and was committed to a lunatic asylum.

There are a few theories that have been proposed as an answer to the mysterious disappearance. Some thought that the missing mother had picked up a highly contagious disease in India which could have forced the Parisian authorities to close down the hotel. If this was the case, perhaps the hotel manager and doctor conspired to dispose of the infected woman; but how would they have been able to decorate and refurbish a whole apartment in under two hours? Therein lies a mystery that has never been solved.

Frankly, I think the girl was the one who picked up something in India, and was mentally unwell. However, I wouldn't wish the above on anyone!
:eek!!!!:

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I think we've done this one before. IIRC, all attempts to trace any
record of the girl, the hotel or involvement of the British Consul have
drawn a blank. It's a nice tale because we've all experienced the
terror of being lost as kids. Like the Hanging Rock tale, it seems to
have been projected backwards as a presumed history from a
work of fiction.

 

[carole]

Thanks, guys! I knew I could remember reading it somewhere. It is a nice, tantalising tale but, as James says, it's probably not true.

Carole

 

[ginoide]

i don't want to spoil the party, but doesn't it sound like a UL to you?
like the one about gipsies kidnapping hcildren in stores, or the guy waiting for the GF who's trying a cloth on in a shop and then finding out she disappeared...

 

[carole]

Oh, yes, but you have to admit, it's an UL with style . . .

Carole