The Green Lady of Château de Brissac

Charlotte of France was the illegitimate daughter of King Charles VII. Born around 1445.

Charles VII was the king who, with Joan of Arc's help, pushed the English out of France. He was quite important. Charlotte was his daughter, but not by his queen. This made her position complicated in the way that positions were complicated for women in the fifteenth century, which is to say: entirely dependent on who she married.

She married Jacques de Brézé. He was a nobleman, a seneschal, a man of property and standing. He had the château at Brissac among his holdings.

The marriage was not, apparently, a happy one.

Charlotte had a lover. His name was Pierre de la Vergne. He was the royal huntsman, which in the fifteenth century was an important position but perhaps not one with sufficient prestige to justify what Charlotte was risking.

In 1462, Jacques de Brézé came home unexpectedly.

Or not unexpectedly. Accounts differ on whether he knew what he would find. What everyone agrees on is what he did when he found it.

He killed them both.

And then, because Jacques de Brézé was a man of considerable feeling, he did not stop.

The historical record says one hundred sword strokes.

I want to be honest with you that I read this several times hoping I had misunderstood it. I had not misunderstood it.

Jacques de Brézé killed his wife Charlotte with one hundred sword strokes. The lover as well. The number is in the records. Contemporaries wrote it down. It appears to have been noted at the time as excessive, which tells you something about the standards of 1462.

Jacques de Brézé was put on trial. He was found guilty. He was fined and imprisoned briefly. Then he was released.

He was not executed. He was a nobleman. The murder of an unfaithful wife, while legally actionable, was not treated with the same seriousness as other crimes. He eventually recovered his property, including the château.

He died in 1794. I am sorry, 1494. I mistyped. He died in 1494, having lived for some time after the murders without, as far as the records show, significant legal consequence.

Charlotte did not stop being in the château after her death.

She stopped many years after it.

By which I mean: she is still there.

This is the part I want you to prepare yourself for.

The Green Lady, La Dame Verte, appears in the chapel and in the tower room. She is seen at dawn, sometimes before dawn. She makes a sound described as moaning, though that word in most accounts seems to be doing a lot of work.

Here is how witnesses describe her face.

There are empty eye sockets. There is a hole where a nose should be. The skin, where it exists, is green.

She looks, in other words, like a corpse that has been dead for a long time. Like someone who has been in the ground for centuries and then has not stayed in the ground.

This is not standard ghost appearance. Most ghosts, in their folklore, are described as they looked in life. Perhaps a bit pale. Perhaps in the clothes they died in. The White Lady looks like a woman. The Green Lady of Brissac looks like what happens after.

This detail is in multiple accounts across multiple centuries. It is consistent.

The current Marquis de Brissac, who lives in this house, who gives tours of this house, has described her.

I think about the decision to keep living in that house and I genuinely cannot find fault with it. It is a beautiful château. The wine region is extraordinary. You make your choices.

Charlotte has been seen since the fifteenth century.

In each century, someone writes it down. Not always in formal records. Sometimes in letters. Sometimes in the memoirs of people who stayed at the château as guests and thought the experience worth documenting.

She appears in the tower room where she died. She appears in the chapel, which was part of the château's original structure and has stood since the eleventh century. She is most often reported at dawn, in those hours when the light is neither dark nor fully morning.

The moaning has been reported consistently. Not screaming. Not the dramatic wailing of theatrical ghosts. Moaning. The word that keeps appearing across different languages, different centuries, different witnesses.

Some guests have asked to sleep in the tower room. The château has, at various points in its history, accommodated this request. The reviews from those guests are mixed.

The Loire Valley has no shortage of beautiful places to spend the night. The Château de Brissac offers tours during the day. It hosts weddings. It has a wine cellar. It is, genuinely, one of the finest estates in France.

And at dawn, sometimes, there is something in the chapel that should not be there.

The current Marquis de Brissac lives at the château with his family.

This is, when you stop to think about it, a significant commitment.

The château is enormous. Two hundred and four rooms is a lot of rooms for a family. Many of them are not used as living quarters. There are the public rooms, the rooms open for tours, the wine cellar, the chapel.

The Marquis has spoken about La Dame Verte in interviews. He is not dismissive. He does not say she does not exist. He says, more or less, that she is part of the house, the way the unfinished towers are part of the house, the way the medieval walls are part of the house.

She has been there longer than any current member of the family.

The family, in this context, is the newcomers.

There is something I find unexpectedly touching about that framing, even though the reason she is there is the hundred sword strokes, which is not touching at all. The two things coexist in the same building.

The Loire Valley is full of beautiful old buildings. Most of them have something they carry.

Brissac's is just more visible than most.

Okay. France. That was a lot. Do you want some water? I think I want some water.