I have a question of the supernatural to pose to your collective minds

[thewayne]

I don't know if this is true or not (i.e. with some substantiating documentation), but I recall an incident that I'm hoping someone might be able to supply a name. I think it happened in France in the 1700s or the 1800s, where a nobleman got out of his carriage, walked around the corner of it out of everyone else's line of sight, and was never seen again.

I was hoping someone might recall a name or some more details, I haven't had any luck using search engines, just too many common key words.

Thanks!

Comments

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

Benjamin Bathurst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Bathurst_(diplomat)), English diplomat. "He walked around the horses and was gone."

According to the Wikipedia article, stories about this disappearance were greatly exaggerated and Bathurst was almost certainly murdered, which takes the fun out of it.

[silveradept]

For posterity, can you document your process by which this nugget of information was obtained? Improving search technique is a valuable skill.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I had a former girlfriend who was a librarian. She had access to a librarian-only mailing list that was used for such questions, I have no idea what the list name was, but she got some pretty esoteric questions answered there.

[silveradept]

Because we're awesome like that, y'know.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's probably it. I could have sworn it was French, but having read the Time Wars series and also a fair amount of Piper and Heinlein, it's possible that I was conflating some memories.


Thanks!

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

Piper wrote a short story about it in his Paratime universe, which is where I picked it up.

And silveradept, my mind is a trove of specific information. It worked very well when I was at a bookstore and remembered seeing a particular book on a particular spot on a shelf.