What happened to the occupants of Chateau du Grand Clos? Is the place haunted? This old report was published in a U.S. newspaper back in 1874.
THE GHOST CHATEAU
Travelers in Switzerland who have explored the flat alluvial delta of the valley of the Rhode may remember a fine old house about three miles from Villeneuve, called the Chateau du Grand Clos.
Of a solid square form, with high peaked roof, lofty chimneys, spacious hall and perron, and pretty old fashioned garden, with cypresses and fountain, it seems to have been transplanted out of Northern France in the last century to this region of ugly little stone houses or mountain wooded chalets.
Its story is curious. It was built and for a long time inhabited by the self-styled “Duc de Normandie,” one of those numerous claimants to be the real Louis XVIII., of whom, it seems, we are never to hear the last.
The “duc,” at all events, took great pains to inform himself of all the particulars which, (supposing him to have been the ill-fated prince) he might be expected to know. His Library which recently remained in the chateau, and is probably still to be seen there, consisted of books, pamphlets, and papers of all kinds, many hundred in numbers, but all, with one exception, connected with the story of the French Revolution.
It is necessary to add that the quaint old chateau possesses its ghost story?
An English family, it is solemnly stated by the neighbors, were twenty years ago tenants of the house. They went to sleep as usual one night, but next morning the place which had known them knew them no more. They had disappeared utterly from the face of the earth, and from that hour dismal clanking of chains have been heard at midnight through the echoing rooms.
Unhappily the narrative just stops short at the interesting point. Had the lost family paid their bills? [Source]
