Although the Haunted American Tours write up on the Louvre says that the entire museum is crawling with ghosts, I only found one placard in the museum commenting on ghosts. This placard was located in the lonely medieval section of the Louvre. There are sections of this gargantuan museum that are so crowded, even in the off season, you can barely breath, but the medieval section or donjon of the Louvre is quiet, almost forgotten. It is beneath the rest of the museum, hiding in it's shadows. There is no art in the donjon only the long buried history of the museum itself.
The first Louvre was a fortress built at the beginning of the 13th century by Philip II Augustus to defend the Seine below Paris against the Normans and English. It consisted of a thick cylindrical donjon (dungeon) surrounded by towered walls. This château, enlarged and embellished by Charles V in the 14th century, was sacrificed in the 16th century at the end of the reign of Francis I in order to make room for a new Renaissance structure of the same size. Only the west wing and part of the south wing of the projected palace, conceived by the architect Pierre Lescot and decorated with sculptures by Jean Goujon, were finished.
It is in the old donjon that there is a placard that clearly states that there are ghosts in the Louvre. It tells about the multiple visitors and employees who have encountered ghosts in this once battle torn portion of the old museum. The placard explains that the donjon walls stood against the English and the Normans and saw battles on many occasions so the ghosts could be the ghosts of fallen soldiers or even those imprisoned in the old fortress walls. Whoever the ghosts are, it is clear that the older portions of the Louvre are haunted and if you are quiet you can almost hear them. I think I even see a small orb at the top of a picture I took while I was visiting this haunted location. It is in the picture at the top of this story.
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