The mysteries of the Louvre: Belphégor returns to the conversation

Ghost stories have never really left the Louvre. In recent weeks, however, several accounts posted online have brought an old name back to the fore: Belphégor.

Staff, late visitors and museum regulars describe sounds with no clear source, movements glimpsed at the edge of their vision and, more rarely, a dark figure in certain corridors. None of these accounts has been verified.

An old legend

Belphégor has long belonged to Louvre folklore. Books, serials and television adaptations have largely shaped the image of a presence hidden inside the museum. Recent accounts repeat the legend without offering any new evidence.

Marie Laurent, a regular visitor, says she saw “a shadow moving without a sound” before it disappeared around a corner. Other witnesses speak simply of draughts, reflections or noises made by the building.

Physicist Henri Martin, a specialist in acoustic phenomena, notes that the architecture of a vast museum can produce effects that are difficult to locate: reverberations, changes in light and air movement. In his view, nothing in the published accounts supports the conclusion that anything unexplained has occurred.

Belphégor can therefore continue to haunt the Louvre in at least one certain way: in the imagination of those who walk through it.