Le Fantome de l'opera was the orginal novel wriiten by Gaston Leroux in 1911.

 

There is no real prove that The Phantom existed because I don't have his birth certificate. Either way, it doesn't matter to me about prove that Erik existed. I believe it in my heart and no matter what people say, I always will. It is his story, that I loved.

     
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Erik is not a Fantasy,

He was real!

More to come!!

Any info? Contact me: phantomlover_forever@yahoo.com

From the orginall book, The Phantom.

The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed,a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants or the concierge.

Yes, he existedin flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearanceof a real phantom; that is to say, of a spectral shade.

When I began to ransack the archives of the National Academy of Music I was at once struck by the surprising coincidences between the phenomena ascribed to the "ghost" and the most extraordinary and fantastic tragedy that ever excited the Paris upper classes; and I soon conceived the idea that this tragedy might reasonably  be explained by the phenomena in question.

The events do not date more than thirty years back; and it would not be difficult to find at the present day, in the foyer of the ballet, old men of the highest respectability, men upon whose word one could absolutely rely, who would remember as though they happened yesterday the mysterious and dramatic conditions that attended the kidnapping
of Christine Daae, the disappearance of the Vicomte de Chagny and the death of his elder brother, Count Philippe, whose body was found on the bank of the lake that exists in the lower cellars of the Opera on the Rue-Scribe side. But none of those witnesses had until that day thought that there was any reason for connecting the more or less legendary figure of the Opera ghost with that terrible story.

The truth was slow to enter my mind, puzzled by an inquiry thatat every moment was complicated by events which, at first sight,might be looked upon as superhuman; and more than once I waswithin an ace of abandoning a task in which I was exhaustingmyself in the hopeless pursuit of a vain image. At last,I received the proof that my presentiments had not deceived me,and I was rewarded for all my efforts on the day when I acquired the certainty that the Opera ghost was more than a mere shade.

On that day, I had spent long hours over THE MEMOIRS OF A MANAGER, the light and frivolous work of the too-skeptical Moncharmin, who, during his term at the Opera, understood nothing of the mysterious behavior of the ghost and who was making all the fun of it that he
could at the very moment when he became the first victim of the curious financial operation that went on inside the "magic envelope."

I had just left the library in despair, when I met the delightful
acting-manager of our National Academy, who stood chatting on a landing
with a lively and well-groomed little old man, to whom he introducedme gaily. The acting-manager knew all about my investigations and how eagerly and unsuccessfully I had been trying to discover
the whereabouts of the examining magistrate in the famous Chagny case, M. Faure. Nobody knew what had become of him, alive or dead;
and here he was back from Canada, where he had spent fifteen years,
and the first thing he had done, on his return to Paris, was to come to the secretarial offices at the Opera and ask for a free seat.
The little old man was M. Faure himself.

We spent a good part of the evening together and he told me the whole Chagny case as he had understood it at the time. He was bound to
conclude in favor of the madness of the viscount and the accidentaldeath of the elder brother, for lack of evidence to the contrary;but he was nevertheless persuaded that a terrible tragedy had taken place between the two brothers in connection with Christine Daae.
He could not tell me what became of Christine or the viscount.
When I mentioned the ghost, he only laughed.

He, too, had been told
of the curious manifestations that seemed to point to the existence
of an abnormal being, residing in one of the most mysterious
corners of the Opera, and he knew the story of the envelope;
but he had never seen anything in it worthy of his attention
as magistrate in charge of the Chagny case, and it was as muchas he had done to listen to the evidence of a witness who appeared of his own accord and declared that he had often met the ghost.
This witness was none other than the man whom all Paris called the"Persian" and who was well-known to every subscriber to the Opera.
The magistrate took him for a visionary.

I was immensely interested by this story of the Persian. I wanted,if there were still time, to find this valuable and eccentric witness.
My luck began to improve and I discovered him in his little flat
in the Rue de Rivoli, where he had lived ever since and where he died five months after my visit. I was at first inclined to be suspicious;
but when the Persian had told me, with child-like candor,
all that he knew about the ghost and had handed me the proofsof the ghost's existence--including the strange correspondenceof Christine Daae--to do as I pleased with, I was no longer ableto doubt. No, the ghost was not a myth!

I have, I know, been told that this correspondence may have beenforged from first to last by a man whose imagination had certainlybeen fed on the most seductive tales; but fortunately I discoveredsome of Christine's writing outside the famous bundle of letters and,on a comparison between the two, all my doubts were removed.
I also went into the past history of the Persian and found that hewas an upright man, incapable of inventing a story that might havedefeated the ends of justice.

This, moreover, was the opinion of the more serious people who,at one time or other, were mixed up in the Chagny case, who were friends of the Chagny family, to whom I showed all my documents
and set forth all my inferences. In this connection, I should
like to print a few lines which I received from General D------:

SIR:

I can not urge you too strongly to publish the results of your inquiry.I remember perfectly that, a few weeks before the disappearance of that great singer, Christine Daae, and the tragedy whichthrew the whole of the Faubourg Saint-Germain into mourning,there was a great deal of talk, in the foyer of the ballet,on the subject of the "ghost;" and I believe that it only ceasedto be discussed in consequence of the later affair that excited usall so greatly. But, if it be possible--as, after hearing you,I believe--to explain the tragedy through the ghost, then I
beg you sir, to talk to us about the ghost again.

Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be more easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people have tried to picture two brothers killing each otherwho had worshiped each other all their lives.

Believe me, etc.

Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over the ghost's vast domain, the huge building which he had madehis kingdom. All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived,corroborated the Persian's documents precisely; and a wonderful discovery crowned my labors in a very definite fashion. It will beremembered that, later, when digging in the substructure of the Opera,before burying the phonographic records of the artist's voice,
the workmen laid bare a corpse. Well, I was at once able
to prove that this corpse was that of the Opera ghost. I made
the acting-manager put this proof to the test with his own hand;and it is now a matter of supreme indifference to me if the papers pretend that the body was that of a victim of the Commune.

The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars of the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions.
I came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains
of the Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for the unheard-of chance described above.

But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it.
For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introductionby thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for
the first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daae),M. Remy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late acting-manager,
M. Gabriel, the late chorus-master, and more particularly Mme. la Baronne de Castelot-Barbezac, who was once the "little Meg"
of the story (and who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star of our admirable corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy Mme. Giry, now deceased, who had charge of the ghost's private box.
All these were of the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them,I shall be able to reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror,in their smallest details, before the reader's eyes.

And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing
on the threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank
the present management the Opera, which has so kindly assisted mein all my inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together withM. Gabion, the acting-manager, and that most amiable of men,the architect intrusted with the preservation of the building,who did not hesitate to lend me the works of Charles Garnier,although he was almost sure that I would never return them to him.
Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the generosity of my friendand former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who allowed me to dipinto his splendid theatrical library and to borrow the rarest editions of books by which he set great store.

GASTON LEROUX.

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child is born...a mother's only gift to him is a mask. And the child grows to manhood. "My mind had touched the farthest horizons of mental imagination and reaches ever  outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowleadge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand...But as long as I live, no woman will ever look on me in love." -----From The Phantom

Erik's biography. Notes I've token from Susan Kay's... The Phantom

 

Name: Erik
Born: 1831
Parents: Mom, Madeleine. Dead father, Charles
Pet dog: Sasha
Friends: Marie, Father Mansart, Giovanni, Nadir and his son.
Intrests: Music, architecture and science
( more to come)

" In darkness you came to me.
And in darkness you left." ----- Giovanni

"None of us can chose where we will love"..... Erik

Do you have any information about Erik that I have not added to share with the phantom phans?

E-mail me:ghost_hunter1588@yahoo.ca

 

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Some more evidence I found out a website where you can learn more about the history of the Phantom and story. This information I didn't write, I just copied so you will be inspired to go check out this website to learn more about the Phantom.

Click on the address here and it will dircetly take you there...

http://www.phantomoftheopera.info/

Evidence of a de Changy Family
And a Count Eric de Changy

ONE OF Leatha Ann Betts' most amazing finds, in my opinion, was that Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, may have been a De Chagny (as in the Viscount Raoul de Changy and the Count Philippe de Changy). I will follow along the path of discovery Betts took so you can see how she came to that conclusion.            In a letter, Betts wrote:

Philippe, the Count de Chagny, knew the path down to the lair. How could he do this? Is it perhaps that he might have been related to Erik, even providing food and clothing so that he could survive? (Betts)

           Gaston Leroux is very sly about this. He never comes out and says "Count Philippe descended the labyrinth of tunnels and arrived at the edge of the lake." What he does show us is that the Persian (supposedly the person who knows Erik best) is only able to find the house on the lake after secretly following Erik most of the way. Even then, when he tries to guide Raoul, he loses his way and the two of them end up in the torture chamber. Count Philippe, on the other hand, ends up at the dock—the place where the Phantom himself takes the boat to his home. Once there, he rings the doorbell. Please see the following excerpts (translated to English by me).

Erik and Christine are in the house by the underground lake:

Chapter 23 - Paragraph 17 Suddenly the silence on the other side was broken by the ringing of an electric bell. There was a scrambling sound opposite and then the thundering voice of Erik: “Someone’s ringing! Please come in!!” A mirthless snicker. “Who’s come to disturb us now? Wait a moment for me here; I’m going to tell the siren to open the door. (Leroux)

This scene is referred to again at the end of the book when Erik goes to visit the Persian. In that excerpt, the Persian shouts:

Chapter 27 - paragraph 25: “Murderer of Count Philippe, what have you done with his brother and Christine Daaé?"           At that fearsome outburst, Erik faltered, speechless for a moment, then groped his way toward an armchair into which he collapsed with a deep sigh. Once there, he began to speak in choppy phrases and single words, each expelled with an effort.            "Daroga, don’t speak to me of Count Philippe. He was dead... already... when I left my house. He was dead... already... when the siren sang. It was an accident... a sad... a... painfully sad... accident... He had fallen clumsily and simply and naturally into the lake...!” (Leroux)

          This is all Leroux gives us on how Count Philippe found his way to the lake but it's enough. He did find his way. It was this that first caused Betts to consider the possibility that Erik and Philippe might be related. And Betts, being a genealogist, knew what she needed to do to learn more.

I turned to the French section of the Family History Library, and found two books published by the French Heraldry and Gentry historians called Noblesse de France, one published in 1971 and the other in 1975-76. In it was the countship de Changy (spelling was changed slightly: “gn” is actually “ng”). François de Carpentier was the original Count de Changy... And he had a son named Eric! (Betts)

           This means that there was an Eric de Changy. Next Betts looked throught the de Changy family tree in the Noblesse de France for other members of the family whose names appeared in the novel. She found three more: Philippe, Raoul, and Mme. de la Martinière, with spelling slightly changed in Leroux's Chapter 2:

Chapter 2 - Paragraph 16: The Comtesse de Chagny, née de Moerogis de La Martynière, had died in giving birth to Raoul, who was born twenty years after his elder brother . . . (Leroux)

Finally, Betts noticed another point of interest in the actual de Changy family tree:

[The family] had residences in Paris as well as Fleury-sur-Andelle, which is in Rouen — where the novel states Erik was born. (Betts)

Indeed, in Leroux's epilogue we get: "According to the Persian's account, Erik was born in a small town near Rouen..."

Here's a chart comparing the historical names with the names in Leroux's novel:

NAMES/RELATIONSHIPS HISTORICAL	NAMES/RELATIONSHIPS NOVEL
Raoul de Carpentier (His brother François becomes the first Count de Changy)	Raoul in the novel is brother to the   Count de Chagny.
The de Changy's two residences are: Paris 15° and Fleury-sur Andelle, Rouen	Erik, the Phantom, lives in Paris and was born near Rouen
Eric, François' only son becomes the next Count de Changy	Erik is the name of the Phantom of the Opera in Leroux's novel.
Mme Gérard Machet de La Martinière, was born Elizabeth de Changy (She's Count Eric's second cousin)	Mademoiselle de Moerogis de La Martynière becomes Comtesse de Chagny through marriage, in the novel.
Philippe becomes the next Count de Changy.	Philippe is the Count de Chagny as the novel opens.