Based on a true story?

The first place I read a version of this old story was "Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones" by Alvin Schwartz. I then saw the "Room 245" segment of the show "Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction" and recognized it; that show revealed it to be "fact."

Here's what the back of the scary story book has to say regarding the history:

"This legend was the basis of a movie, 'So Long at the Fair,' that appeared in 1950. The story also inspired two novels, one published as early as 1913. But the story was old even then. The writer Alexander Woollcott discovered that it had been reported as a true story in England in 1911 in the London Daily Mail and in America in 1889 in the Detroit Free Press. It became known throughout America and Europe."

This has always led me to believe that it probably did happen, in Paris, though there is still the possibility that it's only a legend, which at first was mistakenly reported as truth but became so well known (and possibly distorted) that it was persistently believed.

First time I read the story was from the book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1632801.Strange_Stories_Amazing_Facts

Something else I found that could be useful:

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/hotel.asp