Rennes le Chateau

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The small French village of Rennes-le-Chateau is the scene of a mystery which has reached deep into modern culture, with references by rock bands such as TOOL, movies such as The Matrix, and the best-selling book The Da Vinci Code.

Contents

History

What follows is as much 'alleged' history as it is 'actual' history, as the information comes from many sources of various repute:

In 1885, the tiny village of Rennes-le-Chateau in the Languedoc region of southern France gained a new parish priest, the Abbe Berenger Sauniere. Though comprised of barely twenty houses, the village was once thought to be a major stronghold of the Visigoth Empire, under the previous name of Rhedae. Once established in the village, Sauniere undertook a refurbishment of the local church - originally consecrated to Mary Magdalene in 1059 - which had fallen into ruin.

During his work excavating and rebuilding the church, Sauniere allegedly came across a number of coded parchments hidden within Visigothic pillars. Consulting with his close friend Abbe Henri Boudet, the priest of the neighbouring village of Rennes-le-Bains, Sauniere then apparently left for Paris where he talked to specialists at the church of St Sulpice.

It is alleged that the author of the parchments was the Abbe Antoine Bigou, who may have written them - or at least secreted them - in 1781, more than a century before Sauniere's time. Bigou was the confessor to Marie d'Hautpoul, a local noble woman. A similar cipher, in the form of an anagram, was found on her tombstone.

The parchments were decoded to reveal the following messages:

  1. "THIS TREASURE BELONGS TO DAGOBERT II KING AND TO SION AND HE IS THERE DEAD"
  2. "SHEPHERDESS NO TEMPTATION THAT POUSSIN TENIERS HOLD THE KEY PEACE 681 BY THE CROSS AND THIS HORSE OF GOD I COMPLETE THIS DAEMON GUARDIAN AT MIDDAY/MIDNIGHT BLUE APPLES"

It is said that before leaving Paris, Sauniere purchased copies from the Louvre of paintings by Nicolas Poussin and David Teniers the Younger - apparently on the basis of the coded message. When one painting is titled "The Shepherds of Arcadia" and the other is the only painting by Teniers not to depict St Anthony being tempted by the devil, one can see the reasoning behind such a decision. However, no records have been uncovered to provide evidence for this claim.

After this point, Sauniere - formerly an austere religious man who subsisted on a miniscule pay packet - began spending large amounts of money, building his religious domain into an 'estate' complete with guest house (the Villa Bethania) and castle tower hanging off a cliff-face (the Tour Magdala). He reportedly entertained important personages, as well as travelling widely.

Much has been made of Sauniere's restoration of the Church of St Magdalene. Above the entry lintel Sauniere installed the Latin verse "Terribilis Est Locus Iste" - in English "This Place is Terrible". Inside stands a statue of a demon, perhaps the guardian of treasure 'Asmodeus', beneath the water stoup. Opposite this demon, across a chessboard chequered floor, is a statue of Jesus. The Stations of the Cross are said to have strange anomalies in their depictions, hinting at some heretical belief. And statues of Joseph and Mary, each holding a baby, stand either side of the altar. Some have surmised that these statues might be intended to represent Jesus and Mary Magdalene - a clue to a possible continuation of Jesus bloodline.

All was fine for Sauniere until the local Catholic Church heirarchy changed. A new regional bishop called Sauniere to task for his obvious wealth, accusing him of Simony - selling masses. Sauniere ignored the requests for explanation, eventually quitting the priesthood rather than divulging his monetary source. On January 17th 1917, Sauniere apparently had a stroke (January 17th is a recurring date in this mystery), and died five days later. Local lore says that the priest who arrived to give last rites to Sauniere denied him absolution based on his confession. It is also said that a strange memorial was held for the dead priest - his body was seated out on a balcony where mourners walked past plucking red pom-poms from the shawl that covered him.

When relatives of Sauniere enquired about his will, they were surprised to find that the priest had signed over all of his possessions - before his death - to his housekeeper Marie Dénarnaud. The most probable explanation for this that Marie was more than just Sauniere's housekeeper, she was his lover. Marie lived much longer than Sauniere, dying in 1953. It is said that she told villagers that they 'walked on gold', and promised one day to reveal her secret to her caretaker during her later years, Mr Nöel Corbu. Unfortunately, her affliction by a stroke shortly before her death left her unable to communicate, taking the secret to her grave.

This secret has variously been guessed as either a material treasure, or some great secret of history. Some have surmised that Sauniere found the lost treasure of Jerusalem, sacked by Roman legions originally and perhaps later taken by the Visigoths. Some have even claimed this might include the 'Ark of the Covenant'. Others say it is treasure secreted by the local Cathars in the Middle Ages when they were being persecuted by the Catholic Church. More attention has been gained by those claiming the 'treasure' is a secret - most notably that Jesus Christ sired children and his bloodline continued as a 'royal lineage'. Other more esoteric researchers have suggested it is a spiritual secret, one that cuts right to the heart of who we are and why we are here. Not to mention that many see sacred geometry everywhere in the RlC mystery, and believe that the region may be laid out as giant 'natural temple'.

The story of Berenger Sauniere came to the attention of the French public around 1956, after Nöel Corbu told his story to reporters from a regional newspaper, La Depeche Du Midi. From this point, Rennes-le-Chateau became known in French folklore as a 'treasure-town'. In 1962, an individual by the name of Gerard de Sede published his book Le Trésor Maudit (The Accursed Treasure), a key moment in the history of the mystery. Because in 1969, a writer/producer for the BBC named Henry Lincoln happened across this book while on holiday in France, and after decoding some of Sauniere's alleged parchments was hooked on finding a solution.

Lincoln pitched the storyline to the BBC for a documentary, and they agreed to let him pursue it. A famous moment in the story occurred when Lincoln quizzed de Sede about the coded parchments. At first de Sede denied knowing about any codes, something that Lincoln found hard to believe. Under further questioning as to why he didn't reveal the codes in his book, de Sede eventually answered cryptically: "Because we thought it would interest someone like you to find it for yourself". Thus began a second episode to the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau - the unveiling of a secret society with reputedly ancient roots and modern power, the Prieure de Sion (Priory of Sion).

Lincoln went on to make three full-length documentaries on the subject of Rennes-le-Chateau and the Priory of Sion during the 1970s. When the subject became too far-ranging for him to handle on his own, he joined with two other researchers, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. This trio went on to publish the definitive popular work on the topic in 1982, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, a best-selling book in the millions which still garners an audience (ever-growing after the publication of Dan Brown's referential novel, The DaVinci Code.

In the hands of Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh the mystery grew into a full-blown historical investigation which encompassed skepticism of the Gospel stories, occult secrets of the medieval Knights Templar and Cathars, and a great secret: that the bloodline of Jesus continued through Mary Magdalene and the Dark Ages French lineage of the 'Merovingians', and still persists due to the efforts of the 'Priory of Sion'. A number of documents purportedly belonging to this organisation have been 'uncovered', which add to the mystery. One tells of a long-line of distinguished grand-masters of the Priory of Sion, which included such historical personages as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Claude Debussy and Victor Hugo. Others hint at the mystery without giving any real clues, such as the enigmatic document titled Le Serpent Rouge.

In a second book in 1986 titled The Messianic Legacy, Lincoln and friends further investigated the mystery, this time focusing on the supposed continuation of Jesus bloodline. They theorised that the Priory of Sion, in particular its grand-master - the now-infamous Pierre Plantard - were protecting a bloodline descended originally from Jesus, and then through the Merovingian kings of ancient France. Their intent was to eventually restore this bloodline to the throne of France - a difficult task surely, as France is now a republic. Conveniently, the pretender to the throne appeared to be none other than Monsieur Pierre Plantard.

Since that time, numerous other books have brought other theories to light, and the intense research over the course of time has led to questions over the authenticity of many aspects of the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery. The fact that the story has come down from Sauniere, through Marie Dénarnaud, to finally a documented version via Nöel Corbu, has led many to ask whether the original story was invented, or at least exaggerated over time, by any number of people prior to 1956. Many assert that Sauniere made his money exactly how the local Bishop asserted he had - by selling masses. However, the sheer scale of simony required for Sauniere's fortune argues against this. The fact that financial records detailing this simony have been allegedly been uncovered even gives further pause - why would the priest record incriminating transactions?

There are other curiosities which argue against the mystery being an invention. The strange decoration of Sauniere's church and grounds as mentioned above is one such element. Others are Sauniere's strange esoteric allegiance to Martinism; the fact that the original regional bishop who overlooked Sauniere's wealth retired a wealthy man himself; that Sauniere's friend the Abbe Henri Boudet published a curious book titled The True Celtic Language which appears to be some sort of cipher. Add to that a number of strange deaths: another neighbour of Sauniere, an aging priest named Jean-Antoine-Maurice Gelis was a victim of some sort of strange ritual murder during the timeframe of the 'Sauniere mystery'. Also, three corpses were uncovered in the 1950s inside Sauniere's gardens, with bullet-wounds. Lastly, Nöel Corbu died in 1968 in an automobile crash.

Substantially more criticism has been levelled at the so-called Priory of Sion. Recent investigation has shown an exaggerated pedigree for the organisation, and a chequered past for its grand-master Pierre Plantard (who died in 2000 aged 80). A former acquaintance of Pierre Plantard, named Jean-Luc Chaumeil, has been at the center of many of these allegations. Additionally, it seems that one of Plantard's friends, a certain Phillipe de Cherisey, confessed to creating the ancient parchments himself in the 1960s which were then passed on to de Sede. This recent debunking of the Priory of Sion has thrown a wet blanket over much of the Rennes mystery - but enigmas remain. Phillipe de Cherisey's explanation of the creation of the parchments is at best strange and incomplete, prompting many researchers to believe he is lying - or at the very least that he simply embellished already existing texts.

Also, despite the fact that much of the Priory of Sion material appears to be spurious, there are still hints thoughout that those involved do know certain secrets. This may be due to Plantard's roots with luminaries of early 20th century esoteric groups in France, such as Georges Monti. Some speculate that Plantard and acquaintances had some information but not enough to solve the mystery - and so they acted as if they had the secrets to try and 'flush' the solution out from others. With so much evidence based on hearsay, and so many conflicting claims, it is doubtful whether we will ever know the full truth behind the infamous Priory of Sion.

In more recent times, the researcher Andre Douzet revealed that he discovered a landscape model designed by Sauniere, perhaps another indicator of a treasure stash in the area. Also, an archaeological team performed tests using high-resolution ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in 2001 and 2002, claiming to have found what appear to be tombs underneath the Church of St Magdalene and a sealed chest beneath the enigmatic Tour Magdala. Further investigation, however, failed to find anything of importance.

Chronology

  • 400-500 AD: Visigoths settle in Rhedae
  • 679: Dagobert II assassinated
  • 1059: Original church of RlC constructed, and dedicated to Mary Magdalene
  • 1209: First battle of the Albigensian crusade - Chateau de Blanchefort destroyed
  • 1244: Cathars make last stand against Albigensian Crusade at Montségur
  • 1732: Marriage of Marie de Nègri d’Ables to François d’Hautpoul, 1st Marquis of Blanchefort
  • 1781: Marie de Nègri d’Ables, Countess of Hautpoul-Blanchefort dies on the 17th January
  • 1885: Bérenger Saunière arrives in Rennes-le-Chateau, begins restoration on church
  • 1886: Henri Boudet publishes his book La Vraie Langue Celtique
  • 1891: Saunière allegedly discovers coded parchments
  • 1895: Saunière secretly excavates church grounds/graveyard
  • 1897: Abbé Gelis murdered on 1st November.
  • 1903-1905: Construction of Villa Bethania
  • 1909: Bishop of Carcasonne replaces Saunière with new priest/Saunière refuses transfer/quits
  • 1910: Saunière accused of simony
  • 1915: Henri Boudet dies on 30th March
  • 1917: After stroke on the 17th January, Saunière dies at the age of 65 on the 22nd of Jan.
  • 1942: Pierre Plantard joins hermetic society Alpha Galates (First Gauls) - anti-jewish/mason
  • 1946: Marie Dénarnaud sells Sauniere's guest-house to Nöel Corbu
  • 1953: Marie Dénarnaud dies aged 85
  • 1956: Nöel Corbu 'leaks' story of RlC to press (Dépêche du Midi)
  • 1959: Excavation under RlC church by Professor J. Cholet - reported finding nothing
  • 1959: Pierre Plantard first visits Rennes-le-Chateau
  • 1962: Robert Charroux publishes Treasures of the World
  • 1962: Gérard de Sède publishes The Templars Are Among Us
  • 1967: Gérard de Sède publishes Le Trésor Maudit (The Accursed Treasure)
  • 1968: Nöel Corbu dies in an automobile accident
  • 1969: Henry Lincoln becomes interested in RlC after reading De Sede's Le Trésor Maudit
  • 1972: Lincoln's first television production for BBC: The Lost Treasure of Jerusalem?
  • 1974: Second Lincoln production: The Priest, the Painter and the Devil
  • 1979: Third Lincoln production: The Shadow of the Templars
  • 1982: Publication of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh
  • 1986: Publication of The Messianic Legacy by Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh
  • 2000: Pierre Plantard dies on June 13th, aged 80
  • 2001-2002: Excavations/probing under church and Tour Magdala by Eisenmann's team

Books

  • Holy Blood, Holy Grail - Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh
  • The Messianic Legacy - Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh
  • The Holy Place - Henry Lincoln
  • Key to the Sacred Pattern - Henry Lincoln
  • Secrets of Rennes Le Chateau - Lionel Fanthorpe
  • The Tomb of God - Richard Andrews, Paul Schellenberger
  • On Earth as it is in Heaven - Greg Rigby
  • Web of Gold - Guy Patton, Robin Mackness
  • Rex Deus - Tim Wallace-Murphy, Marilyn Hopkins, Graham Simmans
  • Genisis - David Wood
  • Geneset - David Wood
  • Poussin's Secret - David Wood, Ian Campbell
  • Refuge of the Apocalypse - Elizabeth Van Buren
  • Sauniere's Model and the Secret of Rennes-le-Chateau - Andre Douzet
  • The Sion Revelation - Clive Prince and Lynn Picknett

See also

External Links

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