the da vinci con by stuart christie

THE HASTINGS TRAWLER|April ‘0614

BOOK REVIEWS — PSEUDOHISTORY — (The Code War)

Christ did not die on the cross. Hewas taken down alive and then

quietly shipped out with his wife orpartner, Mary Magdalene, to begin anew life in the south of France, hencethe empty tomb. It was their children’sbloodline that four centuries laterlaunched the Merovingian dynasty,which ruled in early Medieval Francefrom 476 to 750 AD. This is the centralhypothesis of the authors of the 1982book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail:Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh andHenry Lincoln. According to theiraccount, itself repeated fromembellished secondary sources, the‘secret’ of this ‘bloodline of Christ’ andthe House of David — the ‘Holy Grail’— lay hidden for centuries, until oneday in 1891 four ‘ancient’ parchmentsreferring to an 800-year old secret

bishopric of Carcassonne in south-western France. His salary was 75 F amonth.

The church was in an area inProvençe of considerable historical andarcheological interest. Originallyconsecrated to Mary Magdalene in1059, thirty-six years before the FirstCrusade, it was rumoured to have beenbuilt on foundations which dated backto the sixth century, the end of theVisigothic period.

The Fraudster, the Fantasist and the Fiction writerThe DA VINCI CON or the Abbé Saunière’s ‘Treasure’s

by Stuart Christie

‘FACT: The Priory ofSion — a Europeansecret society foundedin 1099 — is a realorganisation. In 1975Paris’s BibliothèqueNationale discoveredparchments known asLes Dossiers Secrets,identifying numerousmembers of the Prioryof Sion, including SirIsaac Newton, SandroBotticelli, Victor Hugoand Leonardo da Vinci’

Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code

SINCE THE BIRTH OF SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY IN THE EARLY 17TH CENTURY, LARGE NUMBERSOF INTELLIGENT AND OTHERWISE WELL-INFORMED, SANE AND SENSIBLE PEOPLE HAVE BELIEVEDTHAT MUCH OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING AROUND THEM ONLY OCCURRED BECAUSE IT WAS SETIN MOTION BY SECRET SOCIETIES, THE MOTORS OF HISTORY. MANY STILL BELIEVE THATVIRTUALLY EVERYTHING UNPLEASANT THAT HAPPENS CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO THEM AND THATTHERE IS AN OCCULT FORCE OPERATING BEHIND THE SEEMINGLY REAL FAÇADE OF PUBLIC ANDPOLITICAL LIFE. WHAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT THE PRIORY OF SION IS A MONUMENTALEXAMPLE OF A VIEW OF THE WORLD SHAPED BY HOKUM-POKUM AND IRRATIONALITY, AND EVENTHOUGH IT IS SOMETIMES AMUSING, IT IS ALWAYS DISTURBING WHEN INTELLIGENT PEOPLESERIOUSLY TALK NONSENSE, TAKING FICTION FOR REALITY. AS MANY OF THESE AUTHORS HAVEFOUND OUT TO THEIR ADVANTAGE, IT NEVER PAYS TO UNDERESTIMATE PEOPLE’S CREDULITY.THE DA VINCI CODE HAS BEEN TRANSLATED INTO 44 LANGUAGES AND SOLD OVER 44MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE SINCE ITS PUBLICATION IN 2003. BRITISH SALES RECENTLY PASSEDTHE FOUR MILLION MARK, 1200 OF THESE BY OTTAKAR’S IN HASTINGS AND AROUND 500BY OLIO BOOKS. IT HAS ALSO BEEN ADAPTED INTO A HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER FILMSCHEDULED to open at the Cannes Film Festival in May. NOW READ ON…

Abbé Françoise-Bérenger Saunière: b.11/4/1852 —d.17/1/1917

association, the Prieuré de Sion, wereallegedly ‘discovered’ by a village priestinside a hollowed-out Visigothic pillar.The priest subsequently becameinexplicably wealthy, spending moneyextravagantly and conspicuously. In2003 this story was presented as fact bynovelist Dan Brown and provided thebasic storyline in his novel The Da VinciCode.

THE FRAUDSTER...

Almost nineteen-hundred yearsafter the crucifixion, in July 1885, a

33-year old, right-wing, Royalist priest,François Bérenger Saunière, a CatholicIntegrist

1,was appointed as the

incumbent of Rennes-le-Château, asmall hill-top village within the


April ‘06 | THE HASTINGS TRAWLER 15

This part of the Languedoc, in thefoothills of the Pyreneees had been,

in the 13th century, a stronghold of theCathar or Albigensian heresy (don’task!), but by the end of the 19thcentury, it was the Integrist heartland ofself-righteous, ‘fortress’ Catholicism.

Shaken by the French Revolution andsubsequent upheavals, these weredogmatic believers who rejectedeverything modern and democratic inFrench history since the Revolution of1789; they were Catholicfundamentalists for whom reality andhistory were simply too complex;Dostoyevskian characters obsessed withorganisation, hierarchy and ritual, who

rejected, as a matter of principle,everything that was not TraditionalistRoman Catholic.

Impermeable to the reality of thepost-Medieval world in which theEucharist was not cloaked in theiranachronistic, Gothic, Baroque,Tridentine day-dreams, they ignored it.Like the Essenes, they distinguishedclearly between the saved and theunsaved; their world view was that Godwas indifferent to righteousness andjustice among those outside the literalwalls of the temple; only the traditionalCatholic Church, with all its rites,liturgy, sacraments, mysteries andculture, had the power to prevent the

corrosive metaphysical and physicalcorruption sapping the social andspiritual order. They longed for animaginary pre-Enlightenment world inwhich virtuous, peaceful, happy anddevout workers and peasants belongedto a guild, attended religiousprocessions — and deferred,unquestioningly, to their betters.

TROUBLESOME PRIESTS

Bérenger Saunière’s anti-Republican activities soon landed

him in trouble with the government. InJanuary 1886, after only five months inhis parish, he was suspended by thePrefet de l’Aude and ordered to leaveRennes-le-Château. The suspension oftroublesome priests such as Saunièrewas not an unusual government-imposed punishment for the dissentinganti-Republican sermons priests weredelivering from pulpits during the run-up to the general election of October1885.

Saunière’s crime had been to read tohis parishioners at least one in a series ofeditorials on ‘the enemies of the church’from the local religious paper, LaSemaine Religeuse de Carcassonne. Theseurged Roman Catholics to vote for theUnion of the Right — a coalition ofconservatives, Bonapartists andRoyalists whose policy aims includedthe reversal of Republican anticlericallegislation and the restoration of theFrench monarchy.

The editorial in question wasprobably the one published the weekbefore the elections:

‘Victory is not yet complete. NextSunday’s ballot (October 18) must eitherensure our triumph, or deliver us into thehands of the bitter enemies of Religionand the Fatherland. This is a solemnmoment and we must deploy all our forcesagainst our enemies. That must be ourmain objective… Let us act, pray, improveourselves, be penitent… and perhapsOctober 18 will become a day ofdeliverance.’ 2

The secular authorities were notamused. France’s Minister of Religion,

Rennes-le-Château, Département de Aude (© Puttnam & Wood)



The Hiéron du Val d’Or wasfounded in 1873 at Paray-le-

Monial, a small town in the Sâone-Loire, by a Jesuit priest, Father VictorDrevon (1820-1880), and a well-connected Spanish nobleman withesoteric interests, Baron Alexis deSarachaga (1840-1918). Sarachaga,who claimed to be a descendant of theCarmelite nun known as St Theresa,had been a close friend of Pope Pius IXand his successor, Leo XIII; he was alsoa Royalist conspirator and was underregular close surveillance by the Frenchpolice for his alleged involvement inplots to restore the House of Bourbonto the French throne.

The choice of location at theConvent at Paray-le-Monial wasbecause that was where, in 1673 and1674, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque,a nun, claimed to have had visions ofChrist and the blazing Sacred Heart ofJesus.

The Hiéron was not just a group, ithad a complex of buildings at Paray-le-Monial — a museum and researchcentre — which specialised inEucharistic symbolism. The centre waslocated in a pentagonal building,which reflected the Hiéron’s obsessionwith geometry and sacred architecture.In addition to promoting the Kingshipof Christ, subjects studied includedthe history of the Sacred Heart ofJesus, the Kabala, mystical chivalry,Freemasonry and its associatedsymbolism.

Members of the Hiéron — a bodywhich was personally approved byPope Leo XIII — included bishops,cardinals, writers, historians andarcheologists, as well as aristocrats suchthe Chambords, the Bourbons and theHabsburgs, the would-be HolyRoman emperors. One well-knownmember was the writer and formerpriest Louis Charbonneau-Lassy(1871-1946), the author of TheBestiary of Christ. Among hisobsessions was the belief that theTemplars had been in possession ofsecret knowledge

The museum at the shrine of StMary Marget provided the Hiéronwith a highly effective recruitment

THE HIÉRON DU VAL D’OR centre, which allowed them to target themany pilgrims who began arriving indroves in 1873, after Saint MaryMargaret’s first visitation. The Hiéron’sinvigorating interpretation of militantCatholicism, with its occult andmonarchical overtones, appealed to thegullible and superstitious pilgrimsseeking to halt the democratic changesthat were affecting all aspects of everydaylife at that point in history

Apart from the quasi-masonic ritualsand hermetic mysticism associated withit, the Hiéron’s mainly political aimswere much the same as all the otherproselytizing Catholic pressure groups:Catholic Action (‘Mobilising true faithinto action!) and Opus Dei (a strictlyhierarchical and ‘discreet’ sect of layCatholics who aspire to acquire and holdpositions of influence in public life,thereby securing and maintainingCatholic spiritual and temporalhegemony over society). It propagated aCatholic-centric worldview at a timewhen the Church’s spiritual influenceand temporal wealth and power wasvisibly crumbling — hence thecontemporary doctrine of PapalInfallibility, announced at the FirstVatican Council in 1870. Everywhereyou turned, academics, writers andvillage Hamdens were challenging thevery foundations of belief on which thePapacy had been built built. In effect,the Hiéron was playing the same rolewithin the Catholic Church as did thesupporters of the Trotskyist 4thInternational within the twentiethcentury labour movement.

The main ambition of this well-funded and influential cabal, was

the creation of a united Europe underthe twin hegemony of the Papacy andthe Habsburgs — the Merovingianbloodline. This all fell apart, of course,in 1914 with the assassination in Serbiaof Habsburg heir Archduke FranzFerdinand of Austria, and the forceddeparture of most of Europe’s Captainsand Kings in 1918.

At the core of Hiéron ideology was thebelief that Christianity was a primordialrevelation, traceable to an antediluvianAtlantis, via the Celts, Judaism andEgypt. Christianity, according to them,had its origins in Atlantis — the

legendary lost civilisation at the root ofhumanity. They spent a considerableamount of time, effort and moneysearching for proof to support this thesisthrough archeological excavations, thestudy of sacred symbolism, astrology andancient texts (which is where the AbbéSaunière saw his opportunity to make afew bob).

The Hiéron was virulently anti-Masonic, believing that French GrandOrient freemasonry was anti-Christian,having been corrupted by Protestantismand the ‘Jewish-led’ Bavarian Illuminati.To restore its original nobility of purposeand the spiritual primacy of CatholicChristianity, Grand Orient Freemasonryhad to be infiltrated in order to wincontrol and reform it (again, shades ofMilitant and other Trotskyistgroupings). From this process a newChristian Freemasonry would emerge,the Grand Occident Lodge, whichwould defeat the Godless ‘Grand Orient’and reform the brotherhood’ in line withUltra-Traditionalist Catholic principles.It would also mean the Church coulduse Freemasonry’s presumed benigninfluence to prepare for the coming ofChrist’s kingdom in the year 2000. Thiswas another of its core beliefs — theneed to prepare the world for the secondmillennium, when the religious andpolitical reign of Christ the King wouldbe ushered in by an absolutist pan-European Roman Catholic sovereignwith global ambitions.

The French authorities were alsoconcerned by the double-meaning of thename Hiéron. In Greek it means‘sanctuary’, but it also refers to Hiéron,the Tyrant of Syracuse (478-476 BC),whose use of mercenaries to build andsustain his vast pan-European empirecaused the death of thousands. It alsobrings to mind the twentieth centuryMexican and Spanish terrorist groupscalling themselves the Guerrillas ofChrist the King, Catholic-Carlist-Fascistterrorists, whose battle cry was ‘VivaChristo Rey!’

As for the Hiéron du Val d’Or, thedeaths of its three administrators in 1926led to the closure of its study centre atParay-le-Mondial. This meant the endfor the group as both a religious and apolitical movement. Another factor inthe Hiéron’s demise was the Latern



himself by the cemetery, over a watertank (the gutters on the roof collectedthe rainwater with which Saunierewatered his plants, flowers andvegetables).

The stories about Saunière paying fora new road up to the village and theprovision of running water were pureinvention. These improvements datefrom after Saunière’s death in 1917.

Initially, however, Saunière focusedhis attention on the restoration andrefurbishment of his dilapidatedchurch, which began in earnest in July1887 with the installation of newstained glass windows at a cost of 1,350Francs (the bill for which was not finallysettled until 1900). At the same time healso had the windows of his villadecorated with what was to become therecurring iconic theme of his ministry— the Sacred Heart. A new altar wasalso commissioned and installed on 27July 1887, for which he paid 700Francs.4 There was nothing mysteriousabout where this money came from: it

René Goblet, complained toMonseigneur Paul-Félix Billard, thebishop of Carcassonne concerning the‘reprehensible behaviour’ of four of hispriests — one of whom was BérengerSaunière — and demanded theirimmediate suspension. If the bishop didnothing, the minister threatened to usehis powers under the terms of theConcordat of 1802. This gave theFrench government the power to divestpriests of their duties and to orderbishops and cardinals to imposepunishments on recalcitrant clerics.

Billard defended his priests vigorously,arguing that they had the right to advisetheir parishioners, but he was over-ruledand the four priests were suspended,with Saunière being sent to teach at thenearby Petit Seminaire de Narbonne.

THE SACREDHEART OF JESUS

Like so much else in this story, it isconjecture as to when Saunière first

came into contact with the cult of theSacred Heart (Sacré-Coeur — the SacredHeart of Jesus and the Sacred Heart ofMary),3 which was strong in Narbonne.One group Saunière would have beenaware of, given his ardently-held anti-Republican beliefs, was the right-wingIntegrist Cercle Catholique de Narbonnewhose motto, according to Carcassonnepolice files, was In hoc signo vinces, (‘Bythis sign you will conquer him’ — the‘sign’ being the cross and ‘him’ being thedevil), the motto of Constantine theGreat and later adopted by all mannerof Catholic sects, both fringe andofficial, including the devotees of thecult of the influential and secretiveSacred Heart. There were two strands tothe Sacred Heart: one was mainstream

devotional Catholic; the other anesoteric ultra-Traditional right-winggroup that believed Christianityoriginated in Atlantis — the Hiéron duVal d’Or (‘The Sanctuary of the GoldenValley’) [see box, page 16], a cabal ofright-wing esoteric Roman Catholictheocrats intimately associated with thecult of the Sacred Heart. The Hiéron’sobjectives were, among other things, topromote the kingship of Christ(Christus Rex), the overthrow of theRepublic and the restoration ofBourbon France under a Habsburg-led,Holy Roman Empire of Europe.Saunière’s colleagues and close friends,the Abbé Boudet, an ‘antiquarian andCelticist’, and the bishop ofCarcassonne were possibly members.

Bérenger Saunière’s stay inNarbonne was short, and by July

1886 his suspension was lifted and hereturned to Rennes-le-Château. Withinmonths of his reinstatement, betweenthe autumn of 1886 and the summer of1887, the lifestyle of the ‘poor’ parishpriest began to improve. Theseimprovements were small to begin with,but increased steadily, year-on-year.Over the next twenty years he was tospend a substantial amount of money,refurbishing his church and, between1901 and 1905, extravagant personalbuilding projects such as the TourMagdala (a Gothic folly named after thetown of Magdala. a well-to-do fishingvillage of the Sea of Galilee, and thebirthplace of Mary Magdalene), and onhis house, the Villa Béthanie with itsbeautifully laid-out gardens andterraces.

Saunière was not particularly ‘rich’between 1886-1898, although by 1894he had built a very modest house for

Accord of 1929, signed by Pope PiusXII and Mussolini, which signalled theChurch’s complicity with the politicalagenda of Italian fascism and, later,German Nazism. It also ended thegroup’s hopes for the restoration of theHabsburg dynasty. The Hiéron fellinto a steady decline until 1938, by

which time it had effectively ceased toexist. But it didn’t disappearcompletely; its ideas continued throughthe writings of surviving hard-lineSarachaganites, particularly Paul LeCour, seen by many as the Baron’sspiritual heir. Le Cour, an importantfigure in twentieth century Frenchastrology, had founded a successor

group to the Hiéron as early as 1926 —the Societé d’Etudies Atlanteennes —whose publication, Atlantis in 1927continued the work of the Hiéron. LeCour’s last book was published in1955, the year before the formation ofthe Priory of Sion, and dealt with therecurring Hiéron and Sarachaga themeof Atlantis.

The Hiéron du Val d’ Or (continued)

Church of St Mary Magdalene:Rennes- le-Château (© Puttnam & Wood)



was from Mme Marie Cavailhé, one ofthe first of the priest’s many wealthypatrons.

PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY

The crucial date in the story isJune 1891, when Saunière

unveiled a statue of Our Lady ofLourdes5 at Rennes-le-Château. Amongthe guests at the ceremony wasSaunière’s ecclesiastical superior,Monseignor Billard, the bishop ofCarcassonne, who is reported to havelooked upon him as a son. The bishophad recently inherited 1,200,000 Francsfrom a wealthy widow, Madame RoseDenise Marguerite Victorine Sabatierde Coursan, so it may be that hecontributed towards the cost of thisstatue. The wealthy bishop was also inthe process of purchasing the nearbychurch of Notre-Dame de Marceille,near Limoux (purchased 1893), andhad brought with him to the unveilinga Lazarist6 priest from that church.

This is where the facts of the storybegin to mingle with the total fictionsfabricated sixty years later, in the mid-1950s, by a Baron Munchausencharacter by the name of Noël Corbu.Corbu, had been bequeathedSaunière’s estate by his housekeeper,

Marie Dénarnaud, in exchange forlooking after her in her old age. Asmall amount of money may havechanged hands, but any price paid nodoubt reflected the Corbu’sundertaking to provideaccommodation for Marie for the restof her life. Their agreement is signedand dated 22 July 1946.

When the old lady died in 1953,Corbu turned the Villa Béthanie into ahotel/restaurant called the Hôtel de laTour. All the stories relating toSaunière’s treasure originate from thisone source; they were tales spun byCorbu aimed at attracting customers tohis restaurant. It is possible, however,that Saunière may have discovered someprecious objects in his church, butcertainly by 1891 he had run out ofmoney and was in debt, allegedlyborrowing money from villagers,including his housekeeper; thealternative possibility, however, is thatMarie Dénarnaud was acting as hisbanker, a conduit for monies fromwealthy sponsors. Certainly, all the landand buildings were in Marie’s name andwhen he made his will in 1906 whe wasthe sole beneficiary.

It was Pierre Plantard in the 1960swho invented the fiction that Saunièrehad discovered four ‘ancient’parchments inside a hollowed-outchurch pillar in 1891. Theseparchments were genealogies anddocuments which appeared to be linkedwith a previous incumbent of theChurch of Mary Magdalene, AbbéBigou.

There has been much controversy asto whether or not the pillar insidewhich the documents were allegedlyfound was genuine. Paul Smith, whoruns the priory-of-sion.com web site,believes it is an 1891 copy of an originalCarolingian pillar in Narbonnemuseum with similar sculpted artwork,and commissioned as part of Saunière’sshrine to Our Lady of Lourdes. Hepoints out that there is no evidence thatthe pillar existed prior to that date.However, most professional anduniversity archeologists who have

studied the pillar, including BillPutnam, a former principal lecturer inarchaeology and Professor CharlesThomas, the world expert on thesubject, all agree it is Carolingian, notVisigothic. Rennes authority BillPutnam states the pillar survived from achurch of that date, though nothing inthe structure of the present church isearlier that the 11th century.

The example in Narbonne Museumis a different thing altogether; it is a flatpanel from a different architecturalcontext, but sharing the style and theuse of a processional cross in the design.Whoever rebuilt the church last beforeBérenger Saunière, found it lyingaround and used it to support the altartable. Saunière used the pillar for hisstatue, but was so ignorant about itsmeaning that he used it upside down.The alpha and omega are the wrongway up. The Narbonne stone, on theother hand, is a complete design; theRennes example is incomplete asSaunière sawed it off at the bottom. Inits original use it was part of a column,with several other sections fittedtogether by mortise and tenon. It ispossible that Saunière employed a stonemason to sharpen up the weathereddesign, but to the experts there isabsolutely no doubt that the pillar isgenuine. It has been on display in theSaunière museum in Rennes-le-Château since 1993, and has a mortise

Our Lady of Lourdes: erected by Bérenger Saunière in1891 (© Puttnam & Wood)

Mlle Marie Dénarnaud: Saunière’s housekeeperb.1868 — d.23/1/1953



Altar support: The ‘pillar’ in whichSaunière allegedly discovered the fourparchments while restoring the church.It was originally the main altar support.Saunière used it, upside down, tosupport his statue of Our Lady ofLourdes, and gave it a new base withthe carved inscription MISSION 1891.

Parallel: Panel with similar carvings (notethe suspended Greek letters alpha andomega) in Narbonne ArcheologicalMuseum.

Parallel: Panel with similar carvings(note the suspended Greek letters alphaand omega) in Narbonne ArcheologicalMuseum.

Parallel: Panel with similar carvings (notethe suspended Greek letters alpha andomega) in Narbonne ArcheologicalMuseum.

hole in the top, but this is nowhere nearbig enough to have containeddocuments.

Of the four parchments allegedlyfound inside the pillar, two weregenealogies: one supposedly datingfrom 1244 and the other from 1644;the other two documents supposedlydated from the 1780s and written by aprevious incumbent of Rennes-le-Château, the Abbé Antoine Bigou.They were in fact artefacts fabricated inthe mid-1960s by Philippe de Chériseyin collaboration with the previouslymentioned Pierre Athanase MariePlantard, a self-deluding fantasist whohad known Corbu and who claimed tobe directly descended from theMerovingian king Dagobert II(although it must be stressed that at notime did Plantard claim to be descendedfrom Christ; this leap of theimagination was entirely the work ofthe three authors of The Holy Blood andThe Holy Grail).

Although alluded to in a previousPriory of Sion document in 1965, theparchments appeared for the first timein Gérard de Sède’s book L’Or deRennes, published in 1967. Neither theparchments nor copies of them are inthe Bibliothèque Nationale, as claimedby Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code.They are listed among Les Dossiers

Secrets in the Bibliothèque National,information which was lodged by theperpetrators of the fraud themselves,Plantard and de Chérisey. The originalswere acquired by author Jean-LucChaumeil in the late 1970s when hewas writing his book, Le Trésor duTriangle d’Or. Written in Latin, theycontained obvious coded references tothe resting place of the Merovingianking ‘Dagobert the Second’, ‘Sion’, and‘Treasure’, intended to serve the self-seeking ends of the author and hisassociates.

According to Noël Corbu, the onlysource on the matter, Saunière took theparchments to Paris to have themexamined by experts. There is noindependent evidence, however, thatSaunière ever visited Paris, with orwithout parchments; nor was there everany alleged written report by theseexperts as to the authenticity ormeaning of any parchments.

THE TREASURE OF RENNES

The story of the ‘treasure ofRennes-le-Château’ spread after

Sauniere’s death. There is no evidencethat this was a belief during his lifetime;it only acquired currency after he died.The priest’s wealthy lifestyle, coupledwith reports of excavations of crypts in

the church and in the graveyard, addedcredibility to the rumours. No doubtabout it, ‘the priest had discoveredburied treasure7 — Visigothic, Templar,or Cathar — in or near the church’.Consequently, the village was invadedby gangs of shovel-wielding treasure-seekers from all over the country,digging holes everywhere, including inthe graveyard. Rennes-le-Châteaubecame the French Klondike. Theproblem became so serious that thelocal council was forced to pass a by-lawforbidding such activity.

Adding fuel to the gossip was the factthat Saunière’s refurbished church was aplace of pilgrimage, especially forwealthy visitors. Illustrious strangerswere allegedly arriving in the villagefrom across France and elsewhere inEurope. It was later claimed that at leastone member of the Habsburg family,Archduke Johann von Habsburg, acousin of Franz-Joseph, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor visited Rennes, butthe claims that evidence for this exist inCouiza police files are total nonsense.

The real source of Saunière’s wealth,the illicit sale of masses (theoverwhelming majority of which werenever celebrated) and donationsextracted from credulous and generoussupporters of the cult of the SacredHeart, the Hiéron du Val d’Or and all



manner of other anti-RepublicanCatholic bodies.

Bérenger Saunière by this time hadbecome well-skilled in solicitingdonations; it was, after all, considered asacred duty to give to the Church. Apartfrom refurbishing his church, Saunièreclaimed he intended to create acommunity for the elderly and infirmpriests of the diocese

MASS HYSTERIA

Meanwhile, all was not wellwithin the Parish Board of the

Church of Mary Magdalene. In 1892the treasurer resigned from the Conseil,claiming that the duties of his post were‘contrary to his beliefs’. What could hehave meant?

The probable explanation is that hehad discovered and objected toSaunière’s increasingly lucrative sideline— trafficking8 in masses. This consistedin writing personal letters to anyonewho might be interested in having amass said for the bereaved, the ill, orsimply prayers for a special event or aloved one. He also placed small advertsin the national and internationalCatholic press. In other words —simony! 9

The book-keeper’s job was given toGuillaume Dénarnaud, probably amuch more biddable relation of Marie

Dénarnaud, the priest’s younghousekeeper, confidante, and conduitfor payments.

This then was the source of Saunière’sunexplained wealth. Although he mayhave found some valuable objects in1886, the key to Saunière’s fortune,from 1898 onwards was, firstly,soliciting masses among the gullible andvulnerable through advertisements and,secondly, requesting donations fromequally ingenuous wealthy donorspossibly hooked on the stories ofRennes’ possible antidiluvianconnections and the Royalist movementto restore the Habsburgs and theBourbons to the thrones of Europe.

From 1892 onwards, hardly a daypassed when Saunière did not receivelarge numbers of postal orders. Somewere sent to him directly in Renne whileothers, made out in the name of hishousekeeper, Marie Dénarnaud, wentto a post box in nearby Couiza. Thepriest’s records discovered by ReneDéscadeillas show these postal orderscame not only from France, but fromBelgium, Germany, Switzerland andItaly. Many of these requests came fromreligious communities as well asindividuals.10

The priest’s mass books between July1892 and September 1896 show hereceived payment, on average, foraround 450 masses a month, for whichhe charged between 1.50 Francs and2.00 Francs a time. Between October1896 and 1906 the average rose to wellover 500 a month, which meant he wassupposed to saying 6,000 masses peryear. These later ones he charged at arate of between 3 Francs and 5 Francs.The total figure, between 1892 and1915 has been estimated at a minimumof 100,000 masses. The figures peakedin in 1898, and it was subsequently thatSaunière made major contributions tothe refurbishing of the Church.

This is both a physical and liturgicalimpossibility. He would have had tohave spent 24 hours a day saying mass.Priests only have the right to say mass anabsolute maximum of three times a day,that is, around 90 masses a month, so

there is no way he could ever have meteven a fraction of his obligations. Headmits this in his diary entry of 9January 1894 by drawing a line throughthe fifth column in his mass bookindicating that the mass had been saidwith a dramatic note: ‘Stopped there’.He was then ten months behind in themasses for which he had been paid. Theline he drew in his mass book was a linedrawn under his own integrity as a manand a priest.

THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE?

By the late 1890s, with most of therefurbishment completed, the

church of Mary Magdalene was now

Station of the Cross VI: Christ allegedly beingsmuggled away by moonlight (© Puttnam & Wood)

Altar of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene(© Puttnam & Wood)

Terribilis est locus iste: Church porch of St MaryMagdalene, Rennes-le-Château. (© Puttnam & Wood)



(and is11) an impressive building. Abovethe entrance was carved the sinister-sounding motto Terribilis est locus iste(‘This place is venerable’) — aquotation from the mass for thededication of a church (Genesis 28.17).In the porch stood an unusual holywater stoup, unusual in that it is borneby a figure of the devil, supposedlyrepresenting the vanquishing of theFrench Republic. The demonic stoupbears the initials BS, the man whobought it in 1898, Bérenger Saunière,and the Sacred Heart inscription Par cesigne tu le vaincras (In hoc signo vinces —‘‘by this sign you will conquer him’).The baptismal font depicts the baptismof Christ and, supposedly, symbolisesthe restoration of the French monarchy.

According to the Rennes mythmakersof the 1960s and 1970s, Station XIV ofthe Stations of the Cross in the Churchdepicts Christ’s body being smuggledout of the tomb under a full moon.

In fact, Saunière purchased all theStations of the Cross and most of hisother religious gewgaws for his churchfrom the Giscard Company ofToulouse, who were reputable suppliersof religious statuary. These objects are

listed in their catalogue of the time andare not unique.

On the base of the high altar is avividly colourful painting of Saint MaryMagdalene at prayer in a cave. TheMagdalene was Christ’s alleged partnerand the one who ‘discovered’ his tombwas empty. The image was inspired bythe 11th century legends of MaryMagdelene in the Burgundian town ofVezelay, whose church claimed to haveher relics, and Les Saintes Maries surMer.

The imagery of the Sacred Heart iseverywhere in the church and groundsof Rennes-le-Château. A statue of theSacred Heart dominates the front ofSaunière’s architect-designed house, theVilla Béthanie, while another stood inhis private oratory. The stained glassfanlight above his front door also carrieda Sacred Heart image. In front of thechurch a stone cross — a Calvary —commemorates its reconsecration in1897 by Monseigneur Billard, bishop ofCarcassonne. Carved on its pedestal isthe inscription: Christus vincit, Christusregnat, Christus imperat, ChristusAOMPS defendit) (‘Christ victorious,Christ reigns, Christ rules, Christdefends’). This inscription is also carvedon the obelisk of Pope Sixtus the 5th infront of St. Peter’s in Rome. AOMPS isthe acronym for Ab Omni Malo PlebemSuam defendat (‘defends his people fromall evil’). It actually has the Latinsubjunctive defendat — ‘may hedefend’). Henry Lincoln claimed itstood for Antiquus Ordo MysticusequePrioritatus Sionis!). The phrase ‘Christusvincit...’ was also a popular 19th centurymotet in praise of the Sacred Heart ofJesus, and the first line of the Frenchcoronation anthem.

Interestingly, at the ceremony ofreconsecration, Saunière ended hisspeech explaining where he got hismoney — he’d already spent 27,000Francs on the church and the presbytery(manse): ‘For all this, Monseigneur, Iowe a little to my parishioners, much tomy economies, and much to thededication and generosity of certainsouls who are strangers to this parish.’

GOD’S FRAUD SQUAD

Saunière’s fraud began to catch upwith him in 1902. The trigger was

the death of his mentor, friend,benefactor and protector, the old Bishopof Carcassonne, Monseigneur Paul-FélixBillard. Before he died, Billard had beeninvestigated and suspended from hisecclesiastical duties for trafficking inmasses, malfeasance and other financialirregularities. He was replaced byMonseigneur Paul Félix Beuvain deBeauséjour, a less pliant and more pro-Republican cleric who summonedSaunière repeatedly to appear before abishop’s court at Carcassonne to explainhis financial affairs and answer thecharge of mass trafficking. Thus began along drawn-out legal battle betweenSaunière and his superiors.

He stoups to conquer: Holy Water font purchased bySaunier in 1898. (© Puttnam & Wood)

La Tour Magdala (1901-1902): Saunière’s library:



Ecclesiastical scrutiny and the costsof his extravagant lifestyle and estatebuilding activities meant Saunièrebegan to feel the pinch financially. Themarket for masses had collapsed, andhis legal battle with his newecclesiastical superiors was fast using upwhat little savings remained.

This turn in his fortunes coincidedwith a change in the leadership of theHiéron du Val d’Or, which was takenover in 1902 by the more sensibleGeorges and Marthe de Noillat, on thedeath of the movement’s colourfulfounder, Baron Alexis de Sarachaga.The Noillats shifted the focus of theHiéron’s activities away from thepolitical to the more spiritual. Thepilgrimage business did, however,continue, albeit on a reduced scale, upto Saunière’s death in 1917.

I’VE GOT A LITTLE LIST...

By 1909 Bishop Beuvain deBeauséjour had had enough and

replaced Saunière as priest at Rennes-le-Château, transferring him toCoustouges. Saunière, however, refusedto leave Rennes and was supported bythe mayor and the Parish Council, whowrote to the bishop saying that noother priest would be welcome, andthat should anyone other than Saunièrebe sent to the parish they would bedenied access to the presbytery.

In May 1910, the ecclesiastical courtbegan investigating Saunière’s financialaffairs during his 25 years at Rennnes-le-Château. The charges against himwere: trafficking in masses; disobeyinghis bishop by soliciting fees for massesbeyond the diocese, in spite of thebishop’s orders to the contrary; andsubmitting exaggerated and unjustifiedclaims for unsaid masses.*

Saunière was summoned to appearbefore the ecclesiastical court on 16July, but failed to attend and wassuspended from the priesthood for amonth. He was also ordered to returnall the money he had received for theunsaid masses. This was an impossibletask, especially as he had stopped

DEFROCKED

On 5 December 1910 a reportappeared in La semaine Religeuse de

Carcassonne that Bérenger Saunière,having been suspended from thepriesthood, was no longer permitted tosay masses. But the priest couldn’t helphimself. Less than two months later, on1 February 1911, the bishop ofCarcassonne publicly rebuked Saunièrefor continuing to advertise masses forsale, and forbade him fromadministering further sacraments.Again, Saunière ignored the bishop andcontinued to sell massses at 1 Franc atime.

On 5 December 1911, theCarcassonne bishopric finally ran out ofpatience and delivered a third and finaljudgment on Saunière, citing a long listof indictments against the priest,including disobeying his bishop. He wassuspended for three months pending therepayment of the money he had takenfor unsaid masses. Broke and unable torepay his debts, the suspension becameeffectively permanent.

By 1913, having spent a small fortuneon legal fees and overspending on theVilla Béthanie and the Tour Magdala(for which we have no detailedaccounts), any savings Saunière hadappears to have run out. Heavily in debthe applied to the Crédit Foncier deFrance for a loan; all they were preparedto offer him was a mere 6,000 Francsagainst his properties, which they valuedat 18,000 Francs.

The First World War dramaticallyimproved the market for Masses and inspite of his suspension (suspens a divinis),Saunière continued selling these untilhis death in 1917; it was his only sourceof income and this was now severelyrestricted as a result of the war. Althoughhis priestly suspension was lifted at themoment of his death in January 1917,his obituary in the Semaine Religieuse deCarcassonne (27 January 1917) makesno reference to his calling. His estate wasso cash-poor that it took six months forhis housekeeper, Marie Dénarnaud —to whom he bequeathed everything —

keeping records 16-years earlier, inJanuary 1894.

He was summoned again on 23August, but this time he managed tohave the hearing deferred until 15October, when he was represented byhis lawyer, Canon Huguet. Saunièrfinally presented himself at court on 5November and was ordered toundertake spiritual exercises in amonastery for 10 days, and to return toappear before the bishop within amonth, this time with the appropriatedocuments and records relating to hisfinancial activities over the years.

Saunière did confess to ‘trafficking inmasses’and also provided the courtwith a list of names of people heclaimed were his benefactors.12 Theseincluded his former mentor, the latebishop of Carcassonne, a communityof Carthusian monks and the Comtessede Chambord, the widow of HenriComte de Chambord, the Bourbonpretender to the French throne and asenior member of the Hiéron. TheComtess, incidentally, who lived inNarbonne, died in 1886, whileSaunière was in exile there. The totalsum came to 193,000 Francs. Thisfigure may have been exaggerated bySaunière to divert attention away fromthe money he earned from sellingmasses. In fact, there had been anearlier governmental investigation in1905 into the financial affairs of thebishopric of Carcassonne, following theprevious bishop’s suspension in 1898.The charges against MonseigneurBillard were that he had administeredhis diocesan assets ‘in the most irregularfashion’, and had ‘contracted staggeringand completely unjustified debts’.Saunière was unable to provide thecourt with all the invoices and receiptsfor all the work done at Rennes-le-Château. According to the Report of theCommission charged by His Lordship theBishop of Carcassone with theinvestigation of Monsieur Sauniere’saccounts, dated 4 October 1911, thepriest was only able to account for amere 36,000 Francs.



to pay for his funeral expenses.Marie Dénarnaud died 36 years later,

in 1953, at the age of 85, having earlierbequeathed her entire estate, includingSaunière’s archives, to the Corbus whohad looked after her since 1946.

Two years later, at Easter 1955, Corbuopened the Villa Béthanie as a restaurantand sought to attract clients byexploiting the tales of Saunière’smysterious treasure, and giving talks onthe priest to fascinated customers,stating as fact the rumours of the priesthaving discovered treasure. These talksformed the basis for Corbu’s five-pageunpublished manuscript deposited inthe Archives de l’Aude in Carcassonneentitled Essai Historique sur Rennes-le-Château. This is possibly a transcript ofa tape recording he made for guests athis restaurant

...THE FANTASIST...

The myth of Rennes-le-Châteaubegan properly in January 1956

with the publication of an interviewwith Noël Corbu in La Dépêche duMidi. Under a banner headline worthyof today’s Sun or Daily Sport, ‘LaFableuse Découverte du Curé auxMilliards de Rennes-le-Château’,journalist Albert Salamon reported thataccording to Corbu, Saunière hadindeed discovered treasure in thechurch. The story ran for three days (12,13 and 14 January 1956) and waspicked up by the national press. It alsoled to the first official archeological dig,in 1959, by Professor Jacques Cholet —who found nothing.

One of those who read Corbu’saccount of the mysterious BérengerSaunière was a fantasist, ‘psychic’ andconfidence trickster by the name ofPierre Athanase Marie Plantard, a 36-year Parisian — a former Petainist andan ultra-Traditional Catholic obsessedwith Freemasonry and Jewish worldconspiracy. Plantard had spent fourmonths in jail after the Liberation; sixmonths between 1953 and 1954 for‘breach of trust’ in relation to someproperty crime, and 12 months between

legends into a storyline worthy of J RTolkien, or at least J K Rowling. Theeight-year old Priory of Sion hadsuddenly acquired a pedigree datingback at least 900 years to Godfrey deBouillon, the Duke of Lower Lorraine,the first King of Jerusalem. Its implicitaims appear to be the establishment of atheocratic United States of Europe witha descendant of Jesus as its priest-king,and with the actual business ofgovernment being managed by thePriory of Sion.

Plantard, now secretary-general of thePriory of Sion, had reinvented himself asPierre Plantard de St. Clair, a directdescendent of the Merovingian KingDagobert II (although he never claimedany connection with Jesus. This strandwas introduced by Lincoln, Baigent andLeigh in The Holy Blood and The HolyGrail). His adoption of the St. Clair14

name took place in 1975 following aninterview with writer Jean-LucChaumeil in the magazine L’Eyred’Aquarius. The St. Clair connectionderived from the fact that the St. Clairsof Rosslyn, near Edinburgh in Scotland,were descendants of Baron Henri St.

Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard: b.18/3/1920 — d.3/2/2000In 1993 Judge Thierry, the French ExaminingMagistrate investigating the financial scandalssurrounding President Mitterand and his connectionswith Roger Patrice Pelat,* questioned Pierre Plantardunder oath about Pelat’s alleged connection with thePriory of Sion (Plantard had claimed he was the currentGrand Master. Apparently nearly everyone in modernFrench and European politics has some connection orother with people supposedly linked with the Priory ofSion). Plantard confessed to the judge that the Priory ofSion was a total fantasy, and was dismissed with awarning. He subsequently disappeared from view andnever again attempted to revive the Priory of Sion.Plantard spent the remaining seven years of his life inseclusion in Perpignan, Barcelona and Paris, where hedied on 3 February 2000.

1956 and 1957 for ‘corruption ofminors’.

Fascinated by the priest’s story,Plantard contrived to build arelationship with Corbu and they soonbecame friends, with Plantard absorbingeverything he could from Corbu aboutthe priest’s story.

Five months after Salamon’snewspaper articles, Pierre Plantard, thenliving in the Annemasse in the FrenchHaute Savoie, registered an associationcalled the Prieuré de Sion (the Priory ofSion). Article 3 of the association’sstatutes, as submitted to the authoritieson 5 May 1956, declared the Priory tobe a Roman Catholic benevolentorganisation, inspired by medievalorders of chivalry. Its aims included theestablishment of a centre for study,prayer and contemplation on theMontagne de Sion, a local mountain inthe French Alps from which the Priorytook its name. There was, in fact, anenormous gulf between the publishedaims of the Priory and its actual practice.

The Priory, or rather Plantard,published a magazine called Circuit (anacronym for Chivalry of Catholic Rulesand Institution of IndependentTraditionalist Union). In essence it was aTraditionalist Catholic pressure group,and much of its activity focused ondenouncing local property developers. Itceased to function five months laterwhen Plantard was convicted in 1956for ‘child corruption’.

In 1960 Plantard re-emerged onto thepublic stage at the height of theEuropean settler uprising in Algeria,(between Barricades Week in January1960 and the trial of 16 of its leaders inDecember that same year), relaunchingCircuit13 as its mouthpiece, this timetargeting the military with the sub-title:The Cultural Periodical of the FrenchForces Federation.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

By 1964 Plantard had takenCorbu’s history of Rennes-le-

Château and tales of Bérenger Saunièreand woven them with other myths and



on his contractual agreement to sharethe royalties with his two collaborators,who responded by denouncing theparchments — the unique selling pointof de Sède’s book — as forgeries.

...THE FICTION WRITER...

Plantard’s fiction of Rennes-le-Château, the Abbé Saunière, was

now heavily embellished with theaddition of the mysterious Priory ofSion and its fantasy list of illustriouspast Grand Masters, from the crusaderGodfrey de Bouillon in 1099 throughLeonardo de Vinci to Jean Cocteau in1963. It was next picked up by a writercalled Henry Lincoln.

Lincoln’s real name was HenrySoskin, a television scriptwriter who hadworked on Dr Who and EmergencyWard 10. He had also appeared in TheAvengers and Man in a Suitcase, and hadco-scripted the screenplay to the 1968Boris Karloff film The Curse of theCrimson Altar, so he recognised a goodstoryline when one came along.

On Good Friday, 3 March 1971,BBC2’s Chronicle programmebroadcast a documentary, The LostTreasure of Jerusalem, which drewheavily on Gérard de Sède’s book LeTrésor Maudit de Rennes-le-Château. Itwas the first of three Chronicledocumentaries: The Priest, the Painterand the Devil (1974) and The Shadow ofthe Templars (1979). In 1971 Lincolnended his first film with the words:‘Something extraordinary is waiting tobe found... and in the not too distantfuture it will be.’

DE SÉDE DEBUNKED

Something was discovered, butLincoln chose to ignore it. In 1974

French writer René Déscadeillaspublished his book on Rennes-le-Château, Mythologie du trésor de Rennes:Histoire Veritable de L’Abbé Saunière,Curé de Rennes-le-Chêteau (TheMythology of the Treasure of Rennes),which debunked de Sède’s thesis,providing irrefutable documentary

Clair of Roslin, one of the originalKnights Templar and, allegedly, ofMerovingian descent. They are alsoreputed to be the ‘hereditary grandmasters of Scottish Freemasonry’, notthat such a title ever existed in ScottishRite Freemasonry.

With his artist friend Philippe deChérisey, a surrealist with a sense of theabsurd and an eye for the main chance,Plantard wrote up his research onRennes-le-Château and BérengerSunière in 1964, but his manuscript wasrejected by all the main Frenchpublishing houses

Not one to give up easily, Plantardnext approached another conspiracyaficionado by the name of Gérard deSède, a successful author in the field ofesoterica with whom he hadcollaborated in 1962 on the historicalpotboiler entitled Les Templiers sontparmi nous (‘The Templars are amongus’), and asked if he would collaboratewith him in writing a book on Rennes-le-Château and Saunière.

As a published author with a trackrecord in the field, de Séde hadconsiderably more credibility in thepublishing world and among the book-buying public than Plantard.

This time there would be clearevidence to support his story. Plantardcommissioned Philippe de Chérisey tomanufacture various pieces of evidenceto support his fabrication aboutSaunière’s treasure and his claim to be adirect descendant of Dagobert II. Theseartefacts included a gravestone, and thefour forged documents which the priesthad allegedly found inside the ‘hollowVisigothic pillar’, including thefictitious genealogies supportingPlantard’s claim to the French throne.

The book finally appeared in 1967under de Séde’s name, entitled L’Or deRennes. Their gamble paid off and thebook became an enormous best-seller inFrance, selling hundreds of thousands ofcopies.

But, unfortunately for Plantard andPhilippe de Chérisey there is no honouramong pseudo-historians and, after thebook appeared, Gérard de Sède reneged

Dr Who?: Henry Soskin, aka Henry Lincoln

proof of the source of Saunière’sconspicuous expenditure. It exposed theconspiracy theories surroundingRennes-le-Château as a nonsense,ranking alongside mysteries such as theBermuda Triangle, Atlantis, Erich vonDaniken’s ancient astronauts and theProtocols of the Elders of Zion. Drawingon Saunière’s diaries, mass books andpersonal notebooks, Déscadeillasshowed beyond doubt that the priesthad amassed his wealth entirely fromthe sale of masses and donations.

In spite of this evidence, in 1982Henry Lincoln co-authored The HolyBlood and the Holy Grail with novelistRichard Leigh and esotericist MichaelBaigent. It was Baigent, apparently, whopushed the thesis that Christ’s bloodlinehad survived in the Rennes-le-Châteauregion and was linked to the Priory ofSion. The implication was that this wasthe ‘secret treasure’ upon whichSaunière had stumbled.

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail wasan enormous publishing success, sellinghundreds of thousands of copies, andspawning a massive literature of pseudo-historical works of ‘non-fiction’ andfiction in every major language, allreinforcing each other’s myths. Theauthors followed it up four years later in1986 with a sequel, The MessianicLegacy, which also became a best-seller.The best-known of these spin-offs,however, is Dan Brown’s ubiquitousThe Da Vinci Code which has been onthe Times best-seller list for three years,and has sold around 4 million copies inthe UK to date, at least 1700 of these inHastings alone: 1200 in Ottakars and


BOOK REVIEWS — PSEUDOHISTORY — (The Code War)T

500 in Olio Books. This, in turn, hasspawned a publishing frenzy of fictionaland factional spin-offs, including atleast a couple of computer games and aHollywood movie to be released on 19May starring Tom Hanks and Sir IanMcKellan, with at least 5 film tie-ins.Another is Kate Morse’s Labyrinth,which has won Richard and Judy’s ‘BestRead’ award and has sold over 70,000copies since last summer.

The only discordant note in the sagais the plagiarism case recently brought(an rejected by the High Court) againstThe Da Vinci Code’s publisher byMichael Baigent and Richard Leigh,two of the authors of The Holy Bloodand the Holy Grail, for alleged breach ofcopyright. If successful, a slice of the piefrom the film’s profits would have beenquite substantial. Henry Lincoln isreportedly ‘very ill’ and was not involvedin this legal action (but not too ill tolead another group to Rennes-le-Château from 19 to 27 September 2006at £1,400 per head).

Why, then, are such irrational ideaseffective — and why do they attract sucha massive audience? Isn’t this, after all,just another story? Perhaps there is aGresham’s Law of the Brain whichexplains why irrational ideas always driveout rational ones. One thing is certainhowever, the acceptability of theseparanoic and nonsensical ramblings tothe public is reflected in the sheervolume of sales of these books.

Stuart Christie I would like to thank Paul Smith and Bill Putnam forproviding me with the benefit of their comprehensiveresearch on Rennes-le-Château and the AbbéSaunière. Paul Smith’s web site www.priory-of-sion.com is the essential starting point for anyoneinterested in pursuing the subject further. I must alsohighy recommend ‘The Treasure of Rennes le-Château:a mystery solved’ (ISBN 0-7509-4216-9) by BillPutnam and John Edwin Wood (Sutton Publishing— [email protected] — www.sutton-publishing.co.uk)

Stuart Christie is the author of :‘Granny Made Me AnAnarchist’ (ISBN 0743263561), Scribner - Simon &Schuster, paperback, £7.99 and ‘Stefano delle Chiaie;Portrait of a ‘Black Terrorist’ (ISBN 0946222096),dealing with NATO’s Gladio ‘stay-behind’ networkand the role of neo-fascists and the ItalianConfidential Affairs Bureau in the ‘Strategy ofTension’ which dominated Italian politics between1960 and 1983’ ‘We, the anarchists! A study of theIberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) 1927-1937’(ISBN 1901172066).

NOTES:1) Integrists hold that only a belief in God andsubmission to the Vicar of Christ can restrain mankindand secure the social order. Everything that underminesfaith, such as science, reason, and a belief in thegoodness of man, is the enemy. Their demonicspokesmen include: Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, Kant,Leibniz, Rousseau, Hegel, Adam Smith, Proudhon,Bakunin and Karl Marx. Science and rationalistphilosophy lead only to grief. They are the scourge ofeverything non-Catholic since the Reformation, theEnlightenment, and the French Revolution.Republicanism, Freemasonry and Protestantism aretheir particular bugbears, as is anything that denies theauthority of Rome. The spectre of revolutionarysocialism haunting Europe at the end of the 19thcentury was part of the same gigantic conspiracy of thedark directorate targeting Christian civilization.

2) Although the Republicans won by a majority of 182seats in this election, the 73 seats won by the Royalistparty within the Union of the Right panickedRepublican politicians into introducing the Law ofExile, legislation expelling all senior members of theFrench Royal family from France. Intervention by theRoman Catholic Church was so flagrant in the 1885elections that it marked the beginning of a bitter 25-year conflict that led, in 1905, to the separation of theChurch and State in France.

3) The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the paramountdevotional symbol for the Jesuit Order, which wasconsecrated to the Sacred Heart in 1872.

4) To put the amount of 700 Francs into some sort ofcontext, the Conseil de Fabrique’s accounts for theprevious financial year, April 1886 to April 1887, showthat the Church’s revenue rose by 145.40 Francs, from239.60 to 385 Francs. But by 1888 the Church of MaryMagdalene’s income had risen almost five-fold to1914.80 Francs, before returning to slightly below itsoriginal level by 1893.

5) Our Lady of Lourdes was at the time a symbol ofanti-Republicanism, the annual pilgrimage to Lourdeshaving become an overt militant Catholic protestagainst godless Republicanism. She was also seen byCatholics such as Pere Emmanuel d’Alzon, the founderof the Assumptionist Order, as symbolising therestoration of the Bourbon monarchy.

6) Possibly RP Mercier. The Lazarists, founded by StVincent de Paul in 1625 and modelled on the Jesuits,are a congregation of proselytising secular priests whohave taken religious vows. They are similar in many waysto Opus Dei, and have been suppressed and expelledfrom a number of countries because of their zealotry.

7) After Saunière’s death in 1917, speculation grew evenmore fantastic, with the source of the priest’s wealthranging from trafficking in Spanish gold ingots tospying for Germany. A theory also circulated that hehad been paid vast sums of money by the RomanCatholic Church to buy his silence on a secret thatwould have seriously damaged the church. The mostimaginative claim, however, was that he had located thegrave of the ‘exiled’ Christ. (See also Note 10)

8) Trafficking is defined as a form of spiritual fraud inwhich requests to say mass are solicited for payment —but without honouring the requests. Parish priestsliving in poor communities were badly paid and, inorder to survive, would petition the secretariat of theirlocal diocese to permit them to say a certain number ofmasses. These masses were requested either by religiouscongregations or by private individuals who sent moneyin return. Bérenger Saunière felt that the secretariat ofthe Diocese of Carcassonne was favouring other priestsat his expense and decided to go it alone. In effect, heturned it into a major confidence trick, one in which heproved himself to be a real master.

9) Simony is the ecclesiastical crime and personal sin ofpaying for offices or positions in the hierarchy of achurch. It is named after Simon Magus, who appears inthe Acts of the Apostles 8:18-24, offering the disciplespayment for the power to perform miracles.

The linking of temporal and spiritual authority inthe middle ages caused endless problems with simonyand accusations of simony. Secular rulers headhuntedthe educated and centrally-organised clergy to playcentral roles in their administrations, and often treatedtheir spiritual positions as adjuncts to their secularadministrative roles.

Canon law outlawed as simony not only the sale ofoffices, but the sale of spiritual authority: tithes, takingfees for confession, absolution, marriage or burial, andthe concealment of mortal sin or the reconcilement ofan impenitent for the sake of gain. Exactly what was orwas not simony was strenuously litigated. As onecommentator notes, the widespread practice of simonyis best illustrated by the number of reportedecclesiastical decisions as to what is, or is not, simony.

Simony did serious harm to the moral standing ofthe Roman Catholic Church. In his Inferno, DanteAlighieri condemns simonists to the eighth circle ofhell, where he encounters Pope Nicholas III (1277-1280) buried upside down, the soles of his feet burningwith some oily substance. Nicholas goes on to predictthe damnation of both Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1305), the Pope in office at the time the DivineComedy is set, and Pope Clement V (1342-1352), hissuccessor, for simony. Centuries later, less devoutwriters, such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Erasmus,condemned the practice, while Blaise Pascal attackedthe casuistic defences offered by those accused ofsimony in his Lettres Provinciales.

The Church of England also struggled with thepractice after its separation from the Catholic Church.English law recognized simony as an offence, buttreated it as merely an ecclesiastical matter, rather thana crime, for which the punishment was forfeiture of theoffice or any advantage from the offence and severanceof any patronage relationship with the person whobestowed the office.

10) The source of Saunière’s wealth was confirmed in1925, eight years after the priest’s death, in a depositionby a Mr Espeut from Perpignan: ‘I wish to state that atno time did the Abbé Saunière find any treasure. Yousee, I was born in Espéraza and my family was friendlywith the Denarnauds. In 1925, when I was 14 years old,I was a regular visitor to Marie Dénarnaud who wasthen living in pitiable circumstances. I did my harmonylessons on the organ in her parlour… Moreimportantly, while I was there, I read all the priest’scorrespondence with his ecclesiastical lawyer at the timeof the trial and it was clear to me that the AbbéSaunière’s entire estate was built on the illicit sale ofmasses. He placed countless small ads in theinternational Catholic press, many of which I read. Ialso read some of the thousands of replies he received. Ishould also add that I too believed in the treasure.Between the age of 15 and 20, I searched everywherewithin a 500 metre radius of the Villa and the TourMagdala and not once did I find the slightest evidenceof any hidden treasure. I am making this statement outof a respect for the truth.’

11) My interest in Rennes-le-Château began during avisit to Carcassonne, and Perpignan in the mid-1970s.I had been researching the WWII escape and evasionnetworks and seeing friends, members of the PonzanGroup (part of which was the Pat O’Leary network) —veterans of the 26th Division (formerly the DurrutiColumn) of the Spanish Republican Army, the SpanishMaquis and anti-Francoist Resistance networks, and theNinth Company of General Leclerc’s Second FrenchArmoured Division, the fighters who liberated south-western France — including Paris. They took me on a


PICTURE GALLERY

tour of the area where they operated during theoccupation, and border crossing points used by the anti-Francoist guerrillas until 1963. One of the places wevisited was Rennes-le-Château, not because it hadanything to do with the Liberation, but because it was apretty Provençal village with an interesting parish churchdecorated in rather questionable Baroque taste. Whatfascinated me most were the devices at the head of someof the graves. These were not simple crosses or imagesdepicting the crucifixion, as you would find in mostcemeteries, they were ornately p;ainted statuettes of theImmaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary (Mary with ablazing heart surrounded by a crown of thorns) holdingthe Christ Child, standing before a cross. Othersdepicted Christ the King standing before the cross..

12) The minutes of Sauniere’s 1910-1911 ecclesiasticaltrial before the Bishopric of Carcassonne are publishedin Jacques Riviere’s 1983 book, Le Fabuleux Trésor deRennes-le-Château.: ‘On Saturday 5 November, at 10.00am, the Bishop’s Court assembled at its habitual place ofmeeting. Abbé Bérenger Saunière was present before thecourt, accompanied by Dr Huguet, his attorney andcounsel. Having asked this latter and the OfficialProsecutor if had anything to add to their conclusions,

the Judge read out the sentence handed down by theCourt...The Judge read out a list of indictments againstSauniere, one of which stated the following:“CONSIDERING that Abbé Bérenger Saunière admitsto having requested and obtained a considerable numberof Masses, without contesting the figures given by theOfficial Prosecutor.”’.

13) There is no connection here that I am aware of, butthe extreme right-wing Roman Catholic organisation LaCité Catholique was particularly strong among Frencharmy officers of the Fifth Bureau of the General Staff,the psychological warfare unit which in January 1961formed the core of the French terrorist settlerorganisation, the Organisation de l’armée secrèt (OAS).During ‘Barricades Week’ (24-31 January, 1960)24people were killed and almost 300 seriously injured..

14) Between 1976 and 1983 I lived on the island ofSanday in Orkney, during which time I became friendlywith Alisdair Rosslyn St. Clair, the younger brother ofthe heir to the St. Clair Baronetcy, a descendant ofPrince Henry of Orkney — and a ‘remittance man’ (the‘black sheep’ of the family). We played poker once aweek. Alisdair, was a charming and intelligentcompanion, and a bit of a bohemian, slightly flaky witha surreal sense of humour, and clearly unaware of his

‘divine’ (as opposed to his ‘royal’) ancestry’. He dressedin black, with a long Dracula-style cape, and toldeveryone he was a satanist. I should add that this wasbasically to wind up some of the more staid islanders. Ilost contact with Alisdair after we left Orkney in 1983and I didn’t hear anything more until April 1998, whenhe was found dead in his cell in the detention centre atJerusalem’s Ben Gurion airport. He had been ‘strangled’with his own shoelaces. Arrested on leaving the country,Israeli Customs officials had found 9,000Deutschemarks in a false bottom of his briefcase andaccused him of drug dealing. Apparently Alisdair‘admitted’ to having smuggled in thousands of Ecstasypills. This is not impossible as he was always short ofmoney and had been living in Amsterdam since leavingOrkney. However, when his body was returned to hisfamily in Scotland, it was discovered that his heart hadbeen removed by the coroner (and not replaced), as wasthe hyoid bone at the base of his tongue, which couldhave revealed whether or not he had hanged himself orhad been strangled. According to the Priory of Sionbuffs, Alisdair, the ‘Merovingian claimant’, was killed inorder to allow Thomas Plantard de St. Clair (PierrePlantard’s son) to assume the throne of Jerusalem andthe United States of Europe as the ‘priest-king inwaiting’.

Notes: continued from page

‘Lightning at Hastings : 9.30 pm, June 6, 1904: (Judges)

the da vinci con by stuart christie

Documents