The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar Page 18
During this time the breakup of the Roman Empire left a constantly embattled Europe. There were no banks, Templar or otherwise, and often the wealth of barbaric kings and nobles was portable, in the form of gold and silver. Even the formidable castles and walled cities were no match for the onslaught of barbaric hordes. Wealth earned and stolen plunder shared a need to be buried. Caves, grottoes, and man-made structures served as the predecessors of banks. Very little in the way of records exists to guide treasure hunters to caches that might have been left behind by nobles killed in battle, but there is evidence that such treasures were left behind for the lucky to stumble across hundreds of years later.
Chapter 9
THE MYSTERY OF RENNES-LE-CHATEAU
Sometime between 1885 and 1891, someone was very lucky and unearthed a treasure worth millions. A parish priest by the name of Bérenger Saunière had been posted to a very tiny mountain village at Rennes-le-Chateau. Saunière had been born in a nearby village in 1852 and had been ordained a priest in 1879. This village was his second assignment. It was not a good post for the learned young priest, who is described as having had a taste for the good life. Although larger than his first posting in the village of Clat, where there were twenty-three of the faithful in his congregation, Rennes-le-Chateau was far from Paris and at the time still accessible only by mule path.1
There was little “good life” to be had on his income, which was barely enough to support himself and a housekeeper. With a village of barely two hundred souls to look after, young Saunière had time on his hands. Whether it was from boredom or for another reason, Father Saunière decided to use his time to restore the village church, which was in disrepair. The church had been built in 1059 over the ruins of a Visigothic church dedicated to Mary Magdalene that dated back six hundred years, to A.D. 411.
The young priest chose to start his restoration with the altar. He removed the altar stone and the two pillars that supported it. To his amazement, one of the two pillars was hollow and contained three sealed tubes, each holding documents on parchment. The texts were in Latin—two were dated to 1244 and 1644, respectively. Two others were religious texts, but apparently coded. This was not the first time Saunière had come across odd documents that needed translation. Before the discovery of the parchments in the altar, a document that Saunière had found required the help of a local to translate; it supposedly contained property titles. The document was written in Latin, but it was a very old Latin, which the priest himself had not been trained to read. The notary he consulted was known to be well versed in the idioms and subtleties of the language of Virgil’s days. It was this document that may have started Saunière on his path to finding a treasure. It might also have been a document that the priest needed to keep secret.
The story is told that shortly after a notary, from nearby Quillan, translated documents for Father Saunière, the two went on an outing, a hike in the rocky mountainside with some village children. Saunière and the notary from Quillan preceded the children through a steep, brush-covered path, where there was an accident. Father Saunière was hurt, and the notary was killed. A police inquest concluded that the death was indeed an accident, as Saunière claimed. Few priests would have been doubted, but it would not be the last strange death in the life of Saunière.2
When Saunière found the documents concealed in the hollow columns of the altar, he contacted the bishop of Carcassonne, Monseigneur Felix-Arsene Billard. His bishop sent him to Paris and to the abbé Bieil, the director of Saint Sulpice.3 In Paris he also made a point of seeking out three paintings that held significance.
One of the paintings, Les Bergers d’Arcadie (The Shepherds of Arcadia), was by Nicolas Poussin; it depicted three shepherds looking at a tomb and pointing. The inscription read “Et in Arcadia Ego.” The tomb in Poussin’s painting and a certain tomb near Rennes-le-Chateau were one and the same. The message itself translates as “And in Arcadia, I am.” The significance of this message remains uncertain, but it and others found in the texts of the parchments held great significance to Saunière. Upon his return, the priest visited the local cemetery and removed the inscription. The only reason we know today just what was inscribed on the stone is that the town had kept a record of the gravestone.
Besides the three paintings, it is unknown what exactly Saunière discovered in Paris; there is no question, however, that the paintings led to something of great value. From a parish priest with an income of thirty dollars annually, he became a millionaire. The money changed his lifestyle and Rennes-le-Chateau forever, and according to some the religious-historical significance of his find (genealogies preserving the blood line of Jesus Christ) has the power to change the world. He suddenly went from being an impoverished parish priest to a philanthropist who spent millions on public works for his village. He built roads where before there were only dirt paths. He girded his own village with ramparts, although he was not expecting a siege. Or was he? He modernized the water supply for the ancient village. He founded a zoological garden, restored the church, built himself a library, and put up a tower dedicated to Mary Magdalene. In total it is estimated that he spent the equivalent of five to twenty million in today’s dollars. He also began entertaining important guests from all over Europe, from royalty to artists. What attracted such personages as the Hapsburgs and opera singers to Rennesle-Chateau, we can only guess.
The documents Saunière found were genealogies that traced the lines of certain people backed to Visigothic-Merovingian times, and further still. They may even contain the bloodline of David extending to Jesus and from Jesus through descendants living in France. Whatever was translated by the unfortunate notary led Saunière to the parchments in the altar, which in turn brought him to the cemetery of the tiny village and ultimately to the tomb that was the subject of Poussin’s painting—the tomb of one Marie de Negri D’Ables, who died on January seventeenth in the year 1781. This tomb of Marie de Negri D’Ables revealed the message “Et in Arcadia Ego,” which had been inscribed by the abbé Bigou, a previous curé of Rennes-le-Chateau, who also composed the coded parchments found in the church.4 One of these parchments provided the message “To Dagobert II and Sion belong this treasure, and it is death.” Sion, of course, was Zion, or Israel. Dagobert II was one of the last heirs to the Merovingian French throne, and Marie had descended from the royal line.
Marie was the widow of Francis of Hautpoul, the lord of Rennes and Blanchefort. She had three surviving daughters; her son had died young. If she was the last of an unbroken line, she found herself in a predicament, being without a surviving male heir to whom she could pass the treasure. Her relationship with her three daughters was described as “acrid,” and in them she placed no confidence.5 And she needed someone in whom to confide. This was one hundred years before Saunière would arrive in the village. His predecessor was the abbé Bigou.
To the abbé Bigou the secret genealogy of Marie and her family tree was passed. On Marie’s death her secret was safe. If the family held a treasure, it was not one that she apparently wished to use. Her daughters continued to live in obscurity and lost the family estate to foreclosure. If Marie held a secret or a treasure, Bigou left only clues. The treasure, said the message, belonged to Dagobert. This was the message that fell into the hands of Father Saunière. Many of these documents and messages found by Saunière are confusing. Some were passages from the Bible, but the words ran together, and words not found in the Bible had been added. Certainly much was in code. One message was so complete in its coding that a computer used by the military could not decipher it; this one may have been deciphered by Saunière. Whatever its meaning, it appears that Father Saunière found the key. For us, he, too, left only clues, and some of these are visible in his bizarre restoration of the church.6
Over the doorway to the church there is a Latin inscription: “Terribilis est locus iste,” which means “This place is terrible.” The inscription serves as a warning to the visitor who is next greeted by a statue of the pagan Mid
dle Eastern demon Asmodeus, who reputedly built the Temple of Solomon and is regarded as a keeper of secrets and a guardian of treasure—not a typical feature in a Christian church. Another statue is of the Virgin Mary, with the word MISSION on the pedestal; the letters are separated are to spell MIS SION, possibly referring to the Prieuré de Sion. The altar has two Jesus children facing each other, which could be a reference to the Cathar dualistic belief or, according to one Gnostic author, a reference to the idea that Jesus had a twin. Saunière’s church also had a very unusual set of depictions of the Stations of the Cross. One station had Marie looking into a cave. Was he telling us that Marie knew where the Merovingian treasure was secured? Another station featured a child dressed in Scottish plaid. Was Father Saunière leaving his own message that something from Jerusalem was being guarded and that someone in Scotland might be an heir to such secrets?
Saunière also built a home for himself, which he dubbed the Villa Bethania. Its cost in today’s terms would be close to five hundred thousand dollars, and it was considered the greatest house in the area. The name itself might be another clue. In Aramaic, beth translates to “house” and ania to “sky” or “heaven.” The close friend of Jesus, Lazarus, who was miraculously rescued from the tomb, lived at his own home in Bethany with Martha. Martha is one of the followers who allegedly went to France with the fleeing companions of Jesus. Saunière left the house, and his secrets, to his housekeeper. Father Saunière’s church and home hold only clues—he personally did not reveal much to anyone. His own superiors demanded to know the source of his wealth, and he refused to tell them. When the new bishop of Carcassonne suspended him, the Vatican interceded and reinstated him. He also flaunted his new lifestyle by living openly with his housekeeper. The Church made threats but did nothing. Someone else may have made threats that were taken more seriously.
A priest in the nearby village of Coustaussa, the curé Gellis, was killed in his presbytery in 1893. His murder was brutal (he was finished off with an ax), and he was then laid out “solemnly and respectfully.” Even though he kept great sums of money that belonged to the Church, they were left untouched. Only a locked deed box had been broken into. It was not the only mysterious death in the area before or after Saunière’s own mysterious death. Abbé Boudet, a close friend of Saunière and an expert in Celtic stone structures helped him decipher some of the local monuments. How much Saunière shared with Boudet is unknown, but Boudet was healthy when he was visited by “sinister strangers” and died within hours of their departure.7 In modern times three additional bodies were removed from the ground outside of Saunière’s home.
Saunière’s death was also very suspicious. He had been active and healthy on January 12, when his housekeeper ordered his coffin and paid for it in advance. Then, on the feast day of Saint Sulpice, he suffered a stroke. The date of January 17 is interesting because it is the same date as that on the tombstone of the marquise d’Hautpoul de Blanchefort, which Saunière had obliterated. Saint Sulpice is also the place where Father Saunière went to research whatever he found in the altar columns. Before his death he called for a local priest to hear his last confession. Father Rivière is said to have been shocked by what he heard, refused Saunière the last sacrament, and became ill immediately afterward. He did not go back to work for months. On January 23, Saunière died.
The housekeeper, Marie Dénarnaud, lived on for years after Saunière’s death. The source of her wealth, of course, was considered to be the treasure found by Saunière. In 1946 the French government ordered that all old currency be replaced with new currency as part of the rebuilding of its financial system after the occupation by the Germans. Marie was seen burning large denominations of currency. She did not want to explain its source. Without money, she sold the Villa Bethania, the house that she inherited from Saunière, to a friend. She told her friend and close companion that she would reveal her secret to the buyer when she was near death. To the buyer, Noël Corbu, she said, “My friend you walk on gold, but you do not know it.” Marie also told him that what she would reveal would make him a “powerful” man. A mysterious choice of words, points out one writer—she did not say “rich.” She later suffered a stroke and was unable to speak. She went to her grave, allegedly, without making any revelation. Corbu himself died in 1968 in a suspicious car accident.8
The mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau and the source of Father Saunière’s sudden wealth have been the subject of many theories. The source of the buried treasure alone could point in several directions. Might it be the loot of ancient Celts who raided Europe and then retired to France? Or the treasure of barbarian Visigoths who raided Rome and then settled in the Rennes-le-Chateau area? Or is it Cathar treasure brought to safety at the last minute by a handful of survivors and hidden in caves?
The involvement of the Bishop of Carcassonne, the director of Saint Sulpice in Paris, and later the intercession by the Vatican on behalf of a less than orthodox priest point to a greater secret. What could have been unearthed in a tiny mountain village to bring such great attention to the village of Rennes-le-Chateau?
The Merovingian Dynasty and the Family of Jesus
Dagobert II was the last of the kings of Merovingian France.9 When Merovingian power was being challenged after his father’s death, Dagobert was sent to live in a monastery in Slane in Ireland. He married a Celtic princess, Mathilde, in A.D. 666; she died giving birth to his third daughter. In A.D. 670 he married again. His second wife was Giselle de Razes, the daughter of the count of Razes and granddaughter to the Visigothic king. The wedding was celebrated at Rennes-le-Chateau, her home and the capital of her fiefdom. The Visigoths are the first people after the Gaulish Celts who shared their territory with the exiles of the Holy Lands. The Aramaic-speaking followers of Jesus may have married into Visigothic families—the name “Razes” recalls an Aramaic word razi meaning “my secret.” Today there remain several villages in the surrounding area with Razes in the name. The Visigoths invaded the south of France during the fall of Rome. They were followed by the Merovingians, whose rule of France was lost to the Carolingians after the death of Dagobert II.
The Life of Wilfred, written in the eighth century, is one source that mentions Dagobert II; outside that we see little reference to him. According to The Merovingian Kingdoms, “The general silence of the sources … suggests that the episode was one over which Merovingians and Carolingians both wished to draw a veil.”10 If Zion and Dagobert shared a treasure, it could be theorized that it was the loot from the Temple of Solomon. The thesis of Holy Blood, Holy Grail—whether they shared a secret as well—is that the family of Jesus, exiled to France, had heirs and a dynasty that survived the centuries.
The Carolingians had planned for the Merovingian dynasty to end with Dagobert II. On December 23, 674, he was murdered while hunting in the forest surrounding his northern seat of power at Stenay. A son of Dagobert II could legitimately claim power because he was in a more direct line in the bloodline of kings. The veil drawn by the usurpers was not pierced until the seventeenth century when more evidence of the life of Dagobert II surfaced.
As far-fetched as both the existence and the significance of such genealogies seems today, there is a good body of evidence that shows how much value was placed in such records. The Gospel of Matthew set great store on tracing the genealogy of Jesus back to David.11 It was the basis of his kingship and his fulfillment of the prophecies. The Old Testament, too, shows genealogies that stretched from Adam to Noah and to Abraham and David. Eusebius records that the family of Jesus expounded his genealogy in the same chapter where he tells of Herod’s exile to France.12 The Romans searched for these genealogies, but we have no record that they found them. They wanted to lay hands on them to destroy any claims to a throne that could be based on their existence.
Another early historian, Hegesippus, writing of the family of Jesus, says that surviving relatives accused the Roman rulers of ferreting out, capturing, and killing the heirs in the Davidic line as wel
l as destroying the genealogies of Jewish nobles.13 Clearly, the genealogies held great importance. They appear to be missing, and at the same time there is no record of their destruction. We can easily make a case that these historic documents were hidden. Did Saunière find them?
Saunière left the world only clues to a great mystery. One clue to the nature of the treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau was found on the gravestone that Saunière eradicated. “Reddis Regis Cellis Arcis” read the grave marker, which translates loosely to “At Royal Reddis, the cave of the fortress.” According to Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Reddis (or Rhedae) was the name the Celts had given to what would later become Rennes-le-Chateau. The root rede also has the meaning “to guard.” This marker may alternatively be translated as meaning “the Caves [at Arques] Guard the Ruler.”
The south of France is full of caves and man-made tunnels as well as legends of hidden treasure. It would be possible that the source of Saunière’s wealth was something that anyone in the vicinity could have stumbled across. He was only twenty miles from the fortress of Montsegur, from which the Cathar treasure might have been saved at the last moment. The author Jean Blum reports on one cache of gold being found and taken to a jeweler. The jeweler had trouble in determining just what purity the gold was because the objects contained added minerals he had never seen present in gold jewelry. He gave a bracelet to his son, who was an atomic engineer. The son determined that the element added to the gold was cobalt. Since cobalt was added only to African gold, Blum deduces that it was part of the stolen treasures of Solomon.