Andrew Gough's Arcadia

Essay on the Source of the Wealth of Saunière

By Dr. Elias Van Kasteel

This story begins with Marie de Negri d’Ables (hereafter: Marie) who died on January the 17th in 1781.

Marie was widow of Francois d’Hautpoul-Rennes, Marquis de Blanchefort. On her deathbed Marie confided her family secrets to Antonie Bigou (hereafter: Bigou) who was the priest and confident of the family Hautpoul de Blanchefort. It is believed she gave documents of great importance to Bigou which originally has been entrusted to a notary by Francois-Pierre d’Hautpoul who died in 1644. [1]

The story goes that Bigou took great pains in the creation of the tombstones of Marie. He allegedly hid documents about her secret in the church at Rennes-le-Château, where Bérenger Saunière (hereafter: Saunière) later found them during restoration of the church in 1891. Did Saunière decipher the parchments? No one knows for sure. We do know that he took equally great pains in an attempt to deface the tombstones, removing this public display of the writing. Overnight he became a millionaire.

He mysteriously acquired and spent large sums of money during his tenure, funding several building projects including the Church of Mary Magdalene. Many have speculated that this action and his strange behavior from that time forward indicated that he did, in fact, discover something for Saunière suddenly became a very wealthy man. The source of the wealth had long been a topic of conversation and rumor within the village Rennes-le Château. Over 300 books have been written that are related to him in some way ort another and new facts and rumors about him continue to surface to this very day. [2] The source of his wealth has never been brought to light. To address this issue, the question constituting the focus of this essay investigates what is the source of the wealth of Saunière.

Although I cannot be entirely sure just how many documents Saunière found I am led to believe that he found at least three manuscripts. Translated, the first parchment reads:

"Shepherdess no temptation that Poussin Teniers hold the key peace 681 by the cross and this horse of God I complete this daemon of the guardian at midday blue apples". [3]

The second parchment reads:

"To Dagobert II King and to Sion does this treasure belong, and he is there dead". [4]

The third parchment was found amongst the personal possessions following the death of Saunière. Translated, the third parchment reads:

“Stupid Fisherman at the mouth of the Rhone, he turned his fish on the grill twice. A devil popped up and tasted it 25 times. Cooked, all that remained was the bone. An angel watched and made a golden comb. B.S. Cur”. [5]

Next to these parchments, the tombstones of Marie (drawings by La Société d’Etudes Scientifiques in 1905) and the Dalle de Coumesourde (stone of Coume Sourde discovered in 1928 by Ernest Cross) have also a great deal to offer and is open to multitude of interpretations as to what message it may be trying to convey. If we take a look at the vertical tombstone of Marie we see that it yields extremely odd Roman numerals, and reads:

“JESUS, King of Rhedae, hidden near Arques, reigns by the Ark. Behind him is the TREASURE composed of gold. Not far from him, and in front, is the Ark”. [6]

The horizontal tombstone translates as:

“Helene Adiabene came from Sion in 31 to bury in Atax the body of J C one hundred steps of the pace it guards the grave that Guilhem made for Mary the Magdalene in 805”. [7]

Finally, translated, the Coume Sourde stone reads:

“In the tomb with the riches of the forefather where the treasure lies, and, the lamb, brought in the middle for burial where the M-line cuts the short line in half”. [8]

I have studied all this material and I found evidence that the crosses and other marks on these manuscripts and tombstones are indeed related and create bearings which are to be used as an overlay of the region of Languedoc near Rennes-le-Château. To the best of my knowledge it was here that the Cathars brought German miners to construct a hiding place for the liberated wealth of Jerusalem after the Knights Templar brought them back from their crusades in the Holy Lands. That was necessary since the Inquisition was established in Toulouse in November 1229, and the process of ridding the area of Cathar heresy and investing their remaining strongholds began. The Cathar strongholds fell one by one. Montségur withstood a nine month siege before being taken in March 1244. The final holdout, a small, isolated, overlooked fort at Quéribus, quickly fell in August 1255. The last known Cathar burning occurred in 1321. And the treasure from the biblical lands? When all strongholds fail, where would you hide your precious treasure?

I found evidence to believe that the M-line cuts the short line in half at Belcastel (see Coume Sourde stone). I will not go into detail how I discovered this old castle ruin, that I will describe in my following essay. For now, it is sufficient to say that Belcastel is a very intriguing place not mentioned once by any researcher. But be wary there is more than meets the eye...

Situated in the north-west of the department of the Aveyron, Belcastel is a small village on the banks of the Aveyron, 7 km from Rignac. Well before 1000 a pre-roman chapel existed on the site of Belcastel. A castle enclosing the chapel within its walls was built during the 11th century. The castle was confiscated by the crown, and later used as a military bastion until 1390, when it was presented to a loyal and vigilant knight named Alzias de Saunhac. In 1390 the castle was in bad repair when it was acquired by Alzias de Saunhac who restored and modernised it adding larger windows. He also built the bridge which crosses the Aveyron as well as the church Sainte Marie-Madeleine on the left bank.

The Saunhac family lived in the chateau until the middle of the 16th century. From then on it was abandoned and slowly deteriorated and would have become a total ruin. At the beginning of the 1970's, however, the architect, Fernand Pouillon, visited Belcastel and was strongly impressed by the site. He bought the ruins of the old chateau and, without any public funds, he spent the next ten years restoring the building. Fernand Pouillon died in 1986, and is buried in the village cemetery. Today the chateau belongs to SARL Belcastel, a private company set up by Fernand Pouillon for the conservation of the chateau”. [9]

But there is more. To the best of my knowledge Belcastel is the castle in the famous painting by David Teniers. We all know by now that Saunière ended up staying in Paris for three weeks while Hoffet worked on decoding the scrolls. In that time, Saunière also purchased three reproductions of paintings while in Paris: one of them is identified as the work by David Teniers.

More intriguing information is that the father of Alzias de Saunhac was Guillaume II de Saunhac (Baron of Belcastel) who is the son of Guillaume de Saunhac (William of Sonnac), Grand Master of the Knights Templars of Jerusalem in the 13th century. Guillaume de Saunhac oversaw all of the operations of the Order, including both the military operations in the Holy Land and eastern Europe, and the financial and business dealings in the Order's infrastructure of western Europe. He was in charge and took orders only from the Pope.

Having summarized the results of my research, we may ask ourselves whether we have furthered the knowledge required to answer the main question as posed in the introduction: ‘what is the source of the wealth of Saunière? I have strong evidence to believe that the treasure found by Saunière was originally hidden by the Grand Master of the Knights Templars of Jerusalem. Saunière allegedly took this enormous treasure, and this made him a very wealthy man. Where did Saunière hid his new found treasure? Saunière left us evidence in the decorations of his small church, dedicated to Mary Magdalena, and his domain. [10]

In a next essay I will publish my results on how I used the three Parchments in relationship with the tombstones and the stone of Coume Sourde that led me to the mysterious place called Belcastel.

Dr. Elias Van Kasteel

Footnotes:

1. Allan Scott (2005), see website: www.rennes-discovery.com.

2. RLC Research (2007), see website: www.rlcresearch.com.

3. Steve Mizrach, The Mysteries of Rennes-le-Chateau and the Prieure du Sion, Florida University.

4. Gérard de Sede (1968), Le Tresor Maudit de Rennes-le-Chateau.

5. Allan Scott (2005), see website: www.rennes-discovery.com.

6. P. Silvain (2007), see website www.rennes-le-chateau-la-revelation.com

7. RLC Research (2007), see website: www.rlcresearch.com.

8. Corjan de Raaf and Jean-Pierre d’Aniort, Written in Stone, the Secret of Coumesourde.

9. See website: www.tarn-web.com.

10. See website: www.benhammott.com.