The Final Testament of Philippe de Cherisey Madeline and the Buring Trail of the Notorious Merovingian Talisman

8/9/2019 The Final Testament of Philippe de Cherisey Madeline and the Buring Trail of the Notorious Merovingian Talisman

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The Final Testament of Philippe de

Chrisey, Madeleine and the Burning Trail

of the Notorious Merovingian Talisman

By Isaac Ben Jacob

Philippe de Chrisey, the French writer suspected of having

created the Rennes-le-Chteau parchments, is an enigma, in thathe remains a source of continued speculation, even after his death.

Over time, new evidence has surfaced, mainly through the work of

researchers who appear more credible than ambitious. This is

fortunate, as these pieces of information have enabled us to have

a more realistic image of the late de Chrisey, including insights

into his personality and moods, as well as his true intentions. It is

no longer unrealistic to attempt to get to the roots of the myth of

Rennes-le-Chteau and, incidentally, to gain a better

understanding of the motivations of one of its fiercest proponents,

his lordship de Chrisey. In fact, recently released documents

make such an undertaking much easier and, when re-examined inthe light of our work, provide new perspectives on the genesis of

the Rennes-le-Chteau affair.


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The Final Testament of Philippe de

ChriseyA few years ago, Jean-Luc Chaumeil, a well-known author on the

scene, brought out a book, published by Pegasus, called Rennes-

le-Chteau - Gisors - Le Testament du Prieur de Sion (The

Twilight of a Shady Affair). This beautifully crafted book, printed

on fine paper, brings together several articles by the author, which

sometimes seem separate and unconnected; all apparently having

no other purpose than to serve as a setting for the famous Pierre

et Papier (Stone and Paper), the final testament of de Chrisey,

published 20 years after his death. This much-awaited testament

was supposed to shed conclusive light on the intentions of the

Marquis de Chrisey and on the amusing pleasantry which seems

to have been the two so-called parchments of Brenger Saunire.

Announced as the scoop of the decade, the publication of this

testament was intended to have finally clarified things and to have

put an end, once and for all, to many outlandish assumptions. Yet,

it did nothing of the sort and, much to our surprise, we find that deChrisey did not clarify the situation at all. For a last-minute

confession one would have expected a few more significant

revelations; at least enough to keep the reader glued to the page.

In fact, what happened was the opposite and de Chrisey seems

uncomfortable in his role as a repentant liar, and unable to detach

himself from his reputation as the perfect hoaxer that he had

portrayed himself as previously.


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Philippe de Chrisey

Unfortunately, on reading this testament, we cannot rule out the

nagging doubt that either de Chrisey is not, in fact, the real

author of the parchments, or his testament comes from the hand

of another; a compilation work, perhaps edited by several others.

Finally, we believe that the more sincere de Chrisey sounds, the

more the reader assumes he had a malicious intent, particularly

concerning his authorship claim regarding the parchments. Did de

Chrisey have prior knowledge of the Codex Bezae, which served

as the basis for the drafting of the two parchments? Was the

Marquis, to quote the words of Jean Cocteau, simply a

mischievous youngster; a hoaxer on a small scale? The general

view is that Pierre et Papieractually constitutes de Chrisey's

ultimate masquerade; a swan song that tripped up the research

world; a poisoned funeral wake, which all his friends had been

invited to attend.


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Mary Magdalene and the Secundo-Primo

In our opinion, however, this is not the case, for collectively the

testament of the late de Chrisey, the extracts from his letters

produced by Valrien Aris and the comments of Chaumeil all

seem to indicate a measure of truth. Indeed, they show us the

complex personality of de Chrisey and afford us a singular insight

into his knowledge.

Underpinning the contents of these documents there are, thus, two

major ideas which invariably make up the basis of the Marquis'

thoughts. We speak of his two obsessions: Mary Magdalene and

the words Secundo-Primo, or Second First, which he later

transformed into P-S or S-P to form the initials of the famous

Priory of Sion.

All that is needed is to patiently examine de Chrisey's letter

(partially published by Valrien Aris on the website of Johan

Netchacovitch, Gazette et Portail de Rennes-le-Chteau) for us to

note that Dan Brown, the well-known author of the Da Vinci Code,

has not come up with anything new. A sort of strange continuity

exists between our three jokers: Plantard; de Chrisey and de

Sde; and the infernal trio, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and

Henry Lincoln, whose fantasies about Mary Magdalene serve to

support the Da Vinci Code.

For example, we cite one of the letters signed by de Chrisey,

dated 6 November 1964, in which one can clearly see, outlined in

his thoughts from this period onwards, the association of Mary

Magdalene with Rennes-le-Chteau:


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"PS Sainte Magdalene was brought to France in very ancient times.

Ancient traditions, more or less legendary, talk about a pilgrimage

to her tomb... which no-one has ever found. [...] There can be no

confusion about the person, because only two saints have everborne the name of Magdalene. (The second one is out of the

question, since she lived in the seventeenth century and took the

religious name of Sister Catherine.) It must be she who poured

perfume of amber on the Christ, crying at Calvary. [...] What do

you believe I am going to look for at Rennes-le-Chteau? Pray for

me. If I succeed, I would not have the right to talk about it." (6

November 1964)

On reading this letter, we note with regret that de Chrisey merely

suggests and hints upon the subject, without ever really delving

into it. This is one way in which he cleverly preserves the mystery.

Furthermore, at first glance he does not want to elaborate on thedeeper meaning of the quest that he pursues in Rennes-le-

Chteau. What is his goal? Is he merely looking for a relic of Mary

Magdalene; perhaps her tomb or something else entirely? Is the

name Magdalene only a pretext to illustrate another truth, since de

Chrisey later identified this saint as ISIS, or should we actually

take the text at face value?

What is certain is that back then de Chrisey did not hold the same

opinion that he would later outline in Pierre et Papier, nor in his

apocryphal Le Serpent Rouge. In his letter dated 1964, he

obviously did not possess the knowledge that he demonstrated a

few years later in his other literary works. In 1964, he seemed to

seek the tomb of a saint in the region of Rennes-le-Chteau. But


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with LeSerpent Rouge in 1967 his research took an opposite turn

and became more refined. Consequently, we must admit that de

Chrisey must have been aware that the legends relating to the

presence of Mary Magdalene in southern France are recent (fromthe 10th century at the earliest) and, like the tomb of St Jacques

at Compostela, there has never been the least bit of historical

evidence to support such a pilgrimage.

We know also that many heretical Cathars prided themselves on

taking the names of evangelists. Thus, a Mark of Lombardy, Italy,

was for a long time mistaken for a disciple of St Mark the

Evangelist, or sometimes even for the Evangelist himself. It was

only discovered later that he was, in fact, a heretic, whose

memory was substituted in the people's beliefs by that of the

biblical figure. It was probably the same with Mary Magdalene. De

Chrisey could do nothing other than push to one side thehypothesis of a secret hiding place, lost in the Razs, containing

invaluable relics of the holy saint.

The Funerary Unctions at Bethany and the

Vase of a Thousand Perfumes

We must ask, what was de Chrisey looking for and why was he so

interested in this saint? This question might have remained

unanswered if the Marquis had not suggested to us in his letter the

genesis of a solution. He underlines, in effect, that "it must have

been she who poured a perfume of amber on the Christ (in view

of his burial, according to the scriptures). For him, Mary Magdalene


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is, strictly speaking, neither a biblical person, nor the Saint of the

scriptures, but rather the falsely Christianised ISIS, the goddess of

the Egyptian Cult of the Dead, presiding over mortuary anointing

and embalming rituals. Indeed, it is precisely this idea that deChrisey develops with greater clarity a few years later in Le

Serpent Rouge. He thus declared, somewhat mysteriously, that

"from her whom he wished to liberate, there wafted up to him the

effluvia of the perfume which had permeated the sepulchre".

Close up of a golden Crista symbol (along with a vase of mortuary ointment?), Church of

St Mary Magdalene, Rennes-le-Chteau

Isaac Ben Jacob

He then added that in the past they had once called Mary

Magdalene ISIS, Queen of the beneficial sources, while others

called her MADELEINE, of the famous vase full of healing balm.

[Note that in this case we are talking about a mortuary balm.]" A

little later on, still in the same manuscript, we read the following,

which complements the preceding passage: "Here is the sign that


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DELACROIX had given in one of three paintings of the chapel of

the angels. [...] Twice IS [note that here ISIS is associated with

the initials IHS, or with the secret seal of Le Serpent Rouge: SIS],

embalmer and embalmed, miraculous vase of the eternal WhiteLady of Legends."

The wording is convoluted, but in themselves the words contain

sufficient clarity, so that we can conclude that the mention of Mary

Magdalene by de Chrisey refers, in essence, not to the Saint, but

to ISIS and a non-Christian tradition; the Cult of the Dead. This

undoubtedly explains the rather revealing conclusion that de

Chrisey added at the end of his letter: "What do you believe I am

going to look for at Rennes-le-Chteau? Pray for me. If I succeed,

I would not have the right to talk about it."

The Sacred Enigma and the Carpocratians

Jean-Luc Chaumeil was not mistaken when he affirmed in an

interview given on Sud Radio that "there were two Priories of

Sion, the first consisting of Plantard, his friend and author de

Sde, and their unofficial decision-maker, de Chrisey. The secondPriory of Sion, he states, was comprised of Baigent, Leigh and

Lincoln, the famous trio of authors of the bestselling The Holy

Blood & the Holy Grail.

It is true that two Priories of Sion have evolved in parallel and a

sort of osmosis of ideas moved between de Chrisey, Baigent and,

later on, Dan Brown. But we can say that, overall, Mary Magdalene

is their common fixation; an obsession which clearly betrays a


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desire for mystification, because the outcome of the movement,

far from shedding new light on the Bible, serves no further

purpose than to distort Christianity, in order to substitute a

revelation about the Cult of the Dead. There is continuitybetween the trios of authors. For example, we cite a passage from

The Holy Blood & the Holy Grail, first published in France under the

title LEnigme Sacre (The Sacred Enigma) by Editions Pygmalion.

The content of this extract illuminates and pursues the reasoning

already held by de Chrisey in Pierre et Papier:

"In 1958, for example, Professor Morton Smith of Columbia

University discovered, in a monastery near Jerusalem, a letter

which contained a missing fragment of the Gospel of Mark

Clement, it seems had received a letter from one Theodore, who

complained of a Gnostic sect, the Carpocratians.

when Peter died as a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria,

bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he

transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever

makes for progress towards knowledge [gnosis]. [Thus] he

composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were

being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things

not to be uttered and, dying, he left his composition to the

church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded,

being read only to those who are being initiated into the great

mysteries.

But since the foul demons are always devising destruction for therace of men, Carpocrates, instructed by them and using deceitful


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arts, so enslaved a certain presbyter of the church in Alexandria

that he got from him a copy of the secret Gospel, which he both

interpreted according to his blasphemous and carnal doctrine and,

moreover, polluted, mixing with the spotless and holy wordsutterly shameless lies.

To them [the Carpocratians], therefore, as I said above, one must

never give way, nor, when they put forward their falsifications,

should one concede that the secret Gospel is by Mark, but should

even deny it on oath. For not all true [things] are to be said to all

men

Clement [includes] a word-for-word transcription of the [Gospel] in

his letter:

And they come into Bethany, and a certain woman [obviously this

is Mary Magdalene], whose brother had died, was there. And,

coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, Son

of David, have mercy on me. But the disciples rebuked her. And

Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the

tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb.

And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the

tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he

stretched forth his hand and raised him

This episode appears in no existing version of the Gospel of Mark.

In its general outlines, however, it is familiar enough. It is, of

course, the raising of Lazarus, But, as Professor Smith argues, it

is in fact much more likely that the whole episode refers to a


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ritualised and symbolic death and rebirth of the sort so prevalent

in the Middle East at the time.

This passage about the resurrection of Lazarus, hijacked by the

Carpocratians, gelled admirably with the views held by de

Chrisey. He incorporated, in effect, almost all the elements

present at Rennes-le-Chteau. He essentially included all the

elements that he could manage to point out: the Villa Bethania,

Mary Magdalene and the tomb, etc. The interpretation of this

altered passage from the Bible is nothing more than the re-writing,

albeit in a slightly different form, of the ideas held by de Chrisey

in his letter. In a rather amazing way, it shows that the endless

developments of these authors on the subject of Mary Magdalene

have no other purpose than to use the biblical character and her

symbols to highlight a series of components from the Cult of the

Dead and the mythology and legends that are traditionallyassociated with her. To be certain, we need only compare the text

ofThe Holy Blood & the Holy Grailcited above, full of its dark

insinuations, with the testament Pierre et Papierwritten by de

Chrisey, where we read the famous story about the sinner

Magdalene pouring a vase of very expensive perfume over Jesus:

"This generous gesture angered the apostles, saying the perfume,

worth 300 deniers, could have been sold and the proceeds of the

sale distributed to the poor. Judas, in his capacity as treasurer,

receiving 10% of revenues, felt particularly frustrated, but

recovered his losses by selling Christ for 30 deniers. [...] The Abb

Saunire learned to his detriment what it cost to exceed the fees

of a bad apostle, having died on 22 January 1917, several days


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after a session of over-indulgence. It is still a matter of

accustoming the discoverer to the prospect of plundering a

necropolis where the dead have rested for many centuries,

naturally mummified and still remaining in a fairly well conservedstate. From this perspective, we need to consider Magdalene the

Sinner as patroness of embalming, who did very well in stating

that Christ had paid the perfume for his burial."

It would be a shame not to reveal in this extract that de Chrisey

did not intend to give a literal interpretation of his remarks about

Mary Magdalene, but that it came more from a broadly allegorical

transposition between certain traditions artificially grafted on to

the Saint and the legends surrounding what Saunire had

discovered in 1891.

The Talisman of Salvation - A Pagan

Talisman

One of the essential points of the mystery of Rennes-le-Chteau

revolves around just what Saunire discovered in the secret

necropolis. This mortuary chamber is briefly described at the end

of de Chrisey's testament, as we have seen. The entrance was

unveiled to the priest when, having upturned the Visigoth pillar of

the main altar of his church, he recovered hidden parchments.

They consisted of secret handwritten testaments and not the

parchments presently in the public domain.


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It seems that de Chrisey had a pretty good idea of what was

hidden there. Nonetheless, he seems able to draw up a description

of this secret chamber in 1967, which was the date of the

publication of the manuscript, Le Serpent Rouge. Disillusioned, hewrites:

"How many have ransacked the house [the mortuary chamber; the

ancient Temple of Isis], leaving only embalmed corpses and

numerous metals which they had not been able to carry away with

them. What strange mystery does the new temple of Solomon,

built by the children of St Vincent conceal [the place where the

inscription terribilis est locus iste figures]?


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The cover ofLe Serpent Rouge

When we read the theories of de Chrisey, it seems that the

expedition he proposed back in 1964 (and of which he had spoken

in these terms, "What do you believe I am going to look for at

Rennes-le-Chteau? Pray for me. If I succeed, I would not have

the right to talk about it.") has borne fruit, and that he would not

leave Rennes-le-Chteau without examining the contents of the


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necropolis, or at least taken away some of the wonderful secret.

But let us continue

In this passage from Le Serpent Rouge, de Chrisey points the

finger at a certain St Vincent, whose children, the successors,

would be the master architects of a new temple of Solomon

(understood here to be the church of Saunire). For many years

experts on this subject have imagined that the St Vincent who is

being discussed is related to the history of St Sulpice. At first

glance, it could only be St Vincent de Paul. They forget, however,

that Le Serpent Rouge is subtitled Notes on St-Germain-des-Prs

and St Sulpice in Paris. It is, therefore, not ruled out that the St

Vincent mentioned here is more likely to be that of St-Germain-

des-Prs. The difference is immense and not without

consequences; and, as is his wont, de Chrisey seems to use

transpositions of places and characters. This is in order to coverthe tracks and to dilute the information. It seems that St Sulpice is

an allegory and that the real content ofLe Serpent Rouge probably

relates more to St-Germain-des-Prs. (De Chrisey, in his

testament, seemed to indicate that the church of Rennes-le-

Chteau was only the receptacle of something which had been

preserved in the ancient former village church, St Pierre aux Liens;

the same as it would have been between St Sulpice and St

Germain-des-Prs.)

When we follow the trail it leads us unambiguously to Spain and

the lands of the Visigoths and Merovingians. Around 543 AD the

Merovingian King, Childebert I, after having brought the war to

Spain and having quarrelled with the Visigoths, returned to France,


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bringing with him two very strange relics from Saragossa. In Paris,

not far from Svres, he built a church, which soon became an

abbey; that of St-Germain-des-Prs. It is this St Vincent of

Saragossa, whose life is recounted by the poets Prudentius andJacques de Voragine, who started the convention that St Vincent

Ferrer was the founder of La Sanch at Valencia!

St Vincent of Saragossa


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The story we have just recounted is not significantly different from

de Chriseys. He had added at the end of his manuscript, Le

Serpent Rouge, a few pages composed of somewhat crude

collages. Not normally studied by the different researchers, thesesheets actually tell us something quite important:

"The small area of which I must depict the successive aspects and

recount the history, is situated on the banks of the Seine between

the Rue Bonaparte and Rue Gungaud; the church of St-

Germain-des-Prs, lying under the shadow of its old Carolingian

tower, which serves as its southern boundary.

Eighteen hundred years ago, at the time of the Roman domination,

we could see very little on the left bank of the Seine, other than

meadows, gardens, where stood a temple of ISIS. [...] Under the

first Merovingian kings, the appearance of this area remainedroughly the same. [...] St Germain, Bishop of Paris, decided that

Childebert and his wife should split off a part of the territory and,

in about 550 AD, the basilica of St Vincent and Ste Croix, founded

by Childebert, arose [...] on the site that had been occupied by the

temple of ISIS.

[Here de Chrisey establishes a connection with Rennes-le-

Chteau and its church.] [...] Gregory of Tours says that the

people of Saragossa, besieged in 542 AD by Childebert [...],

clothed themselves in sackcloth and made several circuits of the

city [here we have the penitents] [...] and bearing before them the

tunic of the blessed St Vincent. Childebert, struck with wonder and


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astonishment, [...] obtained the precious tunic [...] and went on to

devastate another part of Spain.

[The temple of St-Germain-des-Prs] was destined to house the

sacred relic and was dedicated to St Vincent. It also received the

name of Holy Cross in memory, they say, of a gold cross that the

King, Childebert, had also brought back, which was reputed to

have belonged to Solomon.

The church of St-Germain-des-Prs

Spain - 14 April 1931

The reforms of Primo de Rivera, while not inconsequential, did notalleviate the difficulties facing the country. After political instability

came a social and economic crisis, which meant that there was no


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going back to life as it had been before. Furthermore, only two

days after the municipal elections, which appeared to be a disaster

for Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, he would renounce the throne and

become exiled under the title, Duke of Toledo. The SecondRepublic had just been proclaimed and the monarch, forced to flee,

reluctantly renounced his homeland while all the time thinking

about the throne of France, to which he would aspire to succeed.

Alphonso Leon Antonio de Bourbon was born in 1886, the son of

Alfonso XII of Spain (who had died a few months before his sons

birth) and the Archduchess Maria Christina of Teschen, ne

Habsburg-Lorraine, who was his second wife. Formerly the abbess

of a chapter for noble ladies, Marie-Christine Teschen had, in her

youth, a conduct just as edifying as the Kaiser's sister, another

Habsburg, who would be appointed in 1914 as Mother Superior to

the Monastery at Prouilhe; a traditional family obligation.


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Alfonso XIII

While being a Capetian, but from a Spanish branch, Alfonso XIII

could never have claimed the throne of France if he had not posed

himself as the heir to the Comte de Chambord, who died in 1883,

leaving no descendants. Fleeing Spain, Alfonso XIII then settled in

the Paris region and paid several visits to his cousin, Jaime de

Bourbon, Duke of Anjou and Madrid, who lived in the capital. At

this moment Jaime de Bourbon, who was none other than the

senior Capetian, already elderly, felt his strength declining and


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could no longer doubt his impending death. As the result of a

reunion, he decided to return the collar of the Order of the Holy

Spirit, inherited from the Comtesse de Chambord, and died a few

weeks later in 1931. When his other cousin, the Duke of SanJaime, expired in Vienna in 1936, Alfonso XIII, now the sole

successor of the Comte de Chambord, became the eldest Capetian

and the only legitimate pretender to the throne of France under

the name Alfonso I. He would also be recognised as King of

France and Navarre by the French legitimists.

The Comte de Chambord

Some researchers still question the motive of the Comtesse de

Chambord, Marie-Thrse of Modena, who, around 1885, sent a

gift of more than 1,000 gold francs to Saunire. Certainly, this was

not an ordinary occurrence, but what is most surprising is that the

family of Chambord, which represented the royalist hopes of

France, had maintained a trusting relationship with Saunire! After

all, particularly in 1885, Saunire was not known for any

significant deeds and had the serious handicap of living in a

remote village deep in the Razs. His bishop, Mgr Billard, had the

habit of saying, with a somewhat caustic sense of humour, that

the priest of Rennes-le-Chteau lived in the back of beyond, lost

in his Pampas".

The Abb had only just been installed in his parish, having been

appointed on 1 June 1885 and, in the process, had preached from

his pulpit anti-Republican sermons, tinged with royalism. In those


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days this was evidently deemed reactionary and, as a result, the

Prfecture suspended his salary and Saunire did not return to

Rennes-le-Chteau until July 1886, in order to begin repairs to his

church. It is this episode which leads some authors to surmise thatthe Comtesse de Chambord had simply recompensed the action of

this courageous shepherd of souls. On the contrary, in our opinion,

we must rule out this hypothesis, since such suspensions of salary

were not considered unusual at the time.

The Comte de Chambord

For example, in 1889, during roughly the same period, dozens of

priests of the diocese of Bayonne were suspended for similar

reasons. Even the Bishop was not spared, and was left without his

title. On the other hand, as Laurent Buchholtzer has pointed out,


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1885 was a year of legislative elections. Furthermore, Saunire's

anti-Republican sermons did not seem any worse than those of his

colleagues, the Abb Tailhan of Roullens, a certain Jean of

Bourige, and the Abb Delmas, vicar of Alet, since they were allsanctioned in equal proportions and for the same reasons.

We have no doubt, however, that had the Comtesse de Chambord

favoured the case of our Abb merely because of his political

views; she would have spread her generosity fairly among the

others, who were equally deserving. But there were an awful lot of

them, and they were not as fortunate as Saunire. We must

therefore assume a different reason for this gift.

On this subject, we think there was more or less a close

connection, not with the Comte de Chambord (who died in 1883),

nor with his lineage, which was otherwise non-existent, but rather

with the notion of a Royal Legitimacy. Essentially, when a race

dies out and the last hopes of a lineage are tricked by destiny,

tongues start to wag and certain dynastic secrets, the memory of

which had been stamped out, begin to rise to the surface.

In dying, the Comte de Chambord effectively took with him the

last hopes of a return of the French Monarchy. There was in this

event a lot more at stake than just the ruin of a family or a failed

system. With this man the sacred, but falsely divine, character

inherent in the royal office disappeared forever. Stripped of the

founding mythology which had presided over its birth and reduced

to the rank of human institutions and fallibilities, this notion would

now appear as an archaic remnant of primitive hierarchy;

unintelligible to the Judeo-Christian way of thinking. Along with the


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Comte de Chambord, the medieval superstitions, upon which the

French Monarchy was based, disappeared, together with the

memory of obscure, but very real, contributions which had come

from the barbarian invasions. The Merovingian mirage was aboutto come to an end; but for how long?

It is undoubtedly from this viewpoint of the distant prospect of a

revival, or from listening to the prophecies of the Abb Boullan

(who announced the coming of a Grand Monarque), that the

Comtesse de Chambord relieved her conscience of a heavy family

secret, before following her husband to the grave in 1886. But did

she do so for political reasons only or was it to benefit from the

interceding power (for the salvation of her soul) and the wonderful

properties that the Merovingian tradition lent to the primitive

attributes of the dynastyand to one very special object in

particular? Nobody knows.


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Comtesse de Chambord

Whatever it turns out to be, it seems clear that the 1,000 gold

francs granted to Saunire served as much to restore the

dilapidated church as it did to fund the clandestine excavations

aimed at identifying a secret crypt. Madame de Chambord does

not seem to have had in her possession any specific information

about the necropolis, nor how to enter it. At most, she did have a

vague notion of the area and the time and conditions under which

the object was hidden in the crypt. Besides, when you think about

it, Saunire, in all likelihood, had some difficulties in identifying the

crypts two entrances. In fact, it was almost six years between the

gift of 1,000 gold francs and the repairs to the church, and the

infamous evening of 21 September 1891: lettre de Granes,dcouverte dun tombeau, le soir pluie (letter from Granes,


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discovery of a tomb, rain in the evening), when the Abb's

research appears to have paid off.

Secret Stairs and Hidden Altar

As Laurent Buchholtzer confirmed to us in one of his interviews, if

we are now certain that Saunire did not make his fortune by

tapping into a vast treasure, paradoxically, we cannot exclude the

hypothesis that he was able to claim, on behalf of his clients, the

intercession, as part of the ritual, of the famous Talisman, which

he had discovered in the crypt. ['Intercession' meaning,

theoretically, that the object would 'intercede' in the ritual, making

the ritual that much more powerful.]

Confirming this scenario, Jacques Cholet's report indicates that at

the time of the systematic excavation of the church floor the tops

of two flights of stairs were identified, the steps of which plunged

downwards towards a certain point in the basement. The first was

located at less than one metre from the actual pulpit, on the site of

an ancient altar (destroyed for obscure reasons), certain elements

of which were later incorporated into the high altar. It was there,under a slab that was intended to activate a mechanism, that a

staircase led to the cemetery. The second exit emerged into the

famous secret room, a kind of small, cramped, gloomy room with

the ceiling too low for anyone to stand upright in. Located in the

extension of the sacristy, this small room, which had no known

use, had been arranged by Saunire directly above the very

ancient stairway, which was composed of roughly hewn blocks of


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rock. According to our late friend, de Chrisey, it is here that the

priest engaged in secret practices known only to himself, the

pricing of which was related to the fee of Judas; an enigmatic

phrase, but not meaningless, as it was de Cherisey's contentionthat a high fee was being paid to Sauniere in exchange for ritual

sacrifice. It is true that Saunire was responsible for building this

secret room, for which he provided access to the staircase of the

crypt. The great advantage of this passage was that it was

protected from prying eyes.


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Saunires Secret Room

After September 1891, Saunire led on apace and his once fairly

miserable lifestyle suddenly found itself much improved. But the

priest of Rennes, despite being "lost in his Pampas, recorded in

his accounts a considerable sum of donations from friends and

relatives, the religious of the diocese and, from 1899, the whole of

France (and even Brazil, etc). This was not without personal merit,

because these were his years of patient research and searches

coming to fruition. Obviously, the Abb had benefited from a

particularly favourable set of circumstances. He had been

appointed to Rennes-le-Chteau at the appropriate time, had

managed to attract the benevolence of the Comtesse de Chambord

and, endowed with a perspicacity and unique insight ahead of his

time, he had not simply been content with retrieving what he had

been commissioned to find, but had also discovered a means for

making a substantial income from it.

However, it should be stressed that while the last wishes of the

Comtesse de Chambord were respected, there is no indication to

the contrary that she had ever envisioned what Saunire wouldactually do with his find. He probably should have contented

himself with keeping quiet about his discovery and not spoken

about it to anyone, other than the sole indirect inheritors, no

matter how distant in the family they were from the Comte de

Chambord. He did not care, however, and the priest, endowed with

an innate sense of independence, and ignoring everything other

than his own interests, began to play the sorcerer's apprentice. We


29/33

should add that even if this sequence of events is known to us, we

know considerably less about certain other episodes in the life of

Saunire.

Indeed, it seems that the object brought to light by the parish

priest had aroused some interest, as much among the legitimists

as the heirs to the Holy German Empire. In this regard, it is not

inconceivable that the Habsburgs had got wind of the affair

through the Comtesse de Chambord, who happened to be one of

their relatives. But this is only a tentative hypothesis, because it is

not a documented fact and is based only onhearsay. However, let

us suppose for a moment that Saunire may have made a pact

with the enemy and sold the object to a Habsburg. That is what

Ren Descadeillas reported in his Notice Delmas, one of the oldest

documents written on the affair. World War I was declared in

1914, and the villagers were constantly watching his every move.

Saunire had earned a rather bad reputation, stemming from

Doctor Espezel of Couiza, who had endeavoured to warn the

inhabitants of the village and the neighbourhood that their Abb

"was a spy in the pay of Germany. Some evil-minded people even

went as far as to say that "the terraces built by Saunire weredestined for the emplacement of artillery!" But this was clearly

only a nasty rumour. It should nevertheless be recognized that,

albeit absurd, these rumours were rooted in a very strange event.

Was it Ren Espeut in a newspaper article of 1973 or Ren

Descadeillas in his Notice Delmas who made the original

statement? We may never know, but these two authors

supported, on the faith of a great many witnesses, the speculation


30/33

that an "Austro-Hungarian aristocrat, a subject of Franz-Josef,"

had met with Saunire on several occasions.

Without calling into question the merits of this evidence, it is still

worth noting that it may be subject to multiple interpretations.

Thus, the more or less close relations, which the locals claim to

remember between Saunire and an unspecified Habsburg,

seemed above all to leave some suspicions about Saunire's

patriotism (at least as far as the Republic was concerned).

Conversely, they also suggested that the Abb could have been

subject to pressure from this high-ranking personage. However, if,

as we believe, the Abb had rediscovered an object of royal

legitimacy, to which was attached a religious power, there would

have been serious grounds for a Habsburg, on the eve of

considerable geo-political issues, to have exerted pressure on this

priest in order to appropriate it for themselves.

In around 1930, a long time after this episode and the death of

Saunire, a similar event occurred, but in a completely different

set of circumstances. The case was exposed in an article in the

review, LIntermdiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux, a copy of which

was very kindly given to us by the researcher, Patrick Mensior. Theauthor, a certain A M F Guy, tells us the following:

"Here is something that I was told about recently and that I offer

up for what it is worth. It seems that the case of Saunire has,

following his death, raised the curiosity of some highly placed

people in Spanish administrative circles. Being unable to openly

make enquiries in our country, they had to proceed carefully in

carrying out their investigations, by using intermediaries who


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would not be compromised. These preliminary enquiries were

shrouded in absolute secrecy. They go back forty years. All that

remains is to explain how the story of the treasure of Rennes le

Chteau - because that is evidently what we are once againdiscussing - could have been of any interest to a foreign country

over half a century ago, the Abb Saunire having died, I believe,

in around 1920.A M F Guy

This article is valuable in several respects. Firstly, its content

reflects a newspaper clipping from LIndpendant, dated 22 March

1980, where we learn that "around 1930, the Spanish government

had sent investigators to the country of Rennes to determine the

source of funds, or a portion of the funds, spent [by Brenger

Saunire]. The same article goes on to summarise the information

and the trails that have until now only filtered down to

researchers. We read: "These people [the investigators], staying ina foreign country and carrying out a secret mission, were therefore

worried about attracting the attention of official authorities and

could only act with extreme caution. This is why, according to the

journalist, we have never been able to establish the slightest

evidence of their passage; because the strangest aspect of the

story concerned the more or less incredible destiny of the famous

report that these investigators had written:

"Delivered at about the time of the fall of the Spanish monarchy in

1931, this report would have been stifled. It was brought to France

thereafter by refugees during the Spanish civil war and it was in

vain that, during the occupation of the French territory, the

Germans would have tried to seize it. Ultimately, those who held


32/33

it, or who have held it, would have perished in the concentration

camps of Central Europe, so that no-one is able to know today

what happened to the sheets of paper that might have revealed

the famous secret of the Abb Saunire."

In short, we do not know what the real conclusions of these

agencies were; but some claim, without evidence however, that

the dossier concluded with the charge of gold trafficking. This

claim appears to us even more suspect, because the leaders of

these investigations, high-ranking Spaniards, would surely have

had better things to do in 1930 than to pick up the trail, dating

back several decades, of gold trafficking. As we stated earlier,

Spain was at that time plunged into deep difficulties and Primo de

Rivera, Captain General of Valencia, Madrid and Barcelona, spent

all his energy trying to curb the social crisis that was threatening

power. From 1930 Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, was no longerunder any illusions about his future and that of his country. He

undoubtedly anticipated his renouncement of the throne and was

thinking about transferring these hopes to France. That was

precisely what he did the following year, by aspiring to the

succession of the Comte de Chambord. It must have been that,

whilst his legitimacy was not in question, he had to recover the

object which the Comtesse of Chambord had, in all probability,

had the indelicacy to hand over to a certain Saunire. It seems he

had been over-zealous in hiding the object that was so coveted

by the powerful; too well, in fact, because Alphonse XIII died in

Rome on 28 February 1941, without galvanising royalist hopes ofreclaiming the nation.


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The Tomb of King Alfonso XII, Rome

Documents

The Final Testament of Philippe de Cherisey Madeline and the Buring Trail of the Notorious Merovingian Talisman