The Abbe Berenger Sauniere was dead broke when he died in 1917, but he still owned the Villa Bethania, the Tour Magdala, and other valuable properties in Rennes-le-Chateau. He bequeathed these to his housekeeper, Marie Denarnaud.
Nothing is known of Denarnaud’s activities between 1917 and the end of WWII. If she was safeguarding a secret of world-shattering proportions, there’s no evidence of it. She apparently stayed in the hilltop village that she practically owned, and in the mid-’40s sold the Villa Bethania to Noel Corbu, a man rumored to be a Nazi collaborator. Corbu later claimed that when she sold him the Villa Bethania, Marie promised to divulge a secret that would make him an extremely wealthy and powerful man - and died before breathing a word of it. But this is likely part of the romantic fiction that M. Corbu manufactured to help promote his new hotel and restaurant housed in the Villa Bethania. He hinted that there was still treasure in the hills, perhaps even squirreled away beneath the tower, and that Sauniere had seeded the décor of the church with clues to its whereabouts. There were numerous rumors about the treasure, but the one M. Corbu chose to promote was that Sauniere had stumbled upon royal treasure secreted for safekeeping in the village by Blanche of Castille, wife of Louis VIII. Corbu claimed that old parchments discovered by Sauniere while renovating the church in the early 1890s had led him to the treasure, and that these parchments had disappeared without a trace.
From a history of Rennes-le-Chateau compiled by M. Corbu: “A great part of the treasure probably remains. Files in Carcassonne explain its origin. Blanche de Castille, mother of St Louis, was ruling France while her son was leading the crusades. She thought Paris was not very safe to keep the royal treasure because barons and the people were revolting against the royal authority. It was the famous révolte des pastoureaux. So she sent the treasure to Rennes…”
This was wholly fabricated, but it seemed as likely as any other solution to the mystery. The story was printed in the local paper and spread to other towns, attracting mild interest in the mystery. The legend of Sauniere’s treasure would remain long after the early ‘60s, when Corbu sold his Rennes-le-Chateau property and moved to a castle in the Haute Garonne.
The Priory of Sion
Around the same time that Corbu retired to his castle, a small-time con artist and founder of a string of faux-secret societies by the name of Pierre Plantard was claiming to be descended from Dagobert II, last of the great Merovingian kings of Gaul. (There had been several Merovingians after Dagobert II, but they were so powerless as to be dubbed the “do-nothing kings”) In reality, Plantard was descended from a wholly ordinary, working-class family. His father was a butler and his mother had occasionally worked as a cook for wealthy families. M. Plantard was an obscure, middle-aged draughtsman living in a council flat in the small town of Annemasse on the Swiss border, just outside Geneva.
Since the late 1930s, when he was just a teen, Plantard had been establishing societies through which he could make his opinions known to the world. He believed a Masonic/Jewish conspiracy was bent on controlling France, and he was poised to defend his homeland against the interlopers. This paranoid, nationalistic viewpoint was expressed through the associations known as the French Union (established 1937), the French National Renewal (1941) and the Alpha Galates (1942 and 1946). During WWII Plantard's group published a periodical called Vaincre (“Conquer“), which was full of anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic and mystical/nationalist ideas. The ruling German authorities refused permission for Plantard to form the French National Renewal to no avail, but when Plantard disregarded another prohibition in the case of the Alpha Galates he was sentenced to four months in prison. Plantard didn’t achieve the renown he desired through these societies, but he usually had a small cadre of like-minded associates.
In 1956, M. Plantard and seven signatories established his most enduring creation: The Priory of Sion. It was registered with the French government as required by a law of 1901, with the sub-title Chevalerie d’Institutions et Regles Catholiques d’Union Independante et Taditionaliste (Knighthood of Catholic rule and Institution and of Independent Tradionalist Union), CIRCUIT for short. The name Sion probably came from Annemasse’s only significant landmark, a hill christened “Mont Sion”.
Though it was registered merely as a friendly society, the statutes of the PoS indicated it was intended to be a monastic order dedicated to helping the Catholic Church, performing “good deeds”, and defending the “weak and oppressed”. In practice, the PoS published a newsletter, CIRCUIT, devoted to combating the gentrification (renovation) of Annemasse. The society’s sole purpose appeared to be helping keep Annemasse shabby for the benefit of the poor and down-at-heel. It also jointly operated a school bus service for the local Catholic school. M. Plantard, under the pseudonym “Chyren”, was General Secretary of the Priory. His friend Andre Bonhomme, called “Stanis Bellis”, was its President.
Pierre Plantard
The Priory of Sion remained quiet and local for several years. Then, around 1961, General Secretary Plantard began to make astonishing claims and mission statements:
- The PoS was actually the continuation of the monastic Order of Sion established in Jerusalem during the First Crusade (appropriated by the Jesuits in 1617).
- The PoS aimed to restore Medieval chivalry to France, as well as the monarchy (replacing the unstable Fourth Republic that ruled 1944-1958). Specifically, the PoS wanted to restored the Merovingian dynasty that ended with Childeric III in 751. Plantard was pretender to this throne, since he was a descendent of Dagobert II.
The Parchments
Inspired by Noel Corbu’s tales of treasure at Rennes-le-Chateau (he visited the village during the time Corbu owned the hotel/restaurant), Plantard decided to graft his new life story onto the mystery of Berenger Sauniere. He claimed he had visited the ancient village and received four encoded parchments, plus genealogical documents, from Sauniere’s niece. The four parchments were the very same ones the Abbe Sauniere had allegedly unearthed while renovating the Church of the Magdalen…the elusive “treasure maps” of Rennes-le-Chateau.
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