Saunière’s Rennes-le-Château: Refuge for a terrorist movement?

 

Elizabeth van Buren’s “Refuge of the Apocalypse: Doorway into other Dimensions” claims that near Rennes-le-Château, there is a “star gate” – a doorway into another dimension, which is linked with the apocalypse. The wording is quite similar to Ramon de Perillos’ statement that his territories had an “entrance to another world”… and what to make of his alliance with Vincent Ferrer, that religious, apocalyptic preacher, who preached that if Western Europe followed his call, they could bring the apocalypse about?
Other authors believe that such a gateway exists near Bugarach and several people have moved towards that area in the hope of being among of the “chosen” – and if the Bible is to be believed, there will be 144,000, thus largely accommodating for everyone who lives in the area, if it ever were to come to such an unimaginable catastrophe.

Saunière, the freedom fighter?

On our travels, we happen to come across various people, each with their own story to tell. Recently, we came across a person who informs us that we should first of all know that in the eyes of some, he was considered to be a terrorist, though he sees himself as a freedom fighter. An ominous introduction. He states that he has fought, in the past, for the IRA – politically, not military. Nevertheless, in those bygone days, trusting the wrong person could have led to serious problems – on a personal safety, rather than a legal, basis.
So why is he interested in our line of research? He informs us that after the success of “The Da Vinci Code”, he decided to visit Rennes-le-Château. He tells us that from his IRA past, he sees “the world” from a different perspective. And though he did not know what to expect what he would find in Rennes-le-Château, the last thing he thought he would find was that Saunière was like him: a freedom fighter – or terrorist.

“Clandestine meetings”

Rather than heap him with the lunatic fringe, to which he does not seem to belong, we ask him to explain further. “My involvement with the IRA resulted in making sure that when I held certain meetings, no-one saw me with the person I was meeting. But that was not always easy. Certain locations were impossible for such meetings, some locations were ideal. Over time, whether I needed to or not, I looked upon a town, or a landscape, with different eyes: I saw it through new eyes, as places where I could meet clandestinely, and places where I could not.” He then explains that in his opinion, Rennes-le-Château – or, specifically, Saunière’s domain – was constructed in such a way that clandestine meetings could occur inside, with no-one from the outside knowing who was inside, or what they were doing. “To secure the site, a minimum amount of people were required: one.” That person’s observation post: the Tour Magdala. “From there, you can watch everyone coming and going, even from the valley below. You may think at first sight that the Villa Bethania is not very secure, but it is.”

New eyes

Previously, we reported that Saunière’s work on the cemetery involved a lot of “defence mechanisms”: he built an iron gate to close off the cemetery, he built a wall around the cemetery. At the time, we suggested this was done so that no-one could see what he was doing inside the cemetery.
But he also created a walled garden in front of the church, with another iron gate. Later, he buys the land in front of the presbytery, to build the Villa Bethania, and to the side, another extensive garden. That garden reaches to the end of the plateau, where he builds another massive wall, with a walkway, at the end of which, he builds the Tour Magdala. Looking from the fields below, the estate does indeed look like a castle – much more so than the actual castle.
We know that Saunière continued to live in the presbytery, which we know provided an inroads into the subterranean parts of the church. By not moving into his grand Villa Bethania, Saunière is believed to have made sure that he “sat” and “guarded” on this underground kingdom.
But all of a sudden, we wonder whether there might not be an additional reason: the presbytery sits at the very centre of a series of defence mechanisms: a series of gates that can be locked, walls, surrounded by land that he either owns or has control over. Indeed, Saunière’s domain in Rennes-le-Château is like a veritable fortress. The question is: what is he defending?

Treasure, or personal safety?

Is Saunière defending a treasure? Something that sat under the presbytery and the church? Are the series of locked gates to the cemetery, the cemetery, the garden, merely ways in which he tries to keep the parishioners at a distance, so that they do not see what he is doing inside the cemetery? Or is there more to it than that?
If Saunière is sitting on a treasure, does he think someone is trying to steal it? Or does he fear for his own personal safety? Is that why he has constructed several lines of defence, so that no-one will be able to murder him? Murder, that brutal fate that befell his friend and colleague, abbé Gelis? In his case, keeping his door locked did not keep him safe, for it seems that he knew his assassin, perhaps as a friend or family member, yet for whatever reason, that person becomes his killer.
Perhaps Saunière merely suffers from paranoia. Perhaps he thinks they are out to get him too? Perhaps, but unlikely… though perhaps some were indeed out to get him, for real?

When we look at Saunière’s planned work for 1917, which was never carried out, a lot has been made about how he would equip the village with running water, as well as a tarmac road, for Saunière was thinking of buying a car. Less mentioned are Saunière’s plan to build a wall around the town, surely something that is no longer required in the early 20th century, but sits rather well within the ideology of medieval warlords? And what to make of extending in height the Tour Magdala? So that surveillance of the surrounding area is even easier? For if it is more space to fit his books, then an extension in height is not the easiest options for an ailing man. He could have constructed his library elsewhere, or built an annex to the Tour, etc. But an extension in height…

Paranoid? Or real?

Perhaps all that fine wine and good food made Saunière paranoid. If so, it is clear that his paranoia cost him a lot of money – and was going to cost him even more. But the fact of the matter is indeed that no-one in the village could see what Saunière was doing in the presbytery… and even the going-ons in the Villa Bethania were largely impossible to know by the villagers.
Take the Villa Bethania. Its front door, you would expect, has been photographed hundreds of times. The entire villa. But no. Anyone who actually does photograph the Villa Bethania today (and not too many tourists do), know how awkward it is to get a good shot of it. To do so, you always have to either take it from the side, and only one angle really is “good”: from near the car park. Why no frontal shots? Because here too, Saunière had installed a wall, with small openings, into a garden… which once again is walled. The Villa does have windows, but as the roads descends, these are largely above eye-level. Even today, tourists seldom look up and those who do, mostly do so to the statue that sits at the top of the building. The most exposed part of the Villa is the gable wall, overlooking the Calvary Garden. You would expect to find a large window here. For one, the view is nice, overlooking part of the church, the garden below, onwards to the castle and the landscape behind it. Instead, there is but a small window, high up the Villa Bethania. Few visitors take photographs of this section, for it is a rightfully depressing sight: a wall of stones, at the bottom of which sits the upturned Visigothic pillar. It is bad architectural design, but perfect military planning.

Peepholes

We know that from the presbytery, Saunière had a hole drilled into the chapel, so that he could see what was going on inside the chapel. Indeed, curiosity or a folly will be the first reaction, no doubt followed by the observation how we too would perhaps like to have such a curiosity and how “cool” it would be. But our first reaction is also highly illogical. Let’s make it personal and ask where we have peepholes, and the answer is: at our front door. And why? To see who is knocking on our front door, so that we do not open for individuals we do not know – or trust.
And indeed… assume you want to penetrate into Saunière’s inner sanctum. How best to do this? The weakest chain in his line of defences is the church. People by default will sometimes have to come into it, though it is constructed in such a way that there is hardly any possibility to hide (except through his own intervention, in the secret room, which Saunière seems to have constructed so that he could actually hide someone there). But the church is the weak point, and Saunière may thus have required the peephole to keep it under surveillance, to watch out for any anomalies in there?

Secret corridors

We know that underneath the presbytery, there was a secret tunnel. But let us look at the remarkable piece of engineering that is Alain Féral’s reproduction of Saunière’s estate. Does it not include certain fire places that can pivot, so that they open into secret hideouts? Why would a priest have such a need? The days that priests had to be hidden in secret compartments, as otherwise they would be killed, had officially long gone. Or not – not in the case of Saunière and/or the company he held? And if the Villa was going to be a retirement home for priests, then it is definitely clear that it would definitely not require such a secret hideout.

Out to get him?

Did Saunière believe someone was out to get him? Perhaps. Or perhaps he was part of an underground movement that required a “safe haven”, where people could stay, or meet, without being seen, interfered with, interrupted. In case someone came, that he perhaps could be quickly secreted away, even in a purpose-built hideout if so required.
Saunière, the terrorist – or freedom fighter? It may seem farfetched, but let us not forget a document, about the AA. This document reads like a terrorist manual. It speaks of a secret cabal of priests, the AA, who are there to protect “the Secret”. Of course, what the secret is, is not put in print. The book is merely their manual, on how to operate. And the document is indeed a terrorist manual, stating that if you find yourself in a room with a fellow member of the AA, but there are others there, you will not acknowledge your common bond. Etc. etc. It is precisely the type of terrorist guidelines our IRA sympathiser learned and had to carry out. It is that knowledge that made him distinguish between safe and not-safe locations. And which allowed him to see Saunière’s domain as a “secret meeting place”. Of the AA?

Filip Coppens