The genealogy of the Perillos family Part 4: the extended Perillos family

 

Family affairs

For royals and nobles, most attention goes to the fame and fortune of the main branch of the family. Alas, it is often quite a boring and repetitive scenario: X marries Y, extends – or looses – parts of the family possessions, until someone doesn’t have any male heirs, and the dynasty is in trouble. In the case of the Perillos family, we see the same scenarios as in other families, including that family member who looses much, either due to debt and/or gambling.
What the “official” story of the main branch tells us, is that the ascent of the Perillos was rapid, out of nowhere, with no apparent means, to become, in less than a century, the right hand men of kings and popes. Once they had attained their wealth and status, the family settled down, decided to remove themselves largely from the most prominent corridors of power, but were nevertheless never far off. Three centuries later, one member of the family “still” became Grand Master of the Order of Malta, a not unimportant position.

A noble scandal

However, the main branch and how B inherited from A, does not reveal the full scope of a family, nor of its power. In royal affairs, for example, even marrying illegitimate children of kings was not an unimportant honour and came with several advantages – some which “official descent” might not necessarily attain.
Take, for example the story of Jeanne de Perillos. The story begins with her father, Pons, who was a brother to Ramon and Michel. He was third in line, but tutored Ramon de Perillos’ children; the king of Aragon favoured him too, making him chamberlain to Queen Violante, as well as an ambassador to the Papal Court in 1399, as well as that of Burgundy (1409). Though not the “prime brother” in charge of the dynasty, it is nevertheless clear he is a very important individual.
He is also the one who provides some “spice” in the genealogy. When he marries Maria van Steenhoont, who was a lady in waiting of Violante de Bar, they had three children: Michel, Pons and Jeanne. Jeanne would become notorious for having an extra-marital relationship with Louis II de Chalon-Auxerre (1380-1423), count of Tonnerre (1398-1410) and Lord de Rochefort (1398-1424). Louis was married to Marie de la Trémouille, but this did not stop him from loving Jeanne, as well as having a child with her, a son, Jean de Chalon, would later marry Jeanne L’Orfèvre.

Louis II

The church of St Peter, Tonnerre

The actual details of this love story are even more intriguing. Louis II became the Count of Tonnerre upon the death of his father in 1398. He is known to have lived lavishly, and often had to borrow to maintain his lifestyle. He sold property in the Auxerre region to King Charles VI for 37,000 pounds. But scandal came in 1406, when there was a complaint by the Duke of Burgundy that Louis had taken a lady without proper authorisation – the lady in question, of course, being Jeanne de Perillos.
Louis fled with the woman, while the Duke went to court, which convicted him in August 1407 and banished him from Burgundy, confiscating all of his possessions within the county. It marked the start of several years of fighting over these possessions, with Louis, in June 1414, “liberating” Tonnerre, even though he had insufficient resources to keep it that way, and hence it fell back into the hands of the “enemy”.

Mystery

The Jamotey register

It is known that when Louis fled, he hid out for a while in the castle of Maulnes, near Tonnerre. In the 17th century, the so-called “Jamotey register”, named after its author/compiler Goron Antoine de Jamotey, was a collection of papers and documents detailing the history of Tonnerre – and related histories. The papers are wide in scope and include references to e.g. local events – and disappearances – at the time of the fall of the Knights Templar, in 1307. Of course, the register also tackles the relationship between Louis II and Jeanne, noting that their child, Jean de Chalon, when he was young, maintained the link between Tonnerre and the Roussillon to “les importancts charges dy parvenière en la terière de Peyrilos” – the important responsibilities to arrive in the territories of Perillos.
This episode must have occurred around or after 1430-1440, when Perillos was indeed going through a great deal of upheaval: it was the time when a member of the main branch had run up several debts, and was selling off some estates, amongst these being the Perillos estate itself. Apparently unimportant to the family, it definitely seemed important to Jean de Chalon – purely because of his family’s connection to that area, or for other reasons?

Strangeness

The sale of the Perillos estate makes – at first sight – little sense, if something important was indeed hidden there.
One possible scenario is that by selling it, the Perillos family was indeed pretending there was nothing important on that estate – whereas perhaps they had made sure that the area was indeed very secure. The securing of the crypt might have been one means, but there are obviously other means of securing a site too.
Another scenario is that there is always one bad apple – dynasties are defined by bloodline, not intelligence and fitness for purpose – and that someone indeed sell Perillos without fully appreciating the importance of the estate – or perhaps talked into selling by someone who was giving a very reasonable sum of money “for what is just a land full of rocks”. In the latter scenario, were the efforts of Jean de Chalon perhaps meant to recover the territories and bring them back into – safe – Perillos hands?

A legend

The central stairway of the castle of Maulnes is famous for being constructed around a hole, and this is the subject of a most interesting legend. Indeed, it was said that this well was the home of Mélusine. She was a beautiful woman, who came to the local lord one night each year. But one time, the lord of Maulnes decided to enter her room unexpectedly, as he apparently could not wait for the predetermined time; he was in for a surprise and found that her lower body was serpentine. Taken aback herself, she threw herself in the well; sounds from the well could apparently be heard on certain nights. And it was said that there, she guarded over the “fabulous secret” of the lords of Tonnerre, waiting for the return of its descendents.
Though they apparently never came, several others did come to the castle: one Francois I, conservator of the “Medal Cabinet” of the Austrian Emperor, apparently found a castle full of horrible phantoms and ran away as soon as he could!

A squatted devil. Baphomet?

On a slightly different note – but not unimportant to the story of Rennes-le-Château – the Jamotey documents also relate that an old chapel in St Marc, between Burgundy and the Champagne region, had, in the wall of the old altar, a sculpture, in the form of a squatted person. Jamotey states that some described it as a devil – perhaps not dissimilar to Saunière’s Asmodeus, who is indeed a squatted devil/demon. But Jamotey also notes that the sculpture is listed as “Baphomet is written below”, and mentions that at one time, there were documents written about a cavity underneath the chapel, as well as a well, which gave access to older galleries, which apparently went on for some considerable distance. So, is the statue of the devil in Rennes-le-Château really Baphomet? And we should add that Rennes’s church too is known to have had a crypt – which at one point did extend in a larger network.
Let us finally note that one of the charges against the Templars was devil worship. Though many modern reinterpretations prefer a more flowery depiction of what the Templars believed or new, perhaps not rewriting history provides an even more ingenious insight into the order.

Mysterious inroads

By the 18th century, there are members of the Perillos family “hiding” in several noble branches: they are the children of the children of the children of men and women who were not part of the main branch of the family, yet are all Perillos in name and heritage. The only thing to be said “against” them, is that their “Perillos blood” had become diluted. It meant that they were very unlikely to get hold of the Perillos estates and the titles that came with it, but it doesn’t mean they were nobodies. And they were “family”: though the blood might have been diluted, it is well-known that blood is thicker than water.
By the 18th century, the Perillos family had descendents in Italy, but it is the French – local – branch that would make some interesting family connections. And it is these connections that have a direct relationship with the mysterious noble families that are so prominent in the Rennes-le-Château mystery.

Durban-Gléon

It is known that after the annexation of the Roussillon to France, the Durban-Gléon became owners of Perillos. But this family was not only their neighbour, they were actually related to the Perillos family.
Constance de Perillos, the elder daughter of Ramon III, married Bernard-Bérenger de Peyrepertuse, on August 11, 1401. Amongst their heirs – though not in the main branch – is Catherine de Montesquie, who on July 17, 1540, marries François de Treilles-Gléon. From that marriage is born Edouard II de Treilles-Gléon, who married, some time after October 7, 1575, Gabrielle de Voisins. Their son, Olivier VIII de Treilles-Gléon, who died after February 5, 1632, married, on November 8, 1598, Anne de Voisins.
The role of de Voisins family is well-known in the enigma of Rennes-le-Château. But what is less underlined – if at all – is that this family had direct family connections with the Durban-Gléon and the Perillos family. Hence, when we later note that some people ponder whether there is a link between the mystery of Saunière and the de Voisins family, these researchers have not seen the link with Durban and Perillos. Yet, we know that Saunière indeed came to Durban, and was in search of information about the Perillos family.

Another tree

Another genealogical branch begins with the same Constance de Perillos, to Louise de Montesquie, who married Louis de Casteras in 1547. Their grandson (the eldest son of their eldest son), Francois de Casteras-Montesquieu, married Marie-Marguerite de Chefdebien d’Armissan. This, of course, is not without interest, for we note that it is the de Chefdebien family that will later play a prominent role in the story of Rennes-le-Château, specifically, via Alfred Saunière.
It is known that Saunière stole some of the family archives from his employer, though what these documents were, no-one knows. Some have speculated that they were Masonic documents, because the de Chefdebien family were prominent Masons. But at the time of the theft, it is known that de Chefdebien did not provide details about the nature of these documents, so whereas it is clear that it was something they did not wish to reveal, what it was precisely, no-one knows.

Though Masonic documents is a good guess without a context, when we know that Saunière was searching for records to do with Perillos and the Perillos family, when we know that Gélis and Boudet as vicars of Durban-Corbières had access to documents of Perillos, is it not more likely that the papers that Alfred was searching for in the de Chefdebien archives were related to Perillos too? When we find that the family had married with de Perillos family, makes things much clearer – as the truth often does.

For people involved in historical research, it is well-known that research of the main branch will only provide one perspective on the problem. And not all information sits within the main branch. In the case of feuds, for example, it is best to hear both sides of a debate, and so it is with matters of family. A tree, after all, is much more beautiful as a whole, than if we were to stare at only one branch. In this case, of course, it must be a pear tree, and if we are looking for the pear – or three – we never know on which branch they might hang.

Filip Coppens