The Wayside Altar

 

Water for a priest

There is a small construction, located on the right of the entrance of the cemetery of Rennes-le-Château. Today, only its frail skeleton remains, the inside open to the elements, and thus easily accessible. The building is elevated from the ground level and reached by a series of steps. The building is of rectangular form, without a particular style. The sight of this small building, no longer maintained, leaves no impression on anyone’s memory – and when discussing a visit to the village, the building is seldom if ever featured.
To the North, the wall of this room coincides with that of the cemetery, which is prolonged on its height. This detail will take much more importance than we can imagine at the moment.
The history of this “wayside altar” is well-known to most researchers and does not seem to pose a big question mark over the “mystery” that is present in the village. It is a construction built by Saunière, sitting on a cistern, which he is also believed to have built. One can thus suppose that on this place, before this construction work, there was nothing… not even a cistern.
Since there is talk of a cistern, we can ask a practical question. At the time of Saunière, there were not many cisterns to supply water to the village. Moreover, in the absence of electricity, one often needed a pump to draw water, before using the invaluable liquid… if the cistern was on a lower level than the user. This is the case with regard to Saunière’s installation … Still, let us observe that for a cistern to be useful, it must contain water. However, if we look at the topography of the place, one can wonder from what higher point the water could naturally arrive to supply this tank… At most, one can suppose that, if no spring supplies the cistern, one could use the rainwater coming of the roofs, which was the case for the presbytery, which seemed to have its own reserves. As for the “Wayside Altar”, its roof obviously never received any useful guttering. So what then? Would Saunière have built a cistern that was unable to receive water? Would he have made an erroneous calculation? And if so, would he have persisted by maintaining a useless installation? Certainly not, as we will show that somehow the water tank was always full of water... somehow.

Why does a priest refuse water?

There is “the well-known incident'” of July 14, 1895. That day, there was a violent fire in the village, very close to the church. The firemen of Couiza realise the need to draw water from the cistern. Curiously, they find it firmly closed. In fact, in the absence of Saunière, they must break the doors to reach the water. More curious still is the reaction of Saunière upon his return; he is furious and goes to the gendarmerie of Couiza to lodge a complaint of "housebreaking". One can ask what the reason of this anger was, this over an action whose legitimacy is not in doubt…
The municipality had a contract with Saunière, stipulating that on the ground in question no “closed” construction could be established. The priest furthermore used the site as his library and, undoubtedly faced with an accomplished fact, the town required at least that this room, which provided access to the cistern, remained free and not locked. One wonders for what reason our village priest did not respect his contract… But we can go a little further, by asking whether his furious reaction is only the result from the fact that the firemen "violated his property"… or if there could be another reason which would have generated fear, if not panic, that one could see other things than a cistern under the small building? An explanation is provided to us by one author, Jean-Jacques BEDU in his “Rennes-le-Château, autopsy of a myth”, in which he explains, simply, that Saunière had a “visceral” reaction vis-a-vis the date of July 14, symbolizing the action of the French Revolution that crushed the monarchy… Can we reasonably retain this assumption?

What the water masks for our priest

Moreover, even this author, as well as Vinciane Denis, in “Rennes-le-Château – the treasure of Saunière", explains that it was necessary to force the entry of the room in order to reach the cistern… and this remark never intrigued anybody! As for us, it appears rather strange that a cistern can only be accessible in such a manner. Especially if this part also has the function of library and office, thus mixing water with documents – paper – without speaking about the pieces of furniture … things which do not support moisture very well. Would Saunière, if meticulous, have taken the risk to draw water close to his invaluable books?
The non-practical and strange aspect of this observation raises obvious and embarrassing questions: if, indeed, this room was only made to house a library and an office, or something else as well? This “other thing” would then justify his violent reaction vis-a-vis what was the fear of seeing his secret being discovered!
Moreover, we can add that it is not easily comprehensible that Saunière chose to install his office and… his library so far from the presbytery, which obliged him to leave his house at all times! It is hardly a good decision, more especially as the distance separating the presbytery from the “office” can also be a factor for burglars or… the curious.
Let us add one final detail: let us admit that Saunière really wants to install a cistern in order to have water to sprinkle the garden in front of his church… Then, that he wants, the practical spirit he is, at the time of the building works being carried out, to install a library and his office above this cistern.... But the priest has just asked for someone to arrange the garden. He thus has the space for the latter, as well as the construction of his Calvary and to install his library. There hardly seems anything wrong with the above picture… it makes perfect sense…

Inside of the Wayside Altar. No traces remain of an entrance to the cistern below.

Good use of errors

But here Saunière makes several incomprehensible errors:
The tank, at the top of the plate cannot receive capillary or spring water. It must logically fill using rainwater from the roofs. Saunière, sufficiently intelligent to know these details, knows these requirements that are impossible to circumvent. The only roofs then equipped with gutters were those of the presbytery. Moreover, they already supply the two cisterns joined to this structure. Then let us suppose these surfaces sufficiently produce water to provide water to an additional tank. The “pvc” pipe did not exist at that time, so it would have been judicious to lay out this tank as close as possible to the existing gutters of the roofs… or quite simply to increase the size of the cisterns already in place.
No! Saunière does not do anything of the kind and opts for an illogical solution: he places his cistern almost as far as possible from the buildings that are able to provide rain water… and builds above a library also far moved away from what would be the norm. Can we believe that the presbytery could not provide him a sufficiently large space to turn into his library and office? When one sees, in the Tour Magdala, the space that sheltered his books, one wonders who Saunière believed to delude by calling what he built on top of his cistern his “library”. A cistern which, at this time, is not used to sprinkle anything, as there was not yet any decorative installations in the garden that needed to be maintained…
Considering this series of remarks, it is clearly not reasonable to find an innocent explanation for the presence of this room and its underground hydraulic installation.
Now, let us more closely consider the site, the use and the installation of this strange “cistern – library”…
We saw that the cistern apparently could not get any water... We will soon see that there were different… cavities, close to this place. We know that one reached this tank by the interior of the room… if not, why were the firemen obliged to crash the entry to draw water? Therefore, the control system… or access to this underground room… is done only from… the library. That is rather curious, because one sees even today the hydrant on the right of staircase of the Wayside Altar: a head of a lion as a tap. Thus, there was a hydrant outside, which could be used to sprinkle, and a kind of trap door for access from the interior… What can seem more logical if one needs to go to clean the cistern… or to enter it. But Saunière, if he wanted to discharge this cleaning work, it would require diving or some other form of underwater activity if it were full. Perhaps is it necessary to imagine something else?… And why not, if one remembers that the fault in which the large cistern of the village sits comes from this sector from the plate, it being able to receive a sudden and specific contribution without it being visible outside? Thus, could it be that the “cistern” did not go into a tank, but down into the fault itself? And thus gives us another series of opportunities…

Under the library… the enigma

Remains of the water installation to the side of the Wayside Altar

Perhaps it is time to consider a complex system of galleries or cavities under the perimeter of the church and further extending towards the castle and the cistern from the village, as well as towards the old primitive church at the end of the plate in the northern axis of the church. Let us recall our other articles on the cisterns and the natural fault under the village of Rennes-le-Château. It is spread under the church and its neighbourhood and it would be surprising, as we have suggested, that the former Masters of the castle did not take advantage from their presence…

If the basement of the sector of the church functions as the shelter of a necropolis or other “deposits”, there would have been mention of it in some documents which the priests of Rennes-le-Château would have had to notice. However, they were obviously bound by the secrecy of their priesthood and that of confession. Saunière, in one way or another, became aware of this “secret” and seems to have penetrated into it… otherwise, it is one of the world’s biggest coincidences that everything he built and which is enigmatic just happens to be illogical, but at the same time sitting on top of this fault.
It is quite obvious that Saunière had two locations from which he could descend into this underground network: one was the “secret part” of the church; the other was the “Wayside Altar”, which by a strange play on words is exactly what he may have used it for: to “view” something.

A short chronology

Let us reconsider certain points of the life and works of Saunière and their consequences.
- In 1891, he obtains the authorization to re-arrange certain features in and around the church: the cemetery, the cistern, the southern garden with the great Calvary. But 1891 is also the year of the displacement of the “Visigothic” pillar, so famous in the mystery of the priest… and of the inscription, in his personal notebook, of this sentence accompanied by an image: “L’année 1891 portée au plus haut dans le fruit dont on parle ci-dessous”, or "the year 1891 is of the highest in the fruit about which one speaks below"! But even more interesting is this one: "Discovery of a tomb, rain in the evening". 1891 marks the end of the works related to the “discoveries” in the church. What a year full of interest!
- 1892 corresponds to work simultaneously carried out in the presbytery, the cemetery and its entrance, the cave and finally the cistern with the office – library!
- 1894 sees installations in the cemetery and around the church, to which we will return later. Saunière, after having taken note of the network under the church, starts to explore this subterranean world.
- 1895: strange “works” of Saunière in the cemetery, more particularly of displacements of tombs, which are seen as scandalous by the inhabitants of the village who call upon the authorities that he ceases these “modifications”.

It seems that Saunière had not only known of the cavities but also of their importance, and especially of their principal accesses.
Today, there remain the vestiges of this curious small building, whereby we try to understand the true purpose Saunière had for it. Where was the entrance to the cistern in the inside of the library? Today, we find only one type of tiling, in bad condition, but without the least visible trace of a trap door, or of a system allowing at least to look under the floor… Also, why does nothing remain of this water installation that so many people tried to reach? Did the municipality change its mind and no longer wanted to use it? Or did someone, after Saunière, make sure all traces would disappear?

Two alleviating stones?

All that remains is to look at some stones. In truth, we think that this building was built with materials that were found in situ, because we find stones in the fabric of the building which can only come from another demolished construction. The latter building was demolished to be used to refit the “Wayside Altar”, which Saunière may have used like a quarry.
Our remark is made because two engraved stones that one can see on both sides of the staircase. To our knowledge, they are the only engravings of this building and their position is quite visible when arriving in front of the entrance, which lets us suppose that Saunière wanted them to be seen, in spite of the fact that they do not have anything specifically decorative. In truth, they contain only figures and letters…

The stone ' 17-38 '

The stone on the right-hand side is slightly under the elevated ground. It shows what could only be taken for a date: 1738. We say “could” because, looking more carefully at this number, it is made of two different engravings: 17 and 38.
The “17” could be old and identical, in its style, to the dates which one finds on the southern side of the presbytery and the bell-tower of the church. The engraving is neat and honest, identical to the inscriptions of the three other stones.
As for the “38”, it seems rather recent, less neat, if not coarse, and without completion.
Obviously, the two parts are not done at the same time and, in fact, not by the same hand. We can wonder why this rather visible addition of a “38” behind the famous “17” was done. Did Saunière want to leave a part of his puzzle at the entrance of his library? Let us consider several possibilities:
- If he had simply wanted to decorate the access to this strange building, he could do it with a religious, profane or different sculpture.
- If he wanted to register the date of this work, he would have taken the date of construction, which inevitably would have begun with the number 18… and not with 17.
- If he wanted to re-use a stone which he liked (for an unspecified reason), and that is this one, why then did he not keep it as it was? And especially why would he have added “38” to it… in not the neatest of manners.
- If he wanted to give “1738” as a number, or date, he could had ordered a new stone be engraved, or ask that the 38 was done in an identical style to the already present 17. This would not have posed any specific problem for a decent stone mason.
All these solutions and not one seems satisfactory… Thus we seek another possibility. Why not admit that Saunière has a marked stone which has “17” on it… and that it is about an old stone (completely in the style of the 18th century) that was recovered on the spot at the time when the cistern was installed… he then decides to incorporate it in this building… but for a reason which still escape us, he adds the number 38 to “17”. The result gives the appearance of the year “1738”, which would be incoherent with the construction of the small building.

Misleading appearances

But after all, Saunière wanted it to give it the appearance of a date or a number which perhaps means something else. This “appearance” seems to have functioned well, because to date, nobody noticed that this year could not have any direct link with the building itself… nor be a stone re-employed and dating from the 18th century…
Perhaps once again, Saunière, of his own initiative or following orders, left an element to draw our attention to, or as a visible clue to those who were directing him and who may have come on site after him? Perhaps…
One notes that above this stone, there is yet another stone with an opening which is closed by a stopper. The stone resembles one such stone that was found in the old cemetery of the Carthusian monastery of Ste-Croix-en-Jarez, which does not at all mean there is a direct relationship here. This hollow in the stone of the Wayside Altar could not be for anchoring a hinge or any other such closing, because it is too far from the door. At most, it could perhaps be the base of a cross? But even if so, it is an illogical positioning, which is neither aesthetic nor practical!

The stone “1 – G”

Let us now look to the engraved stone on the left hand side of the building, hidden behind a shrub. It is made up of two signs: a G on the right and a 1 on the left.
By more precisely observing the surface of this stone, one sees the regular use of a hammer, with differences to the “1” and “G”. This last letter seems to be engraved on the oldest part of the stone. However, the style of the letter is awkward and in all cases not in the style of the “17” of the other stone. But what seems to be a “1” is in the same style as that of the famous “17”, at least at its “base”'. The trouble is that this sign is curiously occupied by a piece of iron, which hides certain aspects…
The “1” could also be a capital “i” or a Roman I. As for the G, let us note that for the Masonic community, this is an important clue. Let us also add that Asmodeus inside the church is equipped with certain Masonic regalia as well. There can be hundreds of possibilities, and without further information or clues, we will be guessing for the next five years…
Still, it is obvious that this is a strange stone, with two signs, which seem to indicate nothing whatsoever. And what to make of the presence of a small piece of iron? But what is obvious, is that their incorporation into the building was done with precision and purpose… and that this purpose was either Saunière’s, or the mason himself. But in the final analysis, it has to be Saunière, as a mason would normally not go through the effort of making sure that two stones with no apparent purpose are incorporated into the fabric of this building.
Fortunately, there are other stones in other buildings that were the work of Saunière that might shed some light on the puzzle…

André Douzet