Remember St Vincent de Paul

 

Right in front of the church of Notre-Dame-de-Marceille, on the opposite side of the road, sits a pleasure garden, offering along its walls excellent views over the surrounding landscape. Close to the church rises a statue of St Vincent de Paul. The saint’s presence seems to be quite straightforward. The Lazarists are installed next to the church – and have been there for many decades, witness their presence at the dedication ceremony of Saunière’s church in Rennes-le-Château.

A Saintly life

Vincent de Paul was born on 24th August 1581, in the parish of Pouy, in the diocese of Dax. He was ordained priest in 1600, when he moved to Toulouse to take a course in theology there. He attained the degree of “bachelor” in 1604. But then trouble came his way. “The following year, Vincent was obliged to go to Marseilles to receive a legacy which had been left to him by one of his friends, who had died in this city. Ready to go back to Toulouse, he accepted the offer to return by boat, to Narbonne; but the ship was taken by pirates. De Paul was captured, taken to Tunis, and initially sold to a fisherman, then to a doctor, after whose death he was sold to a renegade, a native of Nice in Provence. Vincent was exposed to all kinds of tests during his captivity; but despite promises, threats or ill treatment, nothing shook his faith.” Finally, he succeeded in re-converting his master and his wife, who enabled his return to France, on a small boat, on 28th June 1607.

That is the official story of Vincent’s trials and tribulations. But once back home, strange things appear to befall him. Barely back in Western Europe, Vincent de Paul goes to Rome… to have an audience with the Pope, even before informing friends or family of his return. He is then sent back to France – Paris – where he is received by King Henry IV, and in 1610, obtains the position of chaplain of Marguerite de Valois. He thus becomes acquainted with the Cardinal de Bérulle, who engineers his appointment to the envied function of tutor of the children of count P. E. de Gondi. Later, the Count encouraged the king to make Vincent the General Chaplain of Galères.
In the following years, Vincent’s ambitions grew and grew, including the creation of a new order of priests. In 1632, the regular canons of Saint-Victor ceded the priory of Saint-Lazare to him. The place became the focal point of his congregation and its members became known as “Lazarists”.
In 1660, the congregation comprised nearly thirty houses, four hundred priests and one hundred brothers. In 1660, the houses become independent from each other, beginning in France, then spreading to in Ireland, Scotland and Poland, and even as far as Madagascar.
De Paul died on 27th September 1660 and was canonised in the 18th century. The work of his Seminarists was taken up by one of his most attentive disciples, Jean-Jaques Olier (born in 1608) and attached to the Parisian church of St Sulpice in 1642.

Inconsistencies

This brief summary of Vincent de Paul’s life seems to be quite straightforward, but at the same time already highlights a period of great mystery: his time in captivity, as a slave, in Arabia. Bizarre however is the fact that upon his return from slavery, he is immediately propelled to the highest ranks of the Church and State, with audiences with the pope and the king, both making sure that afterwards de Paul wants for nothing.
The above account of de Paul’s life was taken from J. B. Pélagaud (written in 1861, with the authorisation of the Pope), where the events are different from other accepted accounts. First, a small detail: the vessel leaving Marseilles is taken by “pirates”, not Arabs as most biographies have it. Furthermore, he learns alchemy from one of his compatriots, not from a Moslem alchemist, as most authors allege. Thirdly, although his “alchemist master” has given up his Christian faith, Vincent is asked to sing for one of his concubines the psalm “Super flumina Babylonys” (on the rivers of Babylon) and “Salve, Regina”. It is stated that the concubine was so affected by this that she converted back to Christianity.
After ten months of hardship, Vincent de Paul is finally on his voyage back home, where he is reconciled with the vice-legate of Avignon. But rather than flee, he and his former master, who is originally from Nice, sail back together – and it seems that both meet the vice-legate. His families and friends would have to wait several more weeks – and some of them months – before they were informed of the fact that their son and friend was still alive. Allowing people to continue in the belief that you are dead, is definitely not something “saintly”, one would think.

But that is not all: he then goes to Rome, where even more mystery befalls him. “From Avignon, Vincent de Paul went to Rome, where he visited the tomb of the Apostles. Towards the end of 1608, he left Italy, charged, by the cardinal of Ossat, to speak to King Henry IV on a very significant matter, which he did not want to write down in a letter. Having arrived in France, Vincent went to see Henry IV.” All of this is mysterious business. Why do the Vatican and the Holy Father do not have more “qualified” messengers than this man, who is already apparently ill-fated when he has to travel even short distances, and who is to all intents and purposes, a “novice clergyman”. What is it about him that he is entrusted with information that is so sensitive that the Vatican decides it cannot be written down?
This is an incredible sequence of events. We are sure no-one would believe any part of it – and it seems that later in life, de Paul shared the same belief. If it was all true and there was nothing more to it than that, it makes a joke of the affairs of state: a young priest sightseeing in Rome, who should know better and who really ought to go and see his worried family, is asked by a Cardinal to go back to France, to inform the French king of a most important secret.

Truth or fiction?

Some other questions need to be asked. Was de Paul really abducted, or was that story concocted later? Was he perhaps on a secret mission? Sent perhaps to meet someone with specific knowledge? Perhaps this former inhabitant from Nice, well-versed in alchemy, somehow possessed specific knowledge, which de Paul had to extract from him? Did he consequently receive that information and was he asked to go immediately to the Vatican, to inform the Church officials of this new information? Was he perhaps told consequently that he should also give that information to the French king?
This scenario would seem quite logical. It would explain why de Paul was entrusted with it: he already knew the secret information, so it would be natural for him to present it to the French king. De Paul would not be told anything he did not already know. In fact, he would be ideally suited to brief these officials himself, as he had the most knowledge about the situation and was thus best placed to answer any questions.

There are more strange things about Vincent de Paul. It is known that for the rest of his life, he would try to recover all correspondence which mentioned his “abduction”. After his return, he had to inform his patron, de Comet, of his safe return. De Comet had paid for his education and was therefore greatly intrigued by de Paul. News of his likely death must have upset him; de Paul could furthermore not merely announce his safe return; de Comet would need to be given some details of precisely what had happened to him. So he wrote the story in several letters, and sent them to de Comet. But, as mentioned, late in life, de Paul went on a crusade to try and recover these letters. He made a special effort to do so between 1658 and 1660, and once he had retrieved them, he burnt them. Of course, he must have known he would never succeed in finding and destroying all letters, but he did succeed in destroying many. Why would he do this? Some possibilities have been put forward, but none withstand careful scrutiny. It seems obvious that they contained certain details de Paul did not want to see become public knowledge – or remain in the public domain.

Echoes of the Priory of Sion

Pierre Plantard, the man who was the visible representative of the so-called Priory of Sion - whether it existed or not – stated that de Paul had not been abducted, but that instead he had spent his time in Notre-Dame-de-Marceille, where he had been trained in alchemy! He stated that it was not “Marseilles”, at the mouth of the river Rhone, but was in truth “Marceille”, near Limoux.
It is a strange allegation to make, and when it was made, in the early 1980s, there seemed nothing special about Notre-Dame-de-Marceille. It would only be from 1993 onwards that the “Bertaulet circle” began to pay specific attention to this statement of Plantard & Co. Let us state how remarkable these words are: Plantard made this apparently ridiculous statement at a time when no-one was interested in Notre-Dame-de-Marceille, or even particularly in Vincent de Paul. But slowly, it is clear that all pieces of the puzzle – all the evidence – begins to show that Plantard might not necessarily have been right in the de Paul allegation, but that there is definitely a link between Rennes-le-Château and Notre-Dame-de-Marceille; the best evidence for this we will present shortly. For the moment, let us agree that it is highly likely that Plantard was involved with the secret manipulators – or their descendants – of Saunière himself.

Plantard and co. stated that Vincent de Paul had studied with “Jean the Alchemist”, who had taught him in the castle of Barbarie, in Nièvre. Philippe de Chérisey, one of Plantard’s “company”, labelled this castle the “Occult Bastion of France”. Of course, Plantard never presented any proof of these allegations – in fairness, no-one ever actually asked. It is true that King Louis XIV did dismantle the castle in June 1659, the specific order coming from Cardinal Mazarin.
But it is clear that Plantard did bring out two intriguing aspects: he did not accept the official story of Vincent de Paul’s abduction; he links this abduction with his subject, the mystery of Rennes-le-Château, as Jean the Alchemist is linked with the “mystery of the Priory of Sion”; finally, he links all this with Notre-Dame-de-Marceille, at a time when there was no interest in Notre-Dame-de-Marceille by any person connected with the Rennes-le-Château or Priory of Sion mystery; at a time when Notre-Dame-de-Marceille seemed to be nothing more than a normal church, without any mystery whatsoever.