Rennes-le-Château

OVERVIEW

Rennes-le-Château is a commune about five kilometres south of Couiza in the Aude. The hilltop village is known internationally and takes tens of thousands of visitors a year, drawn by conspiracy theories about a buried treasure supposedly discovered there.

HISTORY

Bérenger Saunière, the parish priest from 1885, restored and decorated the church of Saint Mary Magdalene and built on the site: the Tour Magdala, originally the Tour de l'horloge, which he used as his library, a belvedere, an orangery and the Villa Bethania. Among the figures he installed inside the church is the demon Asmodeus holding up the holy water stoup — an unusual choice, though not unique. Where the money came from is the real question, and the record answers it: in 1910–11 Saunière was summoned before an ecclesiastical trial on charges of trafficking in masses — taking payment for far more masses than he could say. He was found guilty and suspended from the priesthood, and refused to produce his account books.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The treasure, the bloodline and the rest were built in the 1950s and 60s, principally by the hotelier Noël Corbu and later by Pierre Plantard, whose Priory of Sion documents were shown to be forgeries he had deposited himself. That material fed a very large popular literature. The entry keeps the village because the church, the tower and the demon are all really there and worth seeing, and because it is one of the clearest cases on this map of a mystery that was manufactured, with the manufacture documented.

VISITING

The church, the Tour Magdala, the domain and a museum are open to visitors for a fee. A small village with residents; parking is limited.