THE DARK TERRIBLE LIES |
from The Templar ScrollsThe story begins...
FEASTING WITH THE KING'S SHADOW
Towards a solution in the mystery of Berenger Sauniere and Rennes-le-ChateauA PRIEST’S DEATHBED CONFESSION
On January 17, at the age of 65, Berenger Sauniere, the priest of Rennes-le-Chateau, suffered a major stroke. Besides the suspicious date, what made the priest’s sudden stroke even more mysterious was that only a few days earlier many of his parishioners remarked that he seemed to be in an enviable state of health for a man his age (and yet, despite appearing to be in good health it was later discovered that his coffin had been ordered 5 days previously). As he lay on his deathbed, another priest was summoned from the neighboring parish of Esperaza to hear his final confessions and to administer the last rites. This priest was Sauniere’s old friend, the abbe Riviere. At the dying priest’s bedside, Sauniere is believed to have imparted to his friend a terrible secret. According to the testimony of several eyewitnesses, the once jovial Riviere emerged from the sickroom visibly shaken. Whatever Sauniere’s final confession was, abbe Riviere was so shocked that he refused to administer Extreme Unction. This secret also had a traumatic effect on him. He became withdrawn and later suffered acute depression - to the point that it was said that he never smiled again (although this is probably an exaggeration).
Five days later on January 22 Sauniere died. The following morning his body was seated upright in an armchair on the sunny terrace of his chessboard-looking ‘knight’s tower’ (Tour Magdala). In a bizarre ceremony, the significance of which has never been fully explained, one by one certain mourners solemnly filed past him, pausing to pluck a scarlet tassel from the dead man’s ornate garment, perhaps in remembrance of the seigneur of Rennes. In the years that followed his death, Sauniere’s housekeeper and confidant, Marie Denarnaud (who was 16 years younger than the priest), used to say that she would one day reveal "a secret that would make one rich and powerful." On other occasions she was heard to say that "the people who live here are walking on gold without knowing it." But perhaps the most telling of all was the following statement: "With what the Monsieur le Cure has left, one could feed all of Rennes for a hundred years and there would still be some left. (NOTE: She, too, later suffered a stroke and was never able to divulge her master’s secret).
In the pages that follow we will offer a plethora of information and clues pertaining to what has been called the grandest puzzle of all. Some of this information is our own, but other findings are based on the research of the various Rennes investigators. In the end, we will reveal what we believe may have been the terrible secret that Sauniere imparted to abbe Riviere in his final hours - the deathbed confession that so shocked his fellow priest. We will also attempt to explain the significance of the inexplicable ritual involving the scarlet pompoms. But first it is necessary to start at the beginning, or at least to go back to the year 1885 when Sauniere was first appointed to the church at Rennes-le-Chateau.
RESTES TRANSFERESOne of the more bizarre things that Sauniere did was to go to the trouble to efface the inscriptions on the tombstone of Marie de Negri D’ables, Dame d’ Hautpoul de Blancheforte, a noble woman that was apparently buried in the churchyard cemetery. Fortunately for Rennes investigators is the ‘fact’ that, unknown to the priest, the inscriptions had previously been recorded in a book by an antiquarian before Sauniere defaced them. As the inscription gives the date of Marie’s death as January 17 (a recurring date in the mystery), 1781, it seems likely that the gravestone served as a signal of sorts to draw the attention to other ‘players’ and that it was also intended to transmit a coded message. Those who are skeptical of the whole Rennes business think that the eight imperfections in the inscription were merely errors committed by the stone-mason. However, as researcher Henry Lincoln points out, at least one of the anomalies, the French word CATIN, meaning ‘whore’ would be inexcusable to leave on the headstone of a noble lady. Although it is, he further points out, a reminder of the repentant ‘harlot’, Mary Magdalene, for whom the church at Rennes-le-Chateau was dedicated.
(NOTE: By re-arranging the 8 anomalous letters above, we are able to get the French word ‘emportee’ which means ‘she has been carted away.’ Could this be the clue we are looking for?)Incised on the lintel above the entrance to the church is an inscription that sounds a strange warning for a Roman Catholic Church:
TERRIBILIS ESTE LOCUS ISTE
(THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE)But these were the words spoken by Jacob upon awaking from a ‘dream’ of a ladder (ziggurat?) that reached to the heavens. The words that follow (Genesis 28:17) are:
THIS IS NONE OTHER BUT THE HOUSE OF GOD, AND THIS IS THE GATE TO HEAVEN.It is now known that Sauniere was a member (or at least a guest) of a Martinist Lodge in Lyon. Martinism, an unorthodox form of Christianity founded by Martinez de Pasqually (1410-1474) was an occult school whose ideas were based on the spiritual teachings of Gnosticism, Qabalah, and Hermetica. It was concerned with the liberation of one’s soul and its ascent from the lower spheres (or the Valley of Thorns) back towards its original divine source. Martinists also believed in evoking (invoking?) and uniting with their guardian angel or higher self which was thought to be a facet of the Divine Intelligence. Therefore, by taking some liberties, the gateway in question may be considered an interdimensional or transplutonian stargate of sorts.
Another inscription above the entranceway reads:
MEA DOMUS ORATIONIS VOCATIBUR
(MY HOUSE IS CALLED THE HOUSE OF PRAYER)
The rest of the phrase goes:
...AND YOU HAVE MADE IT INTO A DEN OF THIEVES
Some researchers have suggested the existence of a necropolis much like Egypt’s ‘Valley of Kings’ located somewhere in the region of Rennes-le-Chateau. If so, then is it possible that what Sauniere discovered were Merovingian catacombs that contained the remains of ancient royalty, those kings who were known to be buried along with all their splendor? Was the priest’s terrible secret that he was a simple grave robber? That he acquired his wealth from systematically plundering the tombs of kings, or, if not the ornate sepulchers of kings, then by pillaging the crypts of the local nobility of their precious heirlooms? It may even have been that those priests who preceded him formed a dynasty of grave robbers, passing the secret location of burial vaults onto their successors via encoded messages such as that on the ‘Marie’ headstone.
