The Treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau: A Mystery Solved

I bought and read this book because it's the only one I've read on the subject -- and I've read several -- that offers actual, real world evidence to explain the business of the Prior of Sion. This entire affair is the product of an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a man named Pierre Plantard, who went so far as to forge an ancient book and have it entered in the National Library in Paris. Based upon that, he proceeded to spin a yard that allegedly went back centuries and involved everyone of note in history. He engaged the services of the novelist Gerard de Sede, who wrote the novel "L'or de Rennes" (The Gold of Rennes), a best seller in France and strongly influenced Henry Lincoln, one the writers of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", so much that he and his associates have spent the last three decades chasing this figment of Plantard's imagination, including Michael Baigent, who was alluded to in "The Da Vinci Code" as a character with the anagrammed name "Teabing".Plantard felt he wasn't receiving the royalties he was promised and took de Sede to court. This backfired on him because he was compelled to admin that the entire thing was a fraud, a hoax he single-handedly created.As far as how Sauniere received the money he used to remodel the abbey and especially the chapel, the writers proved without a doubt that Sauniere was overselling masses, a grave crime in the Church because it amounts to fraud. He was charged and investigated, but he stonewalled the committee investigating him and was never punished for it. His secretary, who was probably also his lover, took this information to her graveYou see, there are very reasonable, reality-based, FACT BASED explanations for this whole affair, which the writers show clearly and logically. This is literally the last book you need to read on the subject, and probably the last that ever needs to be written about it.

I fell in love with Rennes le Chateau as a child playing Gabriel Knight 3. Sadly, any effort to research the mystery ended up with stories crazier than GK3's plot line. Thankfully, A Mystery Solved, digs into the primary documents to reveal the truth: fraud within the Church led to a priest fleecing people in Mass fees. Later, a combination of kooks and self-promoters latched on to the forgotten episode to create a mountain of a myth that now wraps people up in theories ranging from God's kids to giant open air temples. The mystery isn't mysterious but it still makes for a fun and educational read.

It is a good read, just aliitle to lengthily on some of the topics/

Finally a good book on the subject of Rennes-le-Chateau! This volume deals with all hypotheses, theories and fantasies that have been written on this theme. In this way it sends (as it should've been done long time ago) most of the fairytales to the scrapheap untill the real naked facts are revealing itselves. What is left is that the priest Saunière suddenly spent a lot of money and nobody knows for sure where it came from. Most likely from selling masses that he never held and from gifts from rich people. Tales of a treasure that he found are most likely coming from a local hotelier Corbu that had to make the area interesting to visit for tourists, because there was not much else to come for. All together a very intriguing book that reads as a detective and seperates the crap from fact. A book that we all have been waiting for.

The title of this book is somewhat misleading, because the Mystery is not solved, at least not completely solved. The authors are skeptics, but they review the history of the R-L-C mystery, and the authors slowly demonstrate that much of the R-L-C story is merely exaggeration or fabrication or fraud or hoax, with the primary public players named and their history discussed briefly, with little evidence of any physical treasure, and provide some small evidence that Sauniere obtained most of his wealth by donations and gifts. The authors admit that Sauniere spent a lot of money on R-L-C, but they do not examine the reasons, and they are too skeptical and dismissive, and too quick to ignore the possibility of private archives and secrets unknown. For example, the authors in only a few sentences falsely conclude that the Shroud of Turin is a fake, as if to show that everything religious is fake, and thus the authors demonstrate their own ignorance of that history. The authors mostly concentrate on the Mystery's historical evidence, or lack of legitimate evidence, and almost completely ignore the idea that the hoax was created for a real purpose, which was to promote a political and religious agenda associated with esoteric secret societies. The authors conclude that the main purpose of the Mystery hoax was related to supposedly secret written genealogies, supposedly discovered by Sauniere, and yet the authors discuss the actual latterly fabricated written genealogies only very briefly. There are other books which discuss much more the reasons and evidence for the creation of the R-L-C mystery. For a better discussion of this history topic, see the book "The Sion Revelation" by Lynn Picknett.

In 1885, a young Catholic priest called Berenger Sauniere became the priest of the small hill top village of Rennes Le Chateau in the Laguedoc region of France.The village was an impoverished place of only 300 souls and could only be reached via a dirt track.For the first seven years, Sauniere’s life at Rennes was completely un-remarkable. Then, from 1892, he began a series of grandiose building projects. They included the complete restoration of the church, a new house (allegedly for retired priests), a landscaped garden featuring a tower and belvedere, and a new paved road to the village. In all, Sauniere spent the modern equivalent of several millions £.Not surprisingly, such spending on a vast scale raised suspicions. By 1908, the local bishop was asking how Sauniere could possibly have acquired such funds. Despite investigations by the church, Sauniere never revealed the true source of his wealth. When he died in 1917, he was penniless.Who could have predicted that a local mystery, spiced with mutterings of scandalous liaisons and illicit earnings, would have grown into the one of the most infamous and enduring mysteries in the world today?Part of the explanation lies in the location of Rennes Le Chateau itself. Until the 13th century, The Languedoc was not part of France. It was a mountainous region where travel between places was difficult. The region was once populated by the Cathars. They practiced a form of religion that was a challenge to the established, Catholic church. As a result, the Cathars were cruelly persecuted as heretics in the 13th century. Just like the Knights Templars, the Cathars have acquired a mystique that endures to the present day. Were the Cathars the guardians of secret treasures or did they harbour secrets that would prove catastrophic to the established church if they came to light?Rennes Le Chateau has become associated with the burial place of Jesus Chris’s descendants, alien visits, the heart of a gigantic prehistoric temple rivalling the Nazca Lines of Peru, the hiding place of the lost treasure of the Knights Templar.What really happened at Rennes Le Chateau in the last years of the 19th century? Is there really a deep mystery of earth shattering implications waiting to be un-covered or are we looking at one of the most successful false histories ever conceived?I first came across the mystery of Rennes Le Chateau in the 1970s when the highly respected BBC series, “Chronicle” devoted three episodes to the story. At that time, there were hints of a conspiracy involving the famous artist Poussin and of possible links with devil himself.Then, in the 1990’s, I read “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”. This book took the mystery to an entirely new level, suggesting that Sauniere had discovered no less than that Jesus Christ had not died on the cross but had survived, married Mary Magdalene and founded a dynasty, whose descendants were still amongst us.By this time, I had become un-convinced by all of this. Nevertheless, what is deeply frustrating about Rennes Le Chateau is that it is well nigh impossible to find anywhere a serious, objective evaluation of the mystery.In the book, “The Treasure of Rennes Le Chateau, A Mystery Solved”, I believe I may have found what I have been looking for.For a start, this book is written by Bill Putnam and John Edwin Wood, both highly respected academics and authors.In their very readable account, they take the reader through the myriad of information about Rennes. Crucially, they apply strict historical research methods to allow them to sift the evidence from the rest.Most importantly, the authors go back to the original evidence. What they find does not bear close scrutiny and a lot of the so called “evidence” has no foundation in reality at all. They admit that Sauniere was an eccentric character. (and such people often invite speculation) It seems true that Sauniere was indeed making significant sums of money from selling religious Masses.They meticulously analyse the inscriptions that are supposed to hide secret coded information within them. Neither code nor secrets are there.The authors spent a considerable amount of effort in examining, and dis-proving, the claims that there are geometrical patterns to be found in the disposition of natural and man-made features in the area.I very much doubt that this book, or any other, will indeed solve the mystery of Rennes Le Chateau. It is a mystery that has long since outgrown the facts.But, for me at least, this book brought closure to something which has haunted me ever since seeing that Chronicle programme in 1974.Charles Glenn, September 2021

all ok

This is a well researched, and well laid out discussion of the 'mystery' and the various embellishments on the original story of Sauniere's wealth, clearly identifying and illustrating the errors and fallacies included in, and perpetuated by, many works on the subject.The Appendices may be somewhat impenetrable, but do serve to give information often not presented elsewhere, and clearly show how the authors' reached many of their conclusions.My only criticism is that the involvement of Plantard (and co.) and the Priory of Sion in the affair is largely brushed aside as not warranting deeper investigation. The suggestion that the story of the hidden gold was cooked up by Plantard and de Cherisey for use in a radio programme (which never aired), was supported by fake documents filed under false names, and which was perpetuated for decades for apparently no reason or material benefit - other than simply for the sake of doing it - doesn't seem likely to me.Then again, this area of investigation may diverge rather from the legend of Sauniere's gold, and so might not have found an easy place in this book - it just would have been nice for this to have been acknowledged, particularly in view of the work carried out on this area by other authors.

An averagely written book.

This is a book that I have wanted to read since it was first published. However, although very interesting and detailed as the authors wish to give proof for everything, it does mean that I have read it in bits not cover to cover as I might otherwise with a book.