Rennes-le-chateau - The Mystery


	THE MYSTERY OF RENNES-LE-CHATEAU Perched on a dusty hilltop in the French Pyrenees lies the little village of Rennes-le-Château.
	Just looking round its tiny sun-baked cottages, its tumble-down medieval château, its 9th century church restored in garish late 19th century style, you would not think at first that this place could hold keys that might unlock doors to one or more of the world’s great mysteries.
	Lying just far enough inland from the trading routes of the Mediterranean for migrants to settle - for fugitives to hide their valuables before fleeing further, returning later, if possible to recover their precious deposits - for pilgrims to rest before their arduous mountain crossing on the way to Compostella - the valley of the Aude hides many secrets and the land abounds with legends of hidden treasure.
	One of these hordes was thought to have been found by its parish priest, abbé Bérenger Saunière, during the 1880s and 1890s, allowing him not only to renovate the church but also to build a villa with a formally laid out garden, a belvedere and a neat little neo-gothic tower surrounded by the village’s restored medieval ramparts.
	In the 1950s the owner of the estate who had turned the villa into a restaurant used this story as an attraction to draw visitors to his business. He suggested that, after finding parchments in an ancient pillar in his church, the priest had found the Great Treasure of France hidden by Blanche of Castille, mother of King Louis, the saint, in the early 13th century.
	This story, published in a series of articles in the local newspaper soon caught the attention of the nation. All kinds of people began to flock to the area and soon serious treasure hunting got under way - so serious that eventually, when people’s houses began to collapse due to the tunnelling, the mayor put a stop to all unauthorised excavation.
	Treasure hunters had to look for other means to find what they were looking for and this is when things really became interesting.