wilsondownes

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: 6. A Place called the Holy-water Stoup

Les dalles du pavé mosaïque du lieu sacré pouvaient-être alternativement blanches ou noires, et JESUS, comme ASMODEE observer leurs alignements, ma vue semblait incapable de voir le sommet où demeurait cachée la merveilleuse endormie. N'étant pas HERCULE à la puissance magique, comment déchiffrer les mystérieux symboles gravés par les observateurs du passé. Dans le sanctuaire pourtant le bénitier, fontaine d'amour des croyants redonne mémoire de ces mots: PAR CE SIGNE TU le VAINCRAS.

The slabs of the mosaic paving of the holy place could be alternatively white or black, and JESUS, like ASMODEUS, observes their alignment. It seemed impossible for me to see the summit where the marvellous sleeping one remained hidden. Not being HERCULES with magic power, how does one decipher the mysterious symbols engraved by the overseers of the past? In the sanctuary, however, the holy-water stoup, fountain of love of believers, reminds one of these words: BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER him.

If there is one place without which it would be hopeless to even begin trying to solve the riddle, it is the church of Rennes-le-Château. The poet has fleetingly referred to it a couple of times already, but in this stanza, he makes it very clear that the layout of this church constitutes a key part of the mystery. It would make sense, therefore, to fine-comb everything in this church for clues.

6.1 The church of Rennes-le-Château To get to Rennes-le-Château, one takes the main road from Carcassonne, which eventually crosses the Sals River in the town of Couiza. Just as one is about to exit the town, there is a signpost on the left indicating the road to Rennes-le-Château. From there, the narrow road steadily winds up the hill until one finally drives into this legendary little town. Anybody who is acquainted with the enigma of Rennes-le-Château will understand what a big moment it is to drive into this town for the first time. I can still clearly remember the expectation with which I arrived there. And one is not disappointed. Rennes-le-Château lies right on top of a hill in a picturesque landscape. The old buildings and peaceful atmosphere have an exceptional charm. I have heard many a person express a desire to reside there. The best time to visit this town is over weekends, when all the book- and other shops are open. One should still be able to find copies of the Prieuré de Sion documents that had been deposited in the French National Library, among which Le serpent rouge, at one of these bookshops. Having driven into the town, one continues straight on with the narrow tarred road lined with stone buildings. To one’s right is the castle where the Blancheforts once lived. A short distance further on, just as the church rises right in front, the road curves to the left, with Villa Bethania on the right-hand side. A little further on is the parking area. Here one is greeted by beautiful undulating hills to the south-east, and to one’s right, against the plateau on which the town is built, the Tower of Magdala. Arriving at the Church of Mary Magdalene, one finds a pillar to the left of the footpath similar to the one on which Saunière had engraved ‘Mission 1891’. Just past this pillar is a narrow passage to the left, leading to a shop and the museum, which effects an entrance to Villa Bethania and the Tower of Magdala. To one’s right is the garden in front of the church, as well as the entrance to the cemetery behind it. Above the front door of the church (which is unlocked from time to time), is the following ominous phrase: ‘TERRIBILIS EST LOCUS ISTE’ (‘THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE’). As one enters the church, one is greeted by a striking devil on the left, who seems to be paralysed from the waist down. The poet calls this character Asmodeus. He has a narrow face and a goatee beard. His eyes look cruel and wild, and his mouth is open. The fingers of his right hand form a conspicuous circle. On his head are two big goat’s horns curling backwards. On the hump behind his head rests the holy-water stoup, which has the shape of a scallop-shell. Above this stoup are two dragonlike figures; possibly salamanders. The one is to the right and the other to the left beneath a red disc with the letters BS written in black on it. These could possibly stand for Bérenger Saunière, or even Boudet and Saunière. Above these letters there is a platform wherein is engraved: ‘PAR CE SIGNE TU LE VAINCRAS’ (‘BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER HIM’) — the exact words in the poem. These are the famous words that Constantine had heard in a vision, except that a ‘le’ (‘him’) had been added to the phrase. On the platform are four angels crossing themselves. Right above them is an isosceles cross on a circle with three offshoots at each end. Strangely, all the middle offshoots have been painted light blue, which accentuates the two on either side. That the cross features so prominently makes perfect sense: It is, after all, through this that the devil has to be conquered.

Fig. 16. Asmodeus — the entire artwork

Shifting one’s eyes to the rest of the church, one discovers one is standing to the right at the back of the church. The inside of the church is much smaller than one would imagine. Beneath one’s feet is the black and white chequered floor the poet mentions. Slantwise to the left, in the middle right at the back of the church, is the wooden confessional. Right above it, on the back wall, is a massive fresco depicting the Sermon on the Mount. Straight across from where one is standing, against the opposite wall, is a statue of Jesus being baptised. Jesus is squatting in front of John the Baptist, who is holding a reed cross in one hand and a shell in the other, which is above Jesus’ head. ‘JESUS’ and ‘ASMODEUS’ are therefore facing each other, with the black and white chequered floor between them — precisely as the poet states. There is a reason that these two words are in upper case: They correspond to the white and black theme in the poem, which is symbolic of the antipoles that also feature throughout. This had clearly also been the goal with the depiction of Jesus and Asmodeus in the church, as they are strikingly depicted as antipoles: Jesus is squatting, and Asmodeus is sitting paralysed from the waist down; Jesus’ right knee is touching the pedestal of the statue, and Asmodeus’ left knee; Jesus is dressed in red and the pedestal beneath Him is green, while the devil is wearing green and sitting on a red pedestal. There is a scallop-shell above each of them: the one is in John the Baptist’s hand, the other is the holy-water stoup on the devil’s hump. There is also a cross above each of them: the reed cross in John the Baptist’s hand, and the isosceles cross above the devil, over and above the implied crosses made by the four angels. Looking over the pews from the back of the church, one sees the altar right in front, and the high pulpit just to the left in front of the altar. There are several statues against the walls, including those of St. Anthony the Hermit and St. Germaine that were mentioned earlier; these are to the left. The statue of St. Anthony of Padua is straight across from the pulpit, St. Mary Magdalene straight across from St. Anthony the Hermit, and St. Roch straight across from St. Germaine. Between these statues are the Stations of the Cross, which are to be found in all Catholic churches. To the left behind the altar is a statue of Joseph, and to the right, a statue of the Virgin Mary. Both of them are holding the Child.

6.2 The landmarks at Rennes-les-Bains The fact that the poet highlights Jesus and Asmodeus leads one to surmise that these statues are also related to the area around Rennes-les-Bains. Upon an investigation, one indeed finds a place in the Rennes-les-Bains region that is associated with the devil, namely the Devil’s Armchair. It lies against the hill not too far south-west of Le Cercle. This ‘armchair’ is a light-coloured, detached rock in which a seat had been carved. It actually provides a surprisingly comfortable seat. It is said that this rock had at some stage belonged to the Hautpouls. While the lame devil in the church of Rennes-le-Château is without a chair, one here finds a chair, but the devil is missing. It is evident that these two have to be connected somehow.

Fig. 17. The layout of the church of Rennes-le-Château

Right next to the Devil’s Armchair, a fountain called the Fountain of the Circle rises. This water is also rich in iron, giving it a rusty colour. The water is piped down from up here to the main road at the bottom, where it runs out and eventually flows into the Sals. It could very well be that the circle the devil’s fingers is forming is connected with this Fountain of the Circle. As Gérard de Sède points out in Le trésor maudit de Rennes-le-Château, there are also other landmarks in the region that are associated with the devil, among which the five cup-shaped hollowed out marks in the so-called Bread Stone further to the south-east. The devil is said to have made these with his fingers when he touched it. The plateau behind the Devil’s Armchair, the Le Pla de la Coste, is also reminiscent of the flat side of the devil’s right leg. A third landmark that is associated with the evil one is an old signal tower close by, which at some stage had allegedly been called the Devil’s Nipple.

6.3 Cap de l’Homme Just as the Devil’s Armchair relates to the devil in the church of Rennes-le-Château, so another landmark in the area relates to Jesus! According to Boudet, there had been a sculptured head in a rock above the plateau to the west of Rennes-les-Bains that had been associated with Christ. It was called the Cap de l’Homme (���Head of the Man’). Boudet writes: ‘Cap de l’'Homme. A menhir was conserved in this place, and one have there, high up, sculptured in relief, a magnificent head of the lord Jesus, the saviour of mankind.’[44] In 1884, Boudet himself removed this carving. A depiction of this head — also called the Head of Dagobert II —- apparently appears in the document Pierres gravées du Languedoc, in which depictions of Marie de Blanchefort’s tombstones are also to be found. To reach the rocks where this head had been, one follows the main road going through Rennes-les-Bains further south, past the convergence of the Sals and Blanque Rivers, up to the first narrow tarred road branching off to the right. This road runs up the plateau and leads to the area where the Cap de l’Homme had once been. On this narrow road, just past an open piece of grassland on the left, there is a signpost on the right-hand side indicating the way to Roc d’en Barou — the high point of the plateau directly to the west of Rennes-les-Bains. (One cannot, however, always count on these signs. I have more than once found some of them to have disappeared without a trace.) There is space to park one’s vehicle close by. At this sign, a very inconspicuous two-track dirt road branches off to the right. One follows this, taking the right-hand path that has fallen in disuse where the road forks. About 200 m further on there are a couple of rocks to one’s left. The rock in which the Cap de l’'Homme had been engraved, is nearby — about 30 m from the path. Old Christian crosses are still to be seen on the front and back of this rock. The poet emphasises the fact that Jesus and Asmodeus are eerie the ‘alignment’ of the ‘paving’. These two landmarks in the Rennes-les-Bains area, namely the Devil’s Armchair and the Cap de ‘Homme, correspond exactly to that. Instead of the white and black block-floor in the church, one here finds certain important lines of longitude and latitude, which could also be linked to white and black patterns. The Devil’s Armchair faces east, in the direction of the Sals River lower down the slope. If one were to move the devil in the church here, he would be looking slightly to the left, almost straight in the direction of the Cap de l’Homme — exactly like in the church!

6.4 The Holy-water Stoup The reason the poet draws attention to the church of Rennes-le-Château at this point is that it relates to the next landmark on the route. The Devil’s Armchair is just a few minutes’ walk from the stone circle on the outskirts of Rennes-les-Bains in a south-westerly direction through the beautiful natural forest. It is possibly from here that the poet cannot see the place where the sleeping beauty lay, or lies: ‘It seemed impossible for me to see the summit where the marvellous sleeping one remained hidden.’ This place, which is the end of the route through the area, must therefore be somewhere on a hill. The next landmark could be connected with the holy-water stoup in the church, as the poet refers to it further on in this stanza: ‘In the sanctuary, however, [is] the holy-water stoup, fountain of love of believers ...’ Astonishingly, one discovers that, just like Jesus and Asmodeus are connected with landmarks in the Rennes-les-Bains area, so, indeed, is the holy-water stoup. Just further south, where the Sals and Blanque Rivers converge, one finds a beautiful blue pool of water, which is also called the Holy-water Stoup! In order to get to the Holy-water Stoup from the Devil’s Armchair, one continues along the footpath and then takes the path branching off to the left to Le Roche Tremblante — the so-called Trembling Rock. Beneath this rock is another footpath leading back in the direction of Rennes-les-Bains. The path one is following, leads down to the tarred road next to the Sals River, about 100 m north of the Holy-water Stoup. On thinking back to the holy-water stoup in the church, it strikes one that the letters BS on the red disc above it could also allude to the Blanque and Sals Rivers. It could therefore be that the two dragonlike figures to the left and right underneath the BS are symbolic of these two rivers. The connection between the two rivers and the dragonlike figures is even stronger if one supposes that the figures do not represent two salamanders, but a basilisk and a salamander (which are depicted as identical, simply because they are utilised as twin figures). In that case, the letters BS could be connected with the rivers as well as these figures.

Fig. 18. Snakelike figure at the Fountain of Lovers

The basilisk and salamander are mythological antipoles: The salamander was symbolic of the righteous who could resist the fervent temptations of the devil, as it was apparently fire-resistant and could even put out fire. The basilisk, on the other hand, symbolised the devil and was regarded as the head of the serpents. It was also depicted as a beast that was half serpent, half cockerel. In accordance with the fact that these beasts represent antipoles, they are depicted on either side of the holy-water stoup in the church. In the Rennes-les-Bains area, the Blanque and Sals Rivers symbolise these antipoles, with the Holy-water Stoup, through which the Rose Line runs so neatly, as the central point in between.

6.5 The Fountain of Lovers In the description of the Holy-water Stoup the poet mentions the ‘fountain of love of believers’. These words are reminiscent of another landmark in the area, just further up the Sals River. Turning left on the tarred road at the Holy-water Stoup and driving along the Sals, the road lazily bends from east to south. Just a short distance ahead is a place in the Sals called Fontaine des Amours — ‘Fountain of Lovers’. This must surely be the place with the most beautiful scenery in the region. From the parking space, one takes the footpath just on the other side of the bridge down to the river at the bottom, where a breathtaking scene awaits one. Under the vivid green trees, the water of the Sals bubbles over the rocks and into a magnificent pool. Close by is another pool where the rock has been chiselled into the shape of a heart. On top of the rocks across from the pool, the ruins of an old building are etched against the trees. At this fountain there is a surprise in store. A snakelike figure has been carved in the rock that inadvertently calls to mind the salamander — which is indeed connected with the Sals. The salamander is quite an appropriate figure here at the Fountain of Lovers, as it could serve as a reminder to resist the fervent arrows of the evil one. It seems that Saunière also had to deal with such temptations here. In Henry Lincoln’s Key to the Sacred Pattern there is a photograph of an engraving that apparently related to him. The engraving consisted of the name ‘E. CALVE’ and an arrowed heart, as well as the date 1891. According to some versions of the story, Saunière had gone to Paris that year, where he met Emma Calvé, the famous French opera singer. Unfortunately, the engraving has since been destroyed. The fact that the salamander can be connected with this fountain leads one to speculate that there is a fountain in the upper courses of the Blanque River that could be associated with the basilisk.

6.6 The statues and Stations of the Cross It is fascinating to compare the route from the heart of the Rose Line with the Stations of the Cross and the statues in the Rennes-le-Château church. After the statue of St. Germaine — who is connected with the heart of the Rose Line in the cemetery — and the fifth Station of the Cross next to it, one finds the statue of Jesus and John the Baptist, which relates to the Cap de l’Homme. From the cemetery in Rennes-les-Bains, this landmark lies straight across on the plateau to the west of the church. It is admittedly not on the route, but indeed next to it, walking from north to south. It was undoubtedly a prominent landmark in the time of Boudet; anyone following this route would most certainly have at least been aware of it. This, of course, implies that some of the landmarks may lie somewhat away from the route. The next Station of the Cross in the Rennes-le-Château church clearly also bears reference to the Cap de l’'Homme. It is a depiction of St. Veronica gently wiping Jesus’ face, which, according to tradition, left an imprint of Jesus’ face on the cloth. This emphasis on the face of Jesus links it to the Cap de l’Homme. In the background in this Station, there is a soldier with his bended right hand on a white shield above him, which may very well indicate that this landmark is to the right- hand side above the route. Right next to this Station, just before the confessional, one finds the seventh Station of the Cross. This Station includes a curious depiction of a man on the left with his arm bent in an S-shape. This could allude to the Sals River, which does indeed flow past the cemetery in Rennes-les-Bains. From there, the route also leads further along the Sals, which runs to the east. To the west, on top of the plateau, is the Cap de l’Homme. The confessional, again, could be representative of the church of Rennes-les-Bains, which lies exactly there next to the Sals. After the confessional there are two more Stations of the Cross before one again comes to the devil with the holy-water stoup on his hump. Although the devil as well as the water stoup pertain to two landmarks just a short distance further on the route, they form part of a single work of art, so it is unclear to which landmark one has to link that particular point in the Way of the Cross. Earlier on, Jesus and John the Baptist were depicted together, but only Jesus could be linked to a landmark at that specific point on the route. It could be that the devil and the water stoup only serve as background for another landmark at this point on the route, namely a cross. In that case, the Devil’s Armchair as well as the Holy-water Stoup would be connected with this cross, or maybe the shape of a cross in the area. The fact that the cross is the main motif in the artwork, and highlighted by the words, ‘BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER him’ (a reference to Constantine’s cross) confirm this assumption. The fact that there are remarkable similarities between the statues and the Stations of the Cross in the Rennes-le-Château church and the route through the Rennes-les-Bains area, leads one to the significant discovery that the riddle in Le serpent rouge is the exact same riddle Saunière and Boudet had hidden in the layout and ornamentation of the Rennes-le-Château church. All that the poet does is to formulate it in a new way. That is why he encourages one to investigate the clues Saunière and Boudet provided. It’s no wonder he says one has to ‘decipher’ these mysterious symbols created by ‘the overseers of the past’ to reach the ‘solution’. One is therefore not only busy solving the riddle, but also the mystery of the two Rennes’s! In view of the fact that the poet is merely reformulating an existing riddle, it stands to reason that he had access to these priests’ secrets. The information contained in the poem is way too detailed, for him and therefore also Pierre Plantard, not to have been involved in the whole enigma.

6.7 Hercules’ magic power In this stanza, the poet also refers to a Greek mythological figure that outwardly has absolutely nothing to do with the region, namely Hercules. In this regard, he links up with Boudet, who also mentions Hercules: ‘There is no doubt that Hercules existed only in Greek and Latin myth; however, it is useful to note, this famous hero [according to Pyrenean’ tales] takes a real consistence and reclothes the character with truth, as soon as he personifies the celtic nation and the migration of this people towards the western lands of Europe.”[45] One wonders whether Pierre Plantard’s other name, Pierre de France, had not also been an allusion to the fact that he, as their supposed rightful king, personified the French people. The poet’s reference to Hercules’ ‘magic power’ implies that the 12 magic tasks he performed are under discussion. These 12 tasks are widely associated with the star signs of the zodiac, implying Hercules also symbolises the sun in its orbit through the zodiac. The poet is therefore not only referring to the signs of the zodiac, but also to Hercules as a symbol of the sun. As was mentioned right at the beginning, the 13 stanzas of the poem Le serpent rouge fall under the signs of the zodiac, with the Serpent-handler as the 13th sign. There are also five stanzas before this one in which Hercules is mentioned, and seven thereafter, which could be representative of the five winter and seven summer months. Bearing all of this in mind, it may very well be that the geometrical pattern to be uncovered in the Rennes-les-Bains region is also somehow related to the sun. Interestingly, in ancient times, the colours white and black were associated with sunrise and sunset. Hercules, as the sun, is therefore also the one standing in the middle of the antipoles white and black. This could be the reason his name too, like that of Jesus and Asmodeus, is written in upper case. Counting the words in this stanza, one discovers that ‘Hercules’ appears right in the middle: there are 36 words before and 36 after it! It may, however, also be that he in actual fact represents the sun child in the arms of the mother, typically depicted with twin figures on either side of her.

44. Boudet, H. 1886. La vraie langue celtique ... Carcassonne. Reissue: 1984. Belisane: Nice, p. 234. 45. Ibid., p. 214.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: 5. Reaching the Meridian Line

Rassembler les pierres éparses, oeuvrer de l'équerre et du compas pour les remettre en order régulier, chercher la ligne du méridien en allant de l'Orient à l'Occident, puis regardant du Midi au Nord, enfin en tous sens pour obtenir la solution cherchée, faisant station devant les quatorze pierres marquées d'une croix. Le cercle étant l'anneau et couronne, et lui le diadème de cette REINE du Castel.

To assemble the dispersed stones, work with square and compasses to put them back together again in regular order. Seek the meridian line going from the East to the West, then look from the South to the North, finally in all directions, to obtain the searched-for solution, positioning oneself in front of the fourteen stones marked with a cross. The circle being the ring and crown, it is the diadem of this QUEEN of Le Castel.

 The poet is clearly done with pleasantries, like introducing friends and relating long walks. In this stanza, he seriously calls one’s attention to the bigger picture. The fact that one should evidently start looking all over the place for clues, leads one to suspect that the landmarks will eventually reveal some kind of geometrical pattern too — the meaning of which, like those in the texts, is still a mystery in itself.

5.1 With square and compasses

One is now instructed to assemble the ‘sixty-four dispersed stones of the perfect cube’ and put them back together again. Exactly what ‘in regular order’ means is at this stage anyone’s guess. The relevant landmarks in the area, which seem to have been scattered randomly, therefore actually form part of a well-ordered whole — the bigger picture.

To reduce the seeming chaos to order, one is told to use two instruments, namely a square and a pair of compasses. These are the two most basic measuring instruments, which still today figure prominently in Masonic lodges. This is quite logical, as the latter had developed from earlier builders’ orders in which these instruments were paramount. A square is used to draw straight lines and rectangles, and compasses, obviously, to draw circles. These are once again antipoles, with which the poem is interspersed.

A square and compasses are mainly used to draw sketches and diagrams on paper, and in this case, the ‘paper’ is undoubtedly a map of the area. Although the map at the back of Boudet’s book (see Figure 14) only includes the region from the entrance to the Sals Valley south of the town of Serres to the Serrat Plateau south of Rennes-les-Bains, and is also not drawn exactly to scale, it shows certain landmarks that are not indicated on modern maps and that could be significant. For this reason, Boudet’s map should be used as a basic map of the area.

The poet mentions two more landmarks on the route, namely those one apparently has to regard as starting-points in order to uncover the geometrical pattern(s) in the area. The first is a spot where a certain line of longitude and a certain line of latitude cross, and the other a place that seems to be the centre of a circle. Next, one is supposed to ‘look ... in all directions’, which implies that from there, one can systematically start working towards ‘the searched-for solution’.

5.2 The St. Sulpice meridian

The obvious question now is: Exactly which of the multitude of meridians and lines of latitude crossing each other on the map is the poet alluding to?

The only meridian singled out in the document Le serpent rouge is the one indicated by the copper strip on the floor of the St. Sulpice Church in Paris. As was mentioned earlier, the floor plan of this church included in the document clearly shows this meridian, with the letters P and S and the words ‘PRAE-CUM’ next to it. This meridian runs 2°20’05.6”E of the prime meridian at Greenwich. It lies very close to the Parisian meridian — 11.4”W of it — which dates from before when the Greenwich meridian started being used as the international line of reference for coordinate systems.

On Boudet’s map, this specific line of longitude runs close to the eastern border of the area, in other words, east of the immediate area in the Sals Valley where one finds oneself at this point.

The question arising, though, is whether somebody alluding to a meridian that in all probability relates to the hiding place of a treasure, would make it this easy to pinpoint. One tends to believe that the St. Sulpice meridian would rather lead one to the exact meridian — and region — the poet has in mind.

Fig. 14. The map of Edmond Boudet

5.3 The Rose Line

In the document Au pays de la reine blanche, a meridian that might be the line one is looking for is mentioned.

Just to put this document in perspective: It was published under the pseudonym Nicolas Beaucéan, which Franck Marie in Rennes-le-Château, étude critique [40] (‘Rennes-le-Chateau, A Critical Study’) deems to be one of Pierre Plantard’s pseudonyms. The name Beaucéan refers to the Knights Templar’s flag. (The Knights Templar was a Medieval Christian military order that existed from shortly after the first crusade until 1307.) This flag comprised parallel white and black blocks — once again echoeing the white and black theme in the poem. In the documents in the French National Library, the Order of the Knights Templar is also associated with the forerunner of the Prieuré de Sion, the Order of Sion.

As for the meridian: The one referred to in the above-mentioned document is called the ‘Rose Line’, in other words, the ‘red line’, which immediately calls to mind the ‘red serpent’. According to the author of this document, the abbé Courtauly had the following to say about the Rose Line: ‘If the parishes of Peyrolles and Serres are the twin children of Saint Vincent, the parish of Rennes-les-Bains protects the heart of the Roseline.’ The Rose Line therefore runs past (or through) the church of Rennes-les-Bains. The fact that this particular line falls almost exactly in the centre of Boudet’s map, leads one to believe that this could be the line the poet has in mind.

The towns of Peyrolles and Serres mentioned in the quotation, lie to the north of Rennes-les-Bains. One can easily spot these from the lookout point on the hiking path between Roque Nègre and Blanchefort. The writer connects them with the ‘twin children’ of St. Vincent — a saint one has already come across: It is said that he is mentioned in one of the parchments allegedly discovered in Rennes-le-Château.

St. Vincent was a friend of Jean-Jacques Olier, the founder of the St. Sulpice Church, wherein a meridian is indicated across the floor. Just like Olier, St. Vincent is also associated with the leadership of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, which apparently was a front (or another name) for the Prieuré de Sion.

In the above quotation, the churches of Peyrolles and Serres are linked to the Rose Line. A quick glance at the map reveals that they fall on lines of longitude on either side of the Rennes-les-Bains church. Upon closer examination, however, one discovers that these churches lie perfectly symmetrical on either side of the meridian running through the cemetery behind the Rennes-les-Bains church.[41] As the Rose Line dates from the time when these churches were built, one could allow for a minor error of a few metres. The directions in Au pays de la reine blanche therefore correspond exactly to what one finds in reality: The church of Rennes-les-Bains indeed ‘protects’ this line.

On the map, this meridian runs past Lampos in the north — the white rock formations on the slopes of Cardou. Lampos lies straight across from Blanchefort on the other side of the ravine when entering the Sals Valley from the north. South from there, the meridian runs through the Rennes-les-Bains cemetery, further south through the spot where the Sals and Blanque Rivers converge, and still further south, past a fountain called Fontaine de Madeleine (‘Fountain of the Magdalene’.

The fact that this meridian runs through the convergence of the mentioned rivers unveils a beautiful symmetry in the area. This, once again, corresponds to the balancing of the poles in the riddle, which is crucial to finding one’s way.

5.4 Lampos

According to Boudet, the name Lampos comes from the word ‘lamb’. He writes: ‘This last rock separated from Cardou and presenting several points reunited at the base, gave our ancestors the idea of small beings comprising a family ... [They] poetically named these needles Lampos. This word derives from ‘lamb’ or ‘to lamb’, when speaking of the sheep.’ [42] This rock structure does indeed look like white lambs grazing on the slopes. The poet later also connects it with the baptism of Christ, and therefore John’s words: ‘Behold the Lamb of God.’

When looking at the copper strip indicating a meridian in the St. Sulpice Church, one makes the astounding discovery that it is indeed linked to the ‘Lamb of God’. At the one end, the line runs to the gnomon in the northern wing of the church, on which it is vertically produced. Right next to the line on the gnomon there is an inscription — as well as the symbol of the Lamb of God! This inscription also appears in the document Le serpent rouge. Just as the Rose Line runs through Lampos, so the meridian line in St. Sulpice is (literally) connected with the Lamb of God. It is therefore highly likely that this symbol on the gnomon serves as an indication of where the relevant meridian lies — the one that runs through Lampos at Rennes-les-Bains!

This discovery is the first indication that the riddle in the poem and the information in the related documents possibly not only pertain to the convictions of Pierre Plantard and his circle of friends, but could also be based on a geometrical pattern in the Rennes-les-Bains region that had existed long before any of them did! Although it is certainly possible that Pierre Plantard linked the symbol of the Lamb of God on the gnomon to Lampos, the fact that both had existed long before his time implies that others before him had the exact same association in mind. It is therefore not coincidental that the meridian running through Lampos also falls in the middle of Boudet’s map, and that all the landmarks on this map can easily be ordered in respect of this meridian. This proves that Pierre Plantard did indeed have access to certain secrets that at least date from the time of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement.

Fig. 15. The inscription on the gnomon

5.5 The Rennes-les-Bains cemetery

To reach the cemetery behind the church of Rennes-les-Bains, one takes the footpath from Blanchefort, and at the fork, the path going down to the tarred road. At the second little bridge, there are steps leading down to the water from the Pontet Fountain that flows from a pipe underneath the bridge. This water is rich in iron and leaves a reddish deposit on the ground. From here, one follows the road into Rennes-les-Bains.

It is quite a rare experience relaxing with a cold drink outside the café fronting the town square, which is shaded by the majestic plane-trees in the centre. The opposite right-hand corner of the square conceals the entrance to the passage-way that leads to the church.

When entering the vestibule, which is separated from the church itself by a door, the first thing that catches the eye is an iron cross decorated with roses, with a Virgin and Child in the centre. Underneath this cross one finds three inscriptions: ‘IN HOC SIGNO VINCES’ (‘BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER’), ‘DOMINO VIE RECTORE’ (‘TO THE MASTER WHO SHOWS THE WAY’) and ‘PETRUS DELMAS FECIT’ (‘MADE BY PETRUS DELMAS’), with the date 1856 underneath. One immediately wonders if the abbé Vie, whose name features in the middle inscription, is the one who is supposed to show the way.

As for the third inscription: In 1856, Petrus Delmas apparently published a writing entitled L’Armorial du Languedoc-Roussillon (The armorial bearings of the Languedoc-Roussillon’) in which one or more of the antique Plantard family coats of arms appeared. The existence of such a book can, however, not be verified.

Walking straight through the vestibule, one reaches the cemetery behind the church. Here one finds the grave of the abbé Jean Vie, who died in 1872 at the age of 64. According to his epitaph, he became a priest at 32, which neatly divides his life into two parts of 32 years each, 32 ‘black’ and 32 ‘white’ years — corresponding to the Knights Templar’s flag, as well as the blocks on a chess-board.

The date on his grave, namely the 1st September, is written as ‘1 er 7 embre’, and therefore also implies 17 (in French, 7 is ‘sept’). Together with the French pronunciation of his name, ‘Janvier’ (meaning ‘January’), one therefore has an allusion to the 17th January — the same day Sigebert is said to have been brought to Rhedae. This is also the holy day of the archbishop of St. Sulpice, the patron saint of the church in Paris that had been named after him, who died on the 17th January, 647. Given the connection between this date and St. Sulpice, it is highly likely that this grave relates to the meridian indicated on the floor of the St. Sulpice Church.

Next to the grave of the abbé Vie is that of Boudet’s mother and sister. The white tombstone is bestrewn with black crystals - again the white-black theme. Between their epitaphs is a vertical line with arrowheads at the top and bottom, and one’s first thought is whether this is not perhaps indicative of the Rose Line.

As the Rose Line indeed runs past these graves,[43] there is little doubt that they are connected with it. This would imply that the cemetery not only boasts an important meridian, but also that the priests of the church had been aware of it and left all sorts of clues about it. Another grave to be found here — which later on proves to be of great significance — is that of Paul-Urbain de Fleury, the son of Paul F. Vincent de Fleury and Gabrielle, Marie de Blanchefort’s daughter.

According to Au pays de la reine blanche, the church of Rennes-les-Bains protects the ‘heart’ of the Rose Line. This ‘heart’ in all probability alludes to a point where the Rose Line and a line of latitude cross, which would imply this line of latitude is the other line the poet is referring to. The next landmark implicitly mentioned in the poem is therefore to be found here in the Rennes-les-Bains cemetery.

5.6 Mirror images

One now expects the poet to enter the church of Rennes-les-Bains. He does, after all, mention the 14 ‘stones’ marked with a cross, which undoubtedly refers to the 14 Stations of the Cross. The Stations in the Rennes-les-Bains church, however, do not include any of the peculiarities found in the Rennes-le-Chateau church, which means it is rather the latter that is relevant at this point. One therefore has to position oneself in front of the Stations of the Cross in the church of Rennes-le-Château — which forms part of the ‘all directions’ one is told to look in.

The poet switches very cleverly between the two churches of these towns. Just as one thinks one is supposed to enter the church of Rennes-les-Bains, he actually has the one in Rennes-le-Château in mind. He clearly had no intention whatsoever of making this a walk in the park.

Just as the poet metaphorically refers to the landmarks on the route as stones, so he also calls the Stations of the Cross in the church of Rennes-le-Chateau ‘stones’. There is therefore a parallel to be drawn between the route in the Rennes-les-Bains area and the Stations of the Cross in the Rennes-le-Château church. This emphasises precisely what one discovered earlier, namely that he calls the route a pilgrimage as an allusion to the Way of the Cross as depicted in the Rennes-le-Château church. The route outside the church of Rennes-les-Bains therefore corresponds to the Way of the Cross inside the church of Rennes-le-Château. These two are therefore mirror images, as it were.

One now starts noticing exactly to what extent the poet’s description of the route tallies with the inside of the Rennes-le-Chateau church. As was mentioned earlier, the description of the poet’s friend standing on Blanchefort corresponds in detail to the first Station of the Cross in this church. The high pulpit directly to the right of the first Station could certainly also be indicative of this look-out on top of Blanchefort.

In the description of the route past Roque Nègre he mentions having to chop down vegetation. This tallies with the depiction in the second Station of a boy dressed in brown, gathering pieces of wood. In the following stanza, wherein a flight is mentioned, the Pontet Fountain is the next landmark, as it is the only place in the region that can be directly linked to Sigebert.

Just after the second Station of the Cross is a statue of St. Anthony the Hermit, who, just like the boy in the second Station, is dressed in brown. The question is whether one can link St. Anthony to the Pontet Fountain — or maybe rather to Sigebert.

Astonishingly, there are indeed two things pertaining to St. Anthony that relate to Sigebert. The first is that the holy day of St. Anthony falls on the 17th January — the day (in 681) Sigebert had allegedly been brought to Rhedae. The second is that, while St. Anthony is regarded as the prince of all hermits, Sigebert (as well as his next two descendants, Sigebert V and Bera III) was also referred to as the ‘hermit prince’ as a result of his living in a cave on a hill close to Rhedae. It would therefore seem that the ornamentation between the Stations of the Cross in the church of Rennes-le-Chateau also relate to the route!

In the fifth stanza, one discovers the next landmark on the route to be the heart of the Rose Line in the cemetery behind the church of Rennes-les-Bains. The rose-decorated iron cross in the vestibule of this church could also allude to this heart. In addition, the fourth Station of the Cross is dominated by rose colours: Mary Magdalene is dressed in apricot-coloured clothes with shades of pink in the creases, and Jesus’ mother is wearing a light rosy pink dress.

Next to the fourth Station is a statue of St. Germaine of Pibrac, holding a bunch of roses in her dress. She was a shepherdess of the Languedoc who was raised to sainthood in 1867. Her story corresponds greatly to (and is probably just another version of) that of St. Roseline, whose holy day is also on the 17th January. St. Germaine’s day of remembrance, the 16th June, is also the day on which the French nun Marguerite Marie Alacoque had the vision that led to her worship of the ‘Sacred Heart’. This, too, could be related to the heart of the Rose Line.

Roses, St. Roseline and the Sacred Heart, all related to the Rose Line, can therefore be linked to St. Germaine. The similarities between the landmarks on the route and the ornamentation in the church of Rennes-le-Chateau are therefore unmistakable. This means one can again and again search the Stations of the Cross and the ornamentation for clues — precisely as the poet suggests.

5.7 The circle

After being led to the heart of the Rose Line in the Rennes-les-Bains cemetery, one is now lured to the ‘circle’. This reference is not merely to this shape — it has a bearing on another spot just a short distance from the cemetery, on the outskirts of Rennes-les-Bains, called Le Cercle (‘The Circle’). In view of the fact that compasses are mentioned, it would seem that this place is to be used as the centre of the circle one has to draw. Boudet alleges that this very spot is the centre of the stone circle that is to be found in the area.

To get to Le Cercle, one walks in a southerly direction from the church of Rennes-les-Bains down the main road. Right on the outskirts, a narrow road branches off slantwise to the right. Following this, one turns left just before the last stone building on the left-hand side.

Entering the house’s yard, one immediately sees Le Cercle — an ancient stone circle of about 7 m in diameter. The house to the left was built on top of some of these stones, which are visible at the bottom of the wall to the left of the front door. Some of the other stones are only just visible above the surface.

The poet compares this stone circle to a ring and a crown. This brings to mind the ring of Solomon, which is also associated with a treasure. The crown does, after all, have a royal connotation. According to legend, Solomon appointed the devil Asmodeus as keeper of the cave in which his treasure was hidden. One day, the king lost his seal ring, upon which the devil refused him entrance to the cave. It was only after Solomon had found the ring again that he could drive the devil away.

In accordance with this tale, the devil does indeed also figure in our story — and he has an armchair just a short distance from Le Cercle!

Figuring out how the stone circle could be symbolic of Solomon’s seal ring is the easy part. The ‘seal’ of Solomon, which is also the symbol of the poet’s friend, does, after all, have a circle as base, with all the points of the hexagram on it. One therefore has a circle here that could easily be drawn on a map, with Le Cercle as the centre thereof. This corresponds to the poet’s advice about using a pair of compasses.

What strikes one is that the two geometrical patterns that are implied in this stanza, namely two lines crossing, and a circle, correspond to the two geometrical patterns on the coded texts, namely lines that cross each other, and a hexagram. This could certainly imply that the geometrical patterns on the texts are related to the last two landmarks in the area, namely the heart of the Rose Line and Le Cercle. The latter should, by the looks of it, serve as the base for drawing the seal of Solomon (a hexagram).

Besides the ring and crown, the poet also mentions the diadem of the queen of ‘Le Castel’. The ring, crown, diadem and queen are all indicative of royalty.

This is not the first time one hears about a queen. The poet already in the third stanza refers to the ‘BEAUTY’ and ‘QUEEN’, both in upper case. In the fourth stanza, he follows it up with another reference to the ‘BEAUTY’, and here, in the fifth, with another to the ‘QUEEN’. As in the rest of the poem, everything is in perfect dualistic harmony.

The queen is of ‘Le Castel’, which either refers to a place called Le Castel, or alludes to a castle. It also calls to mind the area where our queen Blanche came from, namely Castille — a name that also has a bearing on a castle. It is furthermore reminiscent of the castle where the ‘sleeping BEAUTY’ lies.

The ‘QUEEN’ and the ‘BEAUTY’ most likely refer to different aspects of the same female figure, and ‘Le Castel’ is where one is headed. It would seem, then, that the poet is drawing more attention to the fact that the ‘solution’ of the bigger picture will only be clear once one has reached this ‘castle’.

Hope maketh not ashamed.

40.     Marie, F. 1978. Bagneux: S.R.E.S.

41.     The western walls of these churches provide the best reference lines.

42.     Boudet, H. 1886. La vraie langue celtique ... Carcassonne. Reissue: 1984. Belisane: Nice, p. 231.

43.     The grave of Jean Vie lies on 2°19'11.7"E, which I took as the Rose Line.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: 4. With Measured Steps

Grâce à lui, désormais à pas mesurés et d'un oeil sur, je puis découvrir les soixante-quatre pierres dispersées du cube parfait que les Frères de la BELLE du bois noir échappant à la poursuite des usurpateurs, avaient semées en route quant ils s'enfuirent du Fort blanc.

Thanks to him, from now on with measured steps and a sure eye, I am able to discover the sixty-four dispersed stones of the perfect cube that the Brothers of the BEAUTY of the black wood, escaping the pursuit of usurpers, scattered along the way while they were fleeing from the white Fort.

As in the previous stanza, the poet still draws much attention to the route he is following. From this stanza it appears that he has made good progress, as he has all of a sudden gone from desperately having to chop down vegetation to striding along with measured steps and a sure eye. The reason for this seems to be that he has begun to discover clues. The clues one needs are therefore not only hidden in the two Latin texts, but also en route in the area – which is good news at this point.

4.1 The route from Blanchefort

The poet states that he is able to see scattered stones somewhere along the way. By mentioning this, he is making sure one knows exactly which route he is following. If one fails to see any of the landmarks he reveals, it stands to reason one has no chance whatsoever of reaching the destination.

The ‘dispersed stones’ lie on the route from the ‘white Fort’ – indicating Blanchefort, as was mentioned earlier, as it literally means ‘white fort’. The question, however, is in which direction?

Fig. 10. A menhir along the route

Resorting to Boudet’s book, one discovers that he specifically mentions menhirs (upright rocks) along the road from Blanchefort: ‘At the end of Roko Négro one sees again very clearly the different foundations which served to support the menhirs, but they are overturned and dispersed here and there on the flanks of the mountain, in the greatest disorder.’[35] The poet therefore undoubtedly has in mind exactly what Boudet is referring to here.

So for the first time, one knows exactly in which direction the route goes – in that of Roque Nègre, which is also the direction in which the poet’s friend was staring. Today, this is where the footpath from Blanchefort runs, so one can simply follow it. One is therefore walking in a southerly direction, on the way to the town of Rennes-les-Bains, which lies further down at the bottom of the valley.

4.2 A flight along this route

The poet also points out that this is the way a certain group once fled along to escape ‘the pursuit of usurpers’. It was while the ‘Brothers of the BEAUTY of black wood’ were fleeing that they scattered these stones along the way.

As almost everything in the poem has absolutely no bearing on anything ordinary, this was most likely also an unusual flight. Another fact supporting this assumption is that there are old mines close to Blanchefort wherein an important treasure had allegedly been hidden earlier. The poet could therefore be referring to the time when this treasure had been fled with from the Blanchefort area. Hence, the route he is indicating is nothing less than the way along which this treasure had been transported to a new hiding place. This, in turn, would mean that the riddle embedded in the poem contains the clues as to where the treasure had been taken.

The reference to the stones along the way therefore possibly relates to this fleeing with the treasure. It could be that the stones allude to the landmarks that had been specifically placed to guide one to the new hiding place, therefore representing the directions to be followed through the area.

The poet furthermore states that the ‘dispersed stones’ form a perfect cube when put together. Each ‘stone’ therefore contains a core element of the whole, or an invaluable clue in finding one’s way. As was mentioned earlier, the inner front cover of Le serpent rouge indeed shows a person squatting, deep in thought, in front of scattered ‘dice’, with the caption: ‘Discover the sixty-four stones one by one.’

4.3 The time of Sigebert

Throughout the poem, the poet draws on different ‘layers’ of meaning. In other words, in mentioning an object, or by using an image, he more often than not refers to something related to the object or image. The escape in this stanza could therefore be connected with not only one specific escape, but a few.

There are several flights in the rich history of the region that could be relevant, some of which occurred in the distant past, and others that more specifically bear on the detail in the poem. The events in the distant past are, however, significant, as they put later events in perspective.

The earliest flight that the poet could have in mind, is that with the young Sigebert. Although this son of Dagobert II is not mentioned in earlier sources and therefore does not feature in generally accepted genealogies, his name is characteristically Merovingian; three of these kings have borne this name. However, he had been taken up as Sigebert IV in the genealogy in the document Le serpent rouge, which means the poet considers this version of history to be the truth. According to Jania MacGillivray, Sigebert is first mentioned in church records from the 16th century in the French National Library, as well as in 17th-century priestly documents of St. Vincent de Paul.

It is said that, following the murder of his father on the 23rd December, 679, in the woods close to Stenay, the three year-old Sigebert had been rescued by his half-sister Irmine, eight years his senior. A warrior (‘le Bellison’) called Mérovée Levi, a loyal subject of Dagobert II, subsequently rescued Sigebert from the clutches of Charles Martel and brought him to Rhedae. This Levi was apparently married to the sister of Bera II, the ruler of Rhedae and father of Sigebert’s mother, Gisélle. Like all the Merovingian kings, this Levi was also of Sicambrian descent.

The poet is therefore possibly referring to this flight with Sigebert from the ‘usurper’ Charles Martel. Although Charles Martel himself never went as far as dethroning the Merovingians, his son Pepin III did and subsequently became King of the Franks with support from the Catholic Church.

There seems to be evidence of the said flight with the young Sigebert to Rhedae. In the 42nd edition of the bulletin of the Le Cercle de Saint Dagobert II (June, 1996) – which I also stumbled upon during my visit to the Dagobert II Museum in Stenay – the author André Roth mentions a very old parchment that had earlier been in the possession of the monks of Orval in Belgium. After the French Revolution, the Black Sisters of the Chapel of Mary Magdalene in Mons, Belgium, placed it in the skull of Dagobert II for safekeeping. This ‘valuable parchment’ was written by Irmine, the daughter of Dagobert II and abbess of the monastery of Oeren. It tells of the rescue of her half-brother, Sigebert, who had subsequently been brought to this monastery before being taken to Rhedae, the capitol of the Razès, where he arrived on the 17th January, 681. There is also mention of the ‘Merovingian treasure’, which, according to Généalogie des rois mérovingiens, could refer to the treasure Dagobert II had sent to the Razès.

It appears that this parchment had actually been seen by several persons. On the 7th October, 1912, the bishop of Tournai’s secretary, the canon Cramme, inspected and copied it under the supervision of the Black Sisters and their head, mother Antoinette Richard. On the 31st December, 1941, the envoy of the Prince of Croy, Monsignor Delmette, visited Mons to take a photograph of the parchment as well as a part of the skull. Mother Bernadette de Haye apparently states in a letter that this parchment had later been taken by the Prince of Croy.

It is uncertain in whose keeping this parchment is today. If everything that is said about the parchment is indeed true, there can be no doubt as to the continued existence of the Merovingian bloodline. These events would then clearly be crucial in interpreting the later events in the Razès. However, like with the other parchments, one would have to wait until the experts have examined it before any valid conclusion could be drawn.

Besides this apparently invaluable document, other earlier documents also appear to refer to Sigebert, one of them being a deed of foundation dating from 718, mentioning ‘Sigebert, count of Rhedae, and his wife, Magdala’. This deed concerns the founding by Sigebert of the monastery of St. Martin of Albières. Upon an enquiry by a member of the University of Lille to the author of Le cercle d’Ulysse (who refers to this deed) about where this document could be found, the latter reportedly said it was kept in the French National Archives, but that it had not been categorised.

There is also the possibility that this deed – or another deed – relates to an incident in which Sigebert had been involved. According to the author of the document Au pays de la reine blanche (1967) (‘In the Land of the White Queen’), Sigebert and his son, Sigebert V, made a donation by means of a deed to the bishop Arbogaste as an expression of gratitude. This followed an incident at the Blésia fountain (Pontet) when Sigebert IV had been wounded in the gut during a pigsticking, upon which the bishop had come to his aid, saving his life. The abbé Pichon apparently also refers to this incident in his book Les diplômes mérovingiens.

After Sigebert IV died of a wound to the head in 758, he was buried in the crypt in the Rennes-le-Château church. The entrance to this burial chamber is said to have been covered by an engraved stone, the so-called Knight’s Stone, depicting a man and presumably a child with him on a horse. According to Les descendants Mérovingiens, this stone commemorates the flight with Sigebert to Rhedae. Saunière removed this stone. Later, a skull was reportedly discovered in the chamber, which could have been that of Sigebert.

4.4 Blésia (Pontet)

The fact that the poet refers to a flight at this point, which clearly also bears on the flight with Sigebert, could mean that he has a landmark that is connected with Sigebert in mind. The Blésia Fountain (or Pontet), where he had been wounded, indeed lies only a short distance further from Roque Nègre next to the tarred road.

The name Blésia had possibly been derived from ‘blesser’ (‘to wound’), which could also bear on the pigsticking incident. As was mentioned earlier, it may also be connected with ‘bles’ (‘gold’).

Following the footpath from Roque Nègre, it forks a short distance further on. The one path runs along the escarpment to Rennes-les-Bains, and the other down to the tarred road. If one takes the latter, one passes the Blésia Fountain on the way to Rennes-les-Bains.

4.5 The Sun King

Although the flight with the young Sigebert to Rhedae is an underlying theme in this stanza, the flight the poet is actually referring to here dates from a later period in history. This took place when one of the ‘usurpers’ – referring to the French dynasties after the Merovingians had been dethroned – apparently attempted to get his hands on the treasure of Blanchefort and the ‘Brothers’ hastily fled with it.

One of the French kings who was not only very interested in the Razès area, but evidently also in the treasure, and who sent one of his subjects searching for something that had allegedly been hidden here, was Louis XIV, the Sun King. His minister of finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, apparently searched and dug all over the place, among others at Blanchefort – exactly where, according to the poet, the treasure had been moved from. The fact that Colbert returned empty-handed is in keeping with the assumption that the safekeepers of the treasure had gotten away with it in time. It would therefore make sense to take a closer look at these events.

4.6 The brothers of the beauty of black wood

According to the poet, those fleeing from the ‘usurpers’ were the ‘Brothers of the BEAUTY of black wood’ – the same ones who scattered the ‘stones’ along the way. It was therefore the persons who escaped with the treasure and who were responsible for compiling the directions that future generations would need to be able to find the new hiding place.

To find out who these ‘Brothers’ are, one must obviously first determine who ‘the BEAUTY of black wood’ is. This is also not the first time the poet refers to a beauty: In the previous stanza, he mentions the residence of the sleeping beauty where he is headed.

‘[T]he BEAUTY of black wood’ may very well allude to statues made of black wood. In La vraie langue celtique, Boudet refers to such a statue of the Virgin in Marseille. It appears that this Black Virgin is connected with an alternative tradition in the Catholic Church that had been kept secret throughout the centuries. In The Cult of the Black Virgin [36], Ean Begg suggests that it represents a pagan goddess under a new banner. Some experts indeed regard the oldest madonna in the world, the Brown Virgin of the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome, as a statue of Isis.

According to Deloux and Brétigny [37], the Black Madonna of Blois, which was honoured there up until the revolution, is the ‘eternal Isis’ honoured by the initiates of the Prieuré de Sion. To top it all, Pierre Plantard himself stated that the Black Virgin is Isis, and that she is called ‘Notre-Dame de Lumière’ (‘Our Lady of Light’).

If the ‘BEAUTY of black wood’ does indeed refer to the Black Virgin, the ‘Brothers’ who are associated with her are most probably none other than the brothers of the secret Prieuré de Sion – which is reportedly also called ‘the ship of Isis’!

Yet another very interesting fact is that the biggest enemy of Louis XIV and his first minister, cardinal Mazarin, was the secret order, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement (‘Order of the Holy Sacrament’). According to the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, this group ‘conformed almost perfectly to the image of the Prieuré de Sion’ [38]. Their ‘centre of operations’ was the St. Sulpice Church in Paris. (The mother church of St. Sulpice, St.-Germain-des-Près, was apparently built on an earlier temple of Isis.)

4.7 The tombstones of Marie de Blanchefort

According to an article in the Vaincre of September 1989, some of the prominent families of the Razès were directly or indirectly involved with the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement. This would imply that they were the ones protecting the interests of the Compagnie in the south. It is therefore quite possible that these interests relate to the ‘secret’ of the Hautpoul-Blanchefort family, and even to a treasure hidden in the area. This would mean that these families were the ones responsible for moving the treasure in the time of Louis XIV. It therefore stands to reason that they would also have been responsible for compiling the directions to the new hiding place.

Enter Marie de Blanchefort, who belonged to the mentioned families of the Razès and who figures very prominently in the Rennes-le-Château mystery. On her tombstones appeared information that one later on discovers is indispensable in decoding the hidden secret message in the second text, which most probably relates to the hiding place of the treasure mentioned in the first text. This would imply that it is the exact same treasure which Louis XIV had been after.

Unfortunately, the writing on Marie de Blanchefort’s tombstones does not exist anymore, as Saunière had deliberately removed it. However, it is said to have been published in a book by Eugène Stublein entitled Pierres gravées du Languedoc (1884) (‘Engraved stones of the Languedoc’), but of which not one single copy is apparently still in existence. In 1962, extracts from this book were apparently published under the name of abbé Joseph Courtauly. As with many of the other documents related to Le serpent rouge, the true author of this writing is most likely Pierre Plantard or Philippe de Chérisey. Exactly from where either of them would have obtained this information is not clear, but as Henry Lincoln points out in The Holy Place, at least one of these epitaphs appeared in a leaflet written by E. Tisseyre entitled Excursion du 25 juin 1905 à Rennes-le-Château (‘Excursion of the 25th June, 1905, to Rennes-le-Château).

Fig. 11. The tombstones of Marie de Blanchefort

4.8 The second Latin text

As was just mentioned, the secret message in the second text can only be deciphered with the aid of the information on Marie de Blanchefort’s tombstones. The poet also refers to this second text when stating it is thanks to the ‘manuscript’ of his friend that it is now easier to find his way.

As was also mentioned earlier, deciphering this message is an entirely different story. As it involves a highly intricate procedure, it would be virtually impossible to decode the message without the input of someone who has knowledge of this procedure. Philippe de Chérisey somehow gained access to it, but clearly did not know how to apply it. He was blissfully under the impression that the current 26-letter alphabet could be used, whereas only the old French alphabet without the w yields the correct results. The exact procedure – in all probability supplied by Pierre Plantard – can be found in an appendix to Henry Lincoln’s book The Holy Place. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe also provide a very clear exposition of it in their book, Secrets of Rennes-le-Chateau [39].

The writing in the second text is much more compact than that in the first, and the text itself is written in block-form. Close to the bottom right is a peculiar symbol with ‘NO’ and ‘IS’ written on either side, which spells ‘NOIS’ – the inverse of ‘Sion’. There is also an N above and an upside-down A beneath this symbol. Right at the bottom, separate from the main body of the text, are an additional two lines. Each of these consists of six words, all separated by either a full stop or a tiny cross. Lastly, there are two odd roselike symbols in the centre right at the top and right at the bottom of the entire text (see Figure 12).

Fig. 12. The second Latin text

Upon closer examination, one discovers that after every sixth letter in the Latin Biblical text, another letter had been inserted. There are 140 of these letters altogether, which are clearly those containing the secret message. An additional eight very tiny letters have been inserted randomly in the text. Put together, these letters spell ‘rex mundi’, which is Latin for ‘king of the world’. Contrary to the secret message in the first Latin text, which states that the mentioned treasure belongs to Dagobert II and to Sion, these words imply that the treasure ultimately belongs to the ‘king of the world’, who, according to the compiler(s), will apparently come from the Plantard family line. Over and above the Messianic connotations of these words it is therefore implied that the treasure is of such value that only the ‘king of the world’ would have a right to it.

One cannot help but wonder whether this hints at the fact that the discovery of the temple treasures of Jerusalem would play a role in confirming the kingship of such a messianic figure.

4.9 Deciphering the second secret message

Right, here we go.

The 140 letters inserted in the Biblical text are divided into two groups – 64 at the beginning and 64 at the end, with the remaining 12 in between. The number 64 immediately calls to mind the ‘sixty-four dispersed stones’ mentioned in this stanza. One later on discovers that this number is also indispensable in solving the riddle. The 12 letters in the middle are subsequently omitted from the cipher, which leaves a total of 128.

These 128 letters are then systematically transformed to other letters by means of two key phrases – which are to be found on Marie de Blanchefort’s tombstones. The first key phrase is compiled from letters on the vertical tombstone, which seem quite odd and even incorrect, namely T, M, R, O, e, e, e, p. However, when rearranged, these letters spell ‘MORT épéé’, which means ‘death, sword’ – the exact two words which the poet emphasises in the previous stanza. The second key phrase consists of all 119 letters on the vertical tombstone, as well as the letters P and S and the words ‘PRAE-CUM’ on her horizontal tombstone – which once again give a total of 128 letters.

What immediately strikes one about the first key phrase is that ‘épéé’ (‘sword’) is an unusually bad choice for a codeword. As Ted Cranshaw put it in his article: ‘Of all possible four-letter keywords in the French language, épéé is the worst.’ However, it may very well be that the person who had devised the code had deliberately chosen this very word due to its symbolic meaning. As was mentioned earlier, one edition of the Circuit also has a sword on the cover (see Figure 6). The emphasis on a sword could allude to revenge – a theme that recurs later on in the poem when the poet describes the red serpent as ‘red with anger’. This serves as one more reason that it is highly unlikely that the person responsible for the encoding had gone about it just for fun.

Now for the mentioned transformation. In the first step of the procedure, the key phrase ‘MORT épéé’ is written repeatedly above all 128 letters. The numerical value of each letter in the 25-letter alphabet is what is crucial here: a = l, c= 3, e = 5, and so on. The numerical values of each of the two letters on top of each other are then added to yield the numerical value of a third letter, e.g. 1 + 19 = 20. (As the relevant alphabet only consists of 25 letters, 26 is again regarded as 1.) On completion, one then has a new series of 128 letters that correspond to these acquired values.

This procedure is repeated with the second key phrase, namely the 128 letters on both Marie de Blanchefort’s tombstones. These letters are now written above the acquired 128 letters for a further transformation, but this time the key is written backwards – in other words, the last letter is written first, the second last letter second, and so on. The numerical values of each of the two letters on top of each other are then, once again, added to finally yield a new series of 128 letters.

For the final step in the decoding, one needs two chess-boards. Just as 64 represents the number of blocks in a cube (as the poet states), there are 64 blocks on a chess-board (8 x 8). This is why the numbers 64, as well as 128 (64 x 2), are so significant.

The 128 letters acquired by means of the transformations are now unpacked on the blocks of the two chess-boards. Next, a closed knight’s tour (see Figure 13) is used to at last unravel the secret message. This knight’s tour entails the letters being taken out one after the other according to the moves of a knight on the board. When the knight has landed on every single block, the tour is completed.

Having performed the knight’s tour on both chess-boards, one should finally have the deciphered message!

This specific knight’s tour, devised by the skilled Swiss mathematician Leonhard Paul Euler, reveals a striking geometrical pattern, in which a shape partly resembling a pentagram and partly a hexagram becomes visible. Besides the fact that the hexagram is highlighted in the poem, it also appears on the Hautpoul-Blanchefort coat of arms.

Fig. 13. The knight's tour to be used

The hidden secret message in the second Latin text reads:

‘BERGERE PAS DE TENTATION QUE POUSSIN TENIERS GARDENT LA CLEF PAX DCLXXXI PAR LA CROIX ET CE CHEVAL DE DIEU J’ACHEVE CE DAEMON DE GARDIEN A MIDI POMMES BLEUES.’

This could be translated as: ‘SHEPHERDESS NO TEMPTATION THAT POUSSIN TENIERS HOLD THE KEY PEACE 681 BY THE CROSS AND THIS HORSE OF GOD I COMPLETE THIS DEMON GUARDIAN AT MIDDAY BLUE APPLES.’

There is, however, one more thing: The fact that a geometrical pattern is to be drawn according to certain pointers in the first text, leads one to suspect the same holds true for this one. Upon closer examination, it soon becomes clear that some kind of pattern has indeed been hidden in the text: If one connects the roselike symbols at the top and bottom of the text, then produces another line through the two tiny crosses in the two separate lines at the bottom, these two lines intersect more or less in the centre of the parchment.

The implications of these geometrical patterns are as yet an enigma, but progressing on the route, one discovers how brilliantly and ingeniously they have been devised.

 35.     Boudet, H. 1886. La vraie langue celtique ... Carcassonne. Reissue: 1984. Belisane: Nice, p. 231.

36.     Begg, E. 1985. London: Arkana,

37.     Deloux, J. & Brétigny, J. 1982. Rennes-le-Château. Capitale secrète de I’histoire de France. Paris: Editions Atlas.

38.     Baigent, M., Leigh, R. & Lincoln, H. 1982. London: Jonathan Cape, p. 183.

39.     Fanthorpe, L. & P. 1992. York Beach: Samuel Weiser.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: 3. Finding the Way

Dans mon pélérinage éprouvant, je tentais de me frayer à l'épée une voie à travers la végétation inextricable des bois, je voulais parvenir à la demeure de la BELLE endormie en qui certains poètes voient la REINE d'un royaume disparu. Au désespoir de retrouver le chemin, les parchemins de cet Ami furent pour moi le fil d'Ariane.

During my testing pilgrimage, I attempted to clear a path with the sword through the impenetrable vegetation of the woods. I wanted to reach the residence of the sleeping BEAUTY in whom certain poets saw the QUEEN of a vanished kingdom. Desperate to find the way, the parchments of this Friend were for me the thread of Ariadne.

In this stanza, things start getting tricky. Sure enough the poet confirms there is a route to be followed through the area of Rennes-les-Bains — which he now terms a ‘pilgrimage’ — but immediately after that he fires the first of the riddly clues. Although he reiterates that his friend’s parchments would eventually lead one to the ultimate goal, one gets the uneasy feeling that words like ‘testing’ and ‘desperate’ are an indication of things to come.

3.1 The Rennes-les-Bains region

When driving from Carcassonne in the south of France to the Razès, one takes Route 118 south, which runs through Limoux and Alet-les-Bains. The road winds all along the Aude River, and here and there, caves and holes in the rocks flanking the river are visible. As this is wine country, vineyards meet the eye most of the way. Strangely, one advertising sign posted every couple of kilometres shows a grapevine in the form of a serpent.

Just past Alet-les-Bains, to one’s left, rises Castel-Nègre, where once was the Hautpoul family’s enormous wine-cellar. Close to Couiza one turns onto the road going east in the direction of Coustaussa, Serres and Arques. A few kilometres further, shortly before Serres, one takes the turn-off to the south to eventually reach the Sals Valley wherein Rennes-les-Bains lies.

The entrance to the valley is marked by a deep ravine. To one’s left is the mountain Cardou, with distinct white rock formations on the slopes called Lampos. The white rock formation right at the top on the right-hand side is Blanchefort. The striking black rock formation a little further on, quite a bit lower down the slope on the same side of the road, is Roque Nègre. When one is halfway between these two formations, the Sals River makes a sharp curve, which one crosses before continuing along the stream.

Somewhat further down the road one crosses a bridge, next to which the ruins of warmbaths called the Bains Doux are found. The water from the fountain rising here is hot and links up with the Sals River in a cloud of steam.

Just around the next bend to the right, the picturesque town of Rennes-les-Bains lies in full view. Like all the small towns in the south of France, it has a peaceful, timeless atmosphere with charming old buildings lining either side of the main road. About midway through the town, the square is to one’s left, which also hides the entrance to the little church where Boudet had been priest. One block further down the road, one takes a right turn to the parking lot against the hill, from where the area is explored on foot.

To get to Blanchefort, one takes the hiking trail starting not too far from the parking area. Walking up the hill in a northerly direction with the narrow tarred road, one soon finds the directions to it. It takes roughly 60-90 minutes to reach Blanchefort. The footpath runs gradually higher up the plateau until it finally delivers one at the top.

Walking along this path is an exceptionally pleasant experience. As quite a bit of natural forest is to be found here, the area is vivid green, with fir-cones and small, pretty red fruit strewn all along the way. In places the forest is so dense one feels completely secluded, the smell of nature an overwhelming presence. All the while, the murmuring of the Sals River keeps one’s footsteps company.

Shortly before one reaches Blanchefort, the path takes a sharp turn to the left, from where a very unobtrusive little path leads one down to Roque Nègre. This rock formation has an intense dark brown colour and is camouflaged by thick bush. As it has fairly steep sides, I would not recommend climbing it without the proper gear.

Reaching Blanchefort, the first challenge is to clamber up to the top. On a day when the wind is strong, one keeps seeing oneself freefalling from the rock-face while clawing up the rough surface. There are, however, other spots that provide an easier climb.

Once at the top, one has an exceptional view of the valley. It is striking how vast the area actually is. The ruins of an old fort are still visible, exactly as Boudet describes: ‘On the left bank of the Sals ... the natural point of this rock (the crag of Blancfort) has been raised in the middle ages, to allow the construction of a fort serving as an observation post. There remain some ruins of masonry testifying to the existence of this fort’ [30]. To the south, Roque Nègre is clearly visible lower down the slope and on the horizon one can make out the reef of the Serrat plateau behind Rennes-les-Bains.

This is indeed the place where the poet’s friend is standing ‘as a column on his white rock, looking attentively towards the south, beyond the black rock’.

3.2 A pilgrimage

Right at the beginning of this stanza, the poet mentions a ‘pilgrimage’. It is significant that he links the route through the area with specifically such a journey. In order to keep up with the clues which he provides, it stands to reason one has to determine exactly which pilgrimage he has in mind.

The most famous Christian pilgrimage is the one to Jerusalem and walking along the 14 Stations of the Cross to the grave — the Via Dolorosa of Christ. It could therefore be that the poet is alluding to the Way of the Cross and the 14 Stations thereof, which are depicted in all Catholic churches. The logical place to search for this would then be in the Church of Mary Magdalene in Rennes-le-Château.

The 14 Stations of the Cross in the Rennes-le-Château church indeed present quite a few surprises, not the least of which is that they contain outlandish peculiarities. Indeed, upon closer examination of the first Station, one discovers that it in actual fact relates to the geographical directions in this stanza of the poem!

In this Station (see Figure 8), Jesus (on the left) is depicted standing in front of Pilate (on the right), who is sitting on a raised stone surface that looks like a platform. Jesus is dressed in white. Next to Pilate is a small black male holding a basin with water in which Pilate is washing his hands in ‘innocency’. Between Jesus and Pilate, in the background, there is a prominent figure; possibly the high priest. He is dressed in a green outer robe and a yellow undergarment, and he is holding his right hand in the air with his index finger pointed. Between Pilate and the black man, right underneath the water basin, is an ornamental golden lion.

Fig. 8. The first Station of the Cross in the Rennes-le-Château church

What strikes one immediately is that the depiction of Jesus and the black man correspond very closely to Blanchefort and Roque Nègre: Jesus is dressed in white — Blanchefort is a white rock; the small person is black — Roque Nègre is (almost) black. In addition, the raised stone part that looks like a platform could be indicative of a rock formation(s). What is more — Jesus gazing fixedly past the black man is strongly reminiscent of the poet’s friend standing on Blanchefort staring past Roque Nègre to the south.

There are, however, even more similarities. The man in the yellow undergarment with his right hand pointing in the air corresponds exactly to the yellow rock, ‘pointu’, between Blanchefort and Roque Nègre. The golden lion is also represented in the area: Just as it is positioned beneath the water basin at the black man’s feet, there is a fountain close to the foot of Roque Nègre that is said to have once been called Blésia – and ‘bles’ is a slang word for ‘gold’! Today, this fountain is called Pontet.

One thing is for certain: The depiction of the first Station of the Cross corresponds in detail to the topography of the Blanchefort area — and this tallies exactly with the description in the poem. It would therefore seem that the Stations of the Cross in the church of Rennes-le-Château are symbolic of the route through the Rennes-les-Bains area described in the poem. This would explain why the poet refers to his journey as a ‘pilgrimage’!

It is noticeable that two mysterious things concerning the Razès that date back to the end of the 19th century are now relevant, namely Boudet’s book La vraie langue celtique and Saunière’s restoration of the Church of Mary Magdalene, which represent the Rennes-les-Bains region through which the poet is trying to find his way, and the Stations of the Cross that mirror it respectively. It would seem, then, that Boudet’s book and Saunière’s ‘book’ (the ornamentation in the church) are parallels, and also somehow connected with the secret of the Hautpoul-Blanchefort family.

This discovery could be of enormous help in analysing the poem. If the Way of the Cross as portrayed in the Rennes-le-Château church represents the route through the Rennes-les-Bains area, some or all of the other Stations could also provide vital clues if one were to get stuck at some point.

The fact that the pilgrimage is wearying clearly alludes to the Way of the Cross, but it is certainly also indicative of the path through the vegetation. One can imagine that the area around Blanchefort was thickly wooded at the time that the poem was written and that the poet therefore did not have the luxury of walking along a hiking path. According to him, the vegetation is impenetrable, hence the need for a ‘sword’ to clear a path.

3.3 The sleeping beauty

The poet compares his experiences to a similar situation in the tale of the sleeping beauty. In this fantasy, the hero on horseback also has to chop open a way through dense vegetation and thorns to reach the beauty, who lies asleep in a castle overgrown with roses.

It is evident that the poet links the end of his route with this ‘residence’ of the sleeping beauty. He is therefore headed towards some or other ‘castle’ in the region. The fact that there is no sign of a castle in the vicinity of Rennes-les-Bains should, however, not mislead one. This is, after all, a riddle, so one most probably has to do with wordplay here.

According to the poem, certain poets saw in the sleeping beauty a queen of a vanished kingdom. Although there are quite a number of famous poets, and just as many queens of vanished kingdoms, the one queen who figures prominently in this area is Blanche of Castille. However, researchers disagree about exactly which Blanche the poet is alluding to — Blanche, the queen of France and mother of Louis IX, or Blanche, a Spanish queen who fled to this region.

It is said that Blanche, the queen of France, stayed over in Rennes-les-Bains to bathe in the hot springs. True or not, she is widely associated with this area in the time of the Albigensian crusade. It could be that she negotiated with certain rulers of the area about the documents allegedly hidden at Rennes-le-Château, as Jean Markale mentions in his book. It is reportedly also her seal that appears on one of the parchments that Saunière is said to have discovered.

Blanche, the queen of Castille in Spain, apparently fled here fearing for her life. She was the daughter of Pierre of Burgundy and was married to Alphonse XI. While staying in Pierre-Pertuse’s castle (Peyrepertuse), she spent most of her time in the chapel and in the vicinity of the castle, as Louis Fédié states in his book, Histoire du comté de Razès et du diocèse d’Alet [31] (‘History of the Countship of the Razès and the Diocese of Alet’). It is said that she one day dropped her silver ‘goblet’ while lost in thought and that the treasurer of the Fenouillède area south of Rhedae later gained possession of it. On this goblet was the coat of arms of Castille.

There is also the possibility that the name Blanche dates back even further and that it is connected with the ‘white goddess’. In 1898, a sculptured female head was found at Rennes-les-Bains, which the archivist René Descadeillas describes as follows: ‘This sculptured head could be of cult origin if it represents the face of a female deity.’[32] It had probably been part of a statue of a fountain or a river goddess.

In the end, though, ‘Blanche’ is but part of a fairytale, unconnected with any particular part of history. As Jean Markale puts it: ‘The White Queen, or the White Lady, is a translation of the fairy of folktales and the White Goddess of ancient mythological tales.’[33]

3.4 The ‘parchments’ hold the key

It stands to reason that one has to get through all the thorny parts in the poem to find one’s way to the end of the route. According to the poet, one can forget about ever reaching it without his friend’s ‘parchments’: ‘Desperate to find the way, the parchments of this Friend were for me the thread of Ariadne.’ As the thread of Ariadne in Greek mythology enabled Theseus to enter the labyrinth, slay the monstrous Minotaur with his sword and find his way back out again, so these two texts will apparently guide one through the riddle. They are therefore indispensable in solving the mystery of the Razès.

Looking at the first Latin text, the first thing that strikes one is that it is markedly shorter than the second one. At the top left is a small trianglelike symbol with an elegant M written above it. To the bottom right are the familiar letters PS, which most likely refer to the Rosicrucian Order, the Prieuré de Sion. A line starting at the bottom of the letter P curls over the PS from the left, ending at the bottom in front of the S. This could imply that the letters before P and S, namely OR, are also significant — and ‘or’ in French means ‘gold’!

Fig. 9. The first Latin text.

There are two short phrases slantways above the PS symbol that do not form part of the Biblical text, namely ‘REDIS BLES’ and ‘SOCIS SACERDOTIBUS’. ‘REDIS’ quite possibly refers to Rhedae, which could also be written as ‘Redes’. ‘BLES’, as was already mentioned, is a French slang word for ‘gold’ (although it actually means ‘grain’). ‘REDIS BLES’ therefore means ‘the gold of Rhedae’. “SOCIS SACERDOTIBUS’, again, means ‘for priests (or rather initiates) only’.

This text therefore concerns the gold of Rhedae, and expressly states that only initiates (of this PS — Prieuré de Sion) are allowed to have any knowledge of it.

In the main text, one immediately realises that certain letters are placed higher than the rest. Put together, these letters spell: ‘A DAGOBERT II ROI ET A SION EST LE TRESOR ET IL EST LA MORT’, which could be translated as: ‘This treasure belongs to King Dagobert II and to Sion, and it is death.’ Dagobert II was the Merovingian king indicated as the father of Sigebert IV, from whom the Plantards claim to be descended. This treasure would therefore also belong to them. Those unlawfully attempting to obtain possession of the treasure are apparently threatened with death.

There are furthermore a number of tiny crosses hidden in the text, which lead one to suspect that some or other geometrical pattern has to be drawn on the text. Henry Lincoln decided on a peculiar pentagram, as can be seen in his book The Holy Place, while the authors Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger opted for a hexagram, which appears in their book entitled The Tomb of God [34].

The hexagram has come under discussion before: It forms the famous seal of Solomon, which, according to the poet, is also his friend’s symbol. It would therefore make sense to take a closer look at specifically the hexagram.

Playing around with lines crossing the hexagram, one finds that, if a line is drawn from the PS to the small triangle underneath the M, the triangle forms an arrowhead. This is strongly reminiscent of the hexagram with the sword through it on the earlier mentioned cover of the Circuit (see Figure 6). What is more – the one side of the hexagram cuts through four letters, which spell ‘SION’!

These texts, therefore, unmistakably bear on a treasure, to wit one which concerns the ‘gold of Rhedae’. It is furthermore the initiates, clearly from a secret order called ‘Sion’, who have been watching over it. According to this text, however, the treasure ultimately belongs to the descendants of Dagobert II.

3.5 The sword and death

While it requires relatively little effort to decode the first text, the decoding of the second text is a completely different kettle of fish. This could mean that it may very well contain the directions to the hiding place of the treasure, or at the very least clues to finding one’s way through the Rennes-les-Bains area.

In this stanza, the poet uses two symbols as clues, namely a sword, wherewith the impenetrable vegetation is chopped out of the way, and the thread of Ariadne, which enabled Theseus to enter and exit the labyrinth. This labyrinth, however, is also a metaphor for the realm of the dead. The ‘sword’ and ‘death’ are therefore two keys to deciphering the knotty second text.

30, Boudet, H. 1886. La vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains. Carcassonne. Reissue: 1984. Belisane: Nice, p, 230.

31. 1880. Carcassonne: Lajoux Frères.

32. Descadellas, R. 1964. Rennes et ses derniers Seigneurs. Toulouse: Editions Privat.

33. Markale, J. 1986. Rennes-le-Château et l'énigme de l’or maudit. Paris: Pygmalion. Translation: Graham, J. 2004. The Church of Mary Magdalene. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, p56.

34. Andrews, R. & Schellenberger, P. 1996. The Tomb of God, The Body of Jesus and the Solution to a 2,000-year-old Mystery. London: Little, Brown and Company.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: 1. The Manuscripts

Comme ils sont étranges les manuscrits de cet Ami, grand voyageur de l'inconnu, ils me sont parvenus séparément, pourtant ils forment un tout pour celui qui sait que les couleurs de l'arc-en-ciel donnent l'unité blanche, ou pour l'Artiste qui sous son pinceau, fait des six teintes de sa palette magique, jaillir le noir.

How strange are the manuscripts of this Friend, great traveller of the unknown. To me they had the appearance of being separate; however, they form a whole for the one who knows that the colours of the rainbow give unified white, or for the Artist who under his paintbrush brings forth black from the six tints of his magic palette.

The author of the poem Le serpent rouge kicks off this extraordinary riddle by referring to certain manuscripts that belong to a friend of his. The mere fact that this is the very first thing he mentions is surely indicative of its significance. Later on in the poem, he refers to these manuscripts as 'parchments'.

There is little doubt that these manuscripts relate to the famous parchments the priest Bérenger Saunière is said to have discovered in the church of Mary Magdalene in Rennes-le-Château. These parchments allegedly bear on an invaluable secret, even referred to by some as a 'state secret'.

1.1 The parchments of Saunière

Since 1964, several documents besides Le serpent rouge were deposited in the French National Library in which the parchments Saunière had allegedly found are mentioned. From these documents it appears that Saunière, after discovering the parchments and on recommendation of the bishop of Carcassonne, Félix-Arsène Billard, took them to the priest Bieil, director of the St. Sulpice seminary in Paris at the time. Several of the parish priests in the Rennes-le-Château region most probably had direct or indirect ties with St. Sulpice, such as Eugène Grassaud, a close friend of Saunière's, who studied at this seminary.

While in Paris, Saunière apparently met the young Emile Hoffet at the home of a certain Ané - a cousin of the priest Bieil - whose house was the center of intense religious and spiritual activities in those days (see 1st Note). Although Hoffet was not yet a priest at that stage, he was already renowned for his expertise in the field of religious manuscripts. He apparently had a look at these parchments and also made copies of them for his own use. From the documents in the French National Library it appears that the young Hoffet could have been the connection between Saunière and the person who in time compiled these documents.

It appears that Hoffet subsequently showed his copies to a few trusted people, one of whom was Leo R. Schidlof. Schidlof, under the fictitious name of Henry Lobineau, compiled the first known document in which these parchments are mentioned. In this document, dated 1956, 'Lobineau' already mentions 'the parchments of the abbé Saunière, priest of Rennes-le-Château' in the title. The full title of this writing is Généalogie des rois mérovingiens et origine de diverse familles francaises et étrangères de souche mérovingienne, d'après l'abbé Pichon, le docteur Hervé et les parchemins de l'abbé Saunière, curé de Rennes-le-Château ('Genealogy of the Merovingian Kings and the Origins of Several French and Foreign Families of Merovingian descent, according to the abbé Pichon, Dr. Hervé and the Parchments of the abbé Saunière, priest of Rennes-le-Château').

It is possible that, after his death, Emile Hoffet's archives came into possession of Pierre Plantard and his friends, who would then have used them to compile different documents on the subject and subsequently deposited these in the French National Library. It is even possible that they also compiled the writing that is attributed to Henri Lobineau, or at least deposited this in the library as well. Philippe Toscan du Plantier, for instance, is mentioned as the 'compiler' of another document that also appeared under the name of Henry Lobineau, namely Dossiers secrets d'Henri Lobineau ('Secret Dossiers of Henri Lobineau'). According to the writer Guy Patton, the book Le trésor maudit de Rennes-le-Château [9] by Gérard de Sède, who is also associated with Pierre Plantard's circle of friends, 'most certainly [is] the result of access to the missing archives [of Hoffet]' [10].

That dubious information also appears in these documents can most probably be attributed to the fact that these writers did not have access to all the facts from the time of Bérenger Saunière. It is not an established fact, for example, that Saunière had ever been to Paris. Although it is said that he had signed the register for visiting priests who attended mass in St. Sulpice, other evidence shows that it could probably have been his brother, Alfred. It could be that Alfred acted as his envoy. In addition, questions also exist about the date of this alleged visit to Paris and whether Hoffet had indeed been present at the time.

1.2 Genealogies of the Merovingians

The parchments Saunière allegedly discovered seem to comprise mainly of different genealogies. Most of the documents attributed to Henry Lobineau also contain genealogies, some of which are dated March 1954.

As indicated in the title of the oldest of these documents, these are the genealogies of the claimed direct descendants of the early Merovingian monarchs and their families. Lobineau apparently also consulted the works of Dr. Hervé and the abbé Pichon (whose real name was Francois Dron) in order to write his own. The latter supposedly compiled his genealogies in 1809 by order of Napoleon. There is also a reference to a manuscript of the abbé Pichon titled Les diplômes mérovingiens (1796) ('The Sovereign Sealed Deeds of the Merovingians'), which is said to be kept in the castle of Lys' private library.

According to Dossiers secrets d'Henri Lobineau, as well as some of the other writings, the following documents were among the parchments Saunière is said to have found:

An     old parchment with information in the form of litanies of Notre Dame.     It is dated 1244 and bears the seal of queen Blanche of     Castille, the mother of the French king Louis IX. This parchment contains     the genealogy of the Merovingian bloodline through King Dagobert II, from     681 until 1244, when his direct descendent, Jean VII Plantard,     married Elisende of Gisors.

A parchment dated     1644, containing the continued Plantard bloodline into the 1600s. It also     contains the last will and testament of Francois-Pierre d'Hautpoul, the     baron of Rennes-le-Château, which was recorded on the     23rd November, 1644, by one Captier, the notary of the town of     Espéraza, near Rennes-le-Château.

In his book Rennes et ses derniers seigneurs [11] ('Rennes and her Last Rulers'), René Descadeillas states that in 1780, this last will and testament was in the possession of another notary of Espéraza, Jean-Baptiste Siau, who deemed it of such utmost importance that he refused to hand it over to members of the Hautpoul family themselves and kept it under lock and key in his own safe. In 1644, after the death of the last heir, the countship of Blanchefort also fell to the Hautpouls.

A last will and     testament, dated 1695, of Henry d'Hautpoul, the grandson of     Francois-Pierre. In 1732, Henri's son Francois d'Hautpoul, married Marie de     Nègre d'Ablès, the epitaph of whose gravestone was deliberately removed by     Saunière. There are six lines in this will that are linked to the     well-known church leader St. Vincent de Paul, a friend of the abbé     Jean-Jacques Olier, founder of the new St. Sulpice Church.

Two documents with     Latin texts. The first is compiled of three passages from the Bible: Luke     6: 1-5, Matthew 12: 1-8 and Mark 2: 23-28. The second contains a much     longer Biblical passage from the Gospel according to John - chapter 12:     1-12. According to Dossiers secrets d'Henri Lobineau,     the priest Bigou, who was the personal chaplain of Marie de Nègre d'Ablès,     compiled these documents between 1781-1791 after her death. Both these     documents contain coded messages, one in which a 'treasure' is mentioned.

Some of the most interesting genealogies among Henri Lobineau's documents that were published by Philippe Toscan du Plantier are those signed by the abbé Pierre Plantard, vicar of the basilica of St. Clotilde in Paris. These signatures differ from Lobineau's handwriting and were most probably by the abbé Plantard himself. There are four of these genealogies, all dated March 1939. They are numbered 5, 7, 19 and 22, which indicate that the abbé Plantard still compiled other genealogies that Du Plantier did not include in his document. According to the author of Le cercle d'Ulysse ('The Circle of Ulysses') - possibly Philippe de Chérisey - it was this abbé Plantard, a distant relative of the now well-known Pierre Plantard, who originally compiled these genealogies from Hoffet's documents, which Henri Lobineau subsequently only copied.

One of the abbé Plantard's other genealogies appear in Abrégé de l'histoire des Francs. Les Gouvernants et rois de France [12] ('Concise History of the Franks. The Rulers and Kings of France'), a book by Louis Vazart, another friend of Pierre Plantard. I came across this writing at the Dagobert II Museum in the town of Stenay in the north-east of France. This genealogy not only shows the Plantard bloodline from 1546, when Jean XIV Plantard married Marie, the heir of St. Clair, until the 19th century, but also where the abbé Plantard himself fits into this genealogy (see Figure 4). To the best of my knowledge, Discovering the Keystone marks the first time that this genealogy appears in an English publication and it contradicts many researchers' opinions that there are certain gaps in the Plantard bloodline.

A genealogy in Dossiers secrets d'Henri Lobineau continues where the above-mentioned genealogy stops. It shows the bloodline from Francois III Plantard (1761-1806) to the well-known Pierre Plantard's father, Pierre V. This is apparently in the abbé Plantard's own handwriting, and contains a note on his association with this family (see Figure 5).


From these it is clear that quite a few more Plantards than just the well-known Pierre Plantard are associated with these documents. The reason for this is that the parchments Saunière allegedly discovered involve this very bloodline. It would also explain why the Hoffet archives would come into Pierre Plantard's possession: These genealogies show the male bloodline from the Merovingian king Dagobert II - of which Pierre Plantard is the heir presumptive.

1.3 In a vault in London

So far, only the copies of the parchments that are said to have been in Hoffet's possession have been traced. The original parchments, it seems, were inherited by Saunière's cousin, Bertha Jammes. In the document L'énigma de Rennes [13] ('The Enigma of Rennes'), Philippe de Chérisey writes that in 1955, two Englishmen by the names of captain Ronald Stansmore of the British intelligence service and Sir Thomas Frazer, 'éminence grise' of Buckingham Palace, bought three of the parchments from Bertha Jammes. According to the article 'The treasure, the priest and the Priory' [14] by BBC researcher Jania MacGillivray, they acted on behalf of Pierre Plantard's uncle, Etienne I. Stansmore and Frazer then entrusted it to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, after which it ended up in a safe-deposit vault at Lloyds International in London.

During a meeting between the authors Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln with Pierre Plantard on the 17th May, 1983, Plantard showed them notarized documents, of which he also gave them copies, relating to the moving of the parchments from France to England. One of these documents, dated the 5th October, 1955, also constitutes an application to the French consulate in London to bring three parchments from France to England. Another document, dated the 23th July, 1956, is an application to keep these parchments in England.

In the first document, the parchments are described as follows: '...three parchments whose value cannot be calculated, confided to us, for the purposes of historical research, by Madame Jammes, residing in France at Montazels (Aude). She came into legal possession of these items by virtue of a legacy from her uncle, the Abbé Saunière, curé of Rennes-le-Château (Aude).' [15] It confirms that the parchments comprise the 1244 genealogy, the 1644 genealogy and the last will and testament of 1695, and then offers the following statement: 'These genealogies contain proof of the direct descent, through the male line of Sigebert IV, son of Dagobert II, king of Austrasie, through the House of Plantard, Counts of Rhedae, and they are not to be reproduced in any fashion'.

The second document confirms that after 25 years, monsieur Plantard, the count of Rhedae and of St. Clair, born on the 18th March, 1920, would again have a legal right to the parchments. Should he not claim them, they would be taken up in the French National Archives.

Interestingly enough, the second application was submitted by Roundell Cecil Palmer, count of Selbourne, of whom a certified birth certificate is attached. In the Second World War, Palmer was the head of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), which had close ties with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) - the forerunner of the CIA. It leaves a lot to the imagination that someone of this stature could be linked to these parchments. According to his daughter, Palmer was rather interested in genealogies and often vacationed in the Pyrenees close to Rennes-le-Château.

However, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln discovered that this second document had been tampered with. Given the fact that the count of Selbourne was so closely involved with intelligence agencies, it could very well have been the handiwork of such an agency that would have wanted to keep the documents in England illegally. According to the mentioned authors, the culprits were most likely the Knights of Malta, which had close ties with both the SOE and the CIA. Whatever the case may be, it seems that the parchments later ended up in a safe-deposit box in Paris.

According to Pierre Plantard, these documents are the original parchments that Saunière had discovered. In an interview with Noel Pinot, published in the Vaincre (the internal bulletin of the Prieuré de Sion) of April 1989, Plantard said: 'The parchments that were in London some years ago are completely authentic'.

Only after these parchments have been examined by independent experts would one be able to get an objective opinion about this - and would the truth about the Plantard's claim to descend from Dagobert II be well and truly known.

1.4 The coded texts

The parchments with the Latin texts that contain coded messages ostensibly bear on the hiding place of a 'treasure'. In 1967, Gérard de Sède published representations of these two documents in his book Le trésor maudit de Rennes-le-Château, which, according to him, were copies of the parchments Saunière is said to have discovered in the church of Rennes-le-Château. Henry Lincoln later also published and discussed these parchments in his The Holy Place [16].

Most interesting, though, is the fact that those who had given De Sède the documents later on alleged that they were forgeries! In the document L'énigma de Rennes, Philippe de Chérisey explains how he himself cooked them up: 'I set about creating an encoded copy based on certain passages from the Gospels, after which I deciphered what I had just personally encoded. Finally, through a circuitous route, I made sure the fruit of my labour found its way to Gérard de Sède.' [17] He admitted the same to the writer Jean-Luc Chaumeil: 'I fabricated the parchments, whose ancient text I took, en onciale, to the Bibliothéque Nationale ...' [18] During a meeting with Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln in 1979, Pierre Plantard too said that the coded texts were forgeries that De Chérisey had fabricated for a short television programme in 1956.

However, compiling these coded texts would unquestionably have been a mammoth task - not something you concoct for a ten-minute programme on TV! In The Messianic Legacy, Beigent, Leigh and Lincoln state: 'The staggering effort required to devise the ciphers seemed inappropriate, indeed ridiculous, for such a purpose'. [19] According to an expert in code deciphering at the British intelligence service whom Lincoln approached, it is 'the most complex cipher he has ever seen and would have taken months of work to prepare'. [20]

When confronted with this, Pierre Plantard confessed that the documents were indeed 'forgeries' - but ones that correspond greatly to the originals: 'M. Plantard conceded that the forgeries were based very closely on the originals. In other words, they had not been 'concocted' by M. Chérisey at all. They had been copied, and M. Chérisey only made a few additions. What remained when these additions were deleted, would be the original texts found by Saunière.' [21]

But why pretend the documents De Sède published were complete forgeries to begin with, and why all the deception by De Chérisey?

To my thinking, it was clearly an attempt to divert attention from the published documents. By alleging they were falsified, they would never be taken seriously again by anyone. That, however, would serve to prove that these documents contain information that warrants such conduct. If they are indeed authentic, these documents could therefore be of great consequence.

1.5 Two sides of only one parchment!

In the above-mentioned meeting between Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln with Pierre Plantard in 1983, Plantard elaborated on the issue and volunteered the information that Saunière did in fact not discover two parchments with coded messages in Latin texts, but only one. The two documents De Sède published had originally been the two sides of one parchment!

Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln write: 'The documents found by Saunière, he said, were indeed only four in number. Three of them were those to which various references had repeatedly alluded – a genealogy dating from 1244 bearing the seal of Blanche de Castille, a Hautpoul genealogy dating from 1644 and the Hautpoul 'testament' dating from 1695. The fourth parchment, he said, was the original on the basis of which the marquis de Chérisey had devised a modified version. According to M. Plantard, there was one coded message on each side of the page. In some way, apparently, the two texts interact with each other – if, for example, they were held up to the light and viewed, as it were, in superimposition. Indeed, it was suggested that M. Chérisey's chief 'modification' had simply been to reproduce the two sides of the same page as separate pages, and not to the original scale' [22].

According to Plantard, the published texts are therefore unblemished. To reproduce the original document, however, the correct scale of these texts must be placed back-to-back in the correct position. Without the original parchment, this would be virtually impossible. The only person who had access to the original appears to have been Pierre Plantard himself, who would have made it available to De Chérisey.

As with the other documents, there is no way of knowing whether this parchment is indeed authentic. What we do know, however, is that one of the texts is an Oxford University translation that was in actual fact only published in 1889 as Putnam and Wood point out in their book The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château, A Mystery Solved [23], which proves that Saunière could not have discovered this parchment with the others. On the other hand, as Ted Cranshaw states in his excellent article 'The Second Parchment at Rennes-le-Château and the intrusive W' [24], the one coded message can only be deciphered using the old French alphabet, which does not contain the letter 'w'. The mere fact that De Chérisey believed the 26-letter alphabet could be used to decipher the message proves that he could not possibly have been the author. As Cranshaw puts it: 'De Chérisey has made so many mistakes in his account of the working of the cipher that it is impossible to take his claim to authorship seriously. We are forced to conclude that he acquired the array of letters from somewhere else and decided to pass them off as his own.'

All this tends to make one wonder even more about the significance of these texts, even though it is not exactly clear who devised them. An alternative view mentioned in Dossiers secrets d'Henri Lobineau is that they were compiled by the priest Bigou, the personal chaplain of Marie de Nègre d'Ablès, after her death between 1781-1791. Both these documents contain coded messages, one in which a 'treasure' is mentioned. Pierre Plantard's explanation about the compilation clearly makes sense. As was already mentioned, the attempts to discredit these texts are in all probability indicative of their actual worth. The original parchment could therefore indeed contain the key to the 'secret' of the Hautpoul-Blanchefort family.

1.6 The parchment and the poem

From the above it is evident that the 'manuscripts' in the poem refer specifically to the two-sided parchment containing the coded messages. In the poet's words: 'To me they had the appearance of being separate; however, they form a whole for the one who knows...'

It is also clear that the correct joining of the two texts is crucial. The poet draws on two metaphors to emphasize this, namely the colours of the rainbow integrated into white and the six primary colours that produce black when mixed. The antipoles 'white' and 'black' is a continuous theme in the poem, with the implication that, once these have been balanced, one will arrive at the 'solution'.

The mentioning of these texts right at the beginning of the poem obviously suggests they hold the key to solving the riddle. However, while the poet knows exactly what the ciphers contain, and mean, anyone else attempting to solve the riddle is clueless at this point. It would seem, then, that these texts are to serve as a map of clues to help the curious find their way through the 'unknown'.

1.7 So who wrote the poem?

One of the things that strikes one in this stanza is that only two words are written with capital letters – 'Ami' ('Friend') and 'Artiste' ('Artist'). One later on discovers that capitalizing letters is one of the ways in which the poet supplies one with clues.

The two A's could very well indicate the kinship between the poet and his friend, which would imply the poet is also an artist or painter – a clue as to his identity. Assuming that he was a famous painter, there is only one person who fits the bill – Jean Cocteau. Not only was he a famous poet – which would explain the exceptional quality of the poem – but also a renowned painter. Moreover, Cocteau was also connected with the same Rosicrucian Order as Plantard, of which the former was allegedly Grand Master until his death in 1963. Plantard is said to have succeeded him as one of a trio who subsequently headed the Prieuré de Sion. Cocteau's signature also appears on the Prieuré de Sion's statues.

What is furthermore noteworthy about Cocteau is that he unambiguously identified himself with the grand mastership of a Rosicrucian Order in one of his paintings, to wit the one in the French church at Leicester Square in London. In this painting, there not only appears a red rose at the foot of the cross in accordance with the symbol of the Rose Cross, but also a self portrait next to it. In addition, as Henry Lincoln points out in The Holy Place, the layout of this painting was so cleverly designed that if one were to fit a pentagram over it, the center of it would fall right on Cocteau's forehead! The ingenuity with which Cocteau incorporated his identity into this painting unmistakably corresponds with what one finds in the poem Le serpent rouge.

There is therefore reason enough to believe that Cocteau was indeed the writer of the poem. It would also imply that he formulated the riddle, as one would expect from a Grand Master of a Rosicrucian Order – á la Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code. And throughout the poem, he lauds someone he calls his friend, who seems to be none other than Pierre Plantard.

Note 1: The house of Ané

The name 'House of Ané' ('Chez Ané' in French) figures quite prominently in the enigma of Rennes-le-Château. Just as this had been a house in Paris where many figures had gathered and where Saunière had also apparently called at, he himself had the Villa Bethania ('House of Ania') built in Rennes-le-Château where people from all over, even Paris, appear to have gathered. One wonders whether this is not connected with the 'arche' of the Prieuré de Sion called Beth-Ania, which, according to the Dossiers secrets d'Henri Lobineau, had already been active in Rennes-le-Château in 1481. Earlier the Templars, who according to the Prieuré of Sion documents were once associated with that group, had indeed sworn an oath of allegiance to 'Bethany'.

The key to the name 'House of Ania' possibly lies in Jean Markale's book, Rennes-le-Château et l'énigme de l'or maudit, in which he points out (although not in connection with Bet-Ania) that in The last days of Pompeii, the Rosicrusian and occultist, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, mentions a group called 'Anas'. They live 'under' the ground and are spiritually and technologically ahead of their time. This calls to mind the secret 'underground stream' of Arcadia associated with the Prieuré de Sion tradition.

Is the 'House of Ania' connected with this Anas?

Markale also points out that the Anas not only form part of the 'illuminati tradition', but that the name could also allude to the 'Anaon' of early Brittany, the sons of Don in Wales and the Tuatha de Danaan ('The People of the Goddess Dana') of Ireland. In French, Dana ('d'Ana') means 'from Ana'. This had been the 'people of the Sidhe' (in other words, spirits). This Anas could therefore possibly be regarded as descendants and successors of the early Anaon – who perhaps also regarded themselves as spirits (angels?).

It is furthermore to be remarked that this Anas shows similarities with the so-called Angelic Society, which, according to some, can be linked to the Prieuré de Sion. In both cases it is a group who associates themselves with spirits/gods/angels (or the descendents of the fallen angels). Members of the Angelic Society included musicians, poets, playwrights and painters. Figures like Delacroix and Poussin are linked to this group. Their motto was 'Et in Arcadia ego'. Another name for this association is said to be Les Brouillards ('clouds').

[9] De Sède, G. 1967. Paris: J'ai Lu. Translation: W.T. & R.W. Kersey. 2001. The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château. Surrey: DEK.

[10] Patton, G & Mackness, R. 2000. Web of Gold. London: Sidwick & Jackson, p 205.

[11] Descadeillas, R. Toulouse: Edtions Privat.

[12] Vazart, L. 1978. Suresnes: Chez l'Auteur.

[13] De Chérisey, P. 1978. Paris.

[14] 1979. French translation in Bonne Soirée. 14 August 1980.

[15] Baigent, M., Leigh, R. & Lincoln, H. 1986. The Messianic Legacy. London: Jonathan Cape, p 305.

[16] Lincoln, H. 1991. The Holy Place. The Mystery of Rennes-le-Château: Discovering the Eight Wonder of the Ancient World. London: Jonathan Cape.

[17] De Chérisey, P. 1978. Paris.

[18] Chaumeil, J. 1979. Le trésor du triangle d'or. Nice: Alain Lefeuvre, p 80.

[19] Baigent, M., Leigh, R. & Lincoln, H. 1986. The Messianic Legacy. London: Jonathan Cape, p 301.

[20] Lincoln, H. 1991. The Holy Place. London: Jonathan Cape.

[21] Baigent, M., Leigh, R. & Lincoln, H. 1986. The Messianic Legacy. London: Jonathan Cape, p 301.

[22] Ibid., p 302.

[23] Putnam, B. & Wood, J. E. 2003. Gloucestershire: Sutton.

[24] Published on the internet in 1997.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: 2. Standing on the White Rock

Cet Ami, comment vous le présenter? Son nom demeura un mystère, mais son nombre est celui d'un sceau célèbre. Comment vous le décrire? Peut-être comme le nautonnier de l'arche impérissable, impassible comme un colonne sur son roc blanc, scrutant vers le midi, au-delà du roc noir. This Friend, how does one introduce him to you? His name will remain a mystery, but his number is that of a famous seal. How does one describe him to you? Perhaps as the pilot of the imperishable ark, unmoved as a column on his white rock, looking attentively towards the south, beyond the black rock.

From this stanza it appears that, over and above the mentioned manuscripts, certain pieces of information about the person the poet calls his friend are also crucial in solving the mystery of the Razès. The poet holds this figure in such high regard that he not only refers to him in each of the first four stanzas, but also dedicates this whole stanza entirely to him. Besides the clues about his friend in this stanza, one knows that this is the person to whom the manuscripts belong. In the next stanza, the poet again speaks of the 'parchments of this Friend'. As these parchments almost certainly belong to Pierre Plantard – as is explicitly stated in the notarized documents – it would seem this friend is indeed none other than Pierre Plantard himself. The poem is also widely linked to him and his friends. 2.1 The Plantards and the enigma of Rennes-le-Château The question which now arises is why the poet would regard Pierre Plantard as such an important figure. According to him, Pierre – and actually the whole Plantard family – is the pivot on which the secret of the Razès hinges. He also states that the parchments, which belong to them, contain the key to the solving of the whole mystery. There are strong indications that right from the start, albeit behind the scenes, the Plantards were connected with the mystery of Rennes-le-Château as well as the events surrounding Saunière. It also appears that one of them was in contact with Saunière as well as Boudet. According to the writer of Le cercle d'Ulysse, Jean Delaude, Saunière met Charles Plantard, Pierre Plantard's grandfather, during the former's visit to Paris. It seems that this meeting took place at the house of Claude Debussy, who is elsewhere mentioned as Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Order, the Prieuré de Sion, at the time. In 1892, Charles Plantard, a journalist, apparently also visited Rennes-le-Château. In the preface to the 1978 facsimile edition of Henri Boudet's writing, La vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, Pierre Plantard states that his grandfather visited this town on the 2nd June, 1892, and later recorded his impressions of Saunière and Boudet. During this visit, Boudet also gave Charles Plantard a signed copy of his book with a handwritten dedication to him inscribed in it. According to the writer of Les descendants Mérovingiens, Saunière tried to contact one of the Plantards on his death bed. He apparently beseeched Dr. Paul Courrent (1861-1952) to summon Jean XXIII, Charles Plantard's nephew. Jean was the descendant of the oldest line of the Plantard family, who had a right to the parchments. Saunière was in all probability not aware of the fact that Jean's father, Pierre, in 1871 waived his right in favour of his brother, Charles. Jean therefore never complied with Saunière's request and as a result the parchments remained in 'Rhedae', that is Rennes-le-Château. In August of 1938, another Plantard visited the area – this time the 18 year-old Pierre Plantard, who spent a week at the house of Marie Dénarnaud, Saunière's former housekeeper and trusty companion. The writer of Le cercle d'Ulysse states that Noël Corbu said in an interview in May of 1961 with Marina Grey of the radio station ORTF on the programme 'Roue Tourne' that during this visit, Marie Dénarnaud handed over to Pierre all the correspondence his grandfather had with Saunière, as well as several other archival records. According to the same source, Pierre Plantard again visited the area in 1966 and this time called on Noël Corbu. It could be that these letters and archival documents were the main source of information on Charles Plantard's association with Saunière. Every one of the writings referring to this can be linked to Pierre Plantard, which strongly suggests that he, together with the archivalia in his possession, were their principle sources. 2.2 Independent evidence Due to the personal nature of the events, hardly any additional objective sources are available. There is, however, information that correlates with the above. In the mid-1990's, for instance, it was proven that the signature appearing in Charles Plantard's copy of La vraie langue celtique corresponds with Boudet’s. In Web of Gold, Guy Patton states that during this time, a letter signed by Boudet, which he had sent to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, was also discovered, along with a copy of Boudet's book. The signatures were proven to have been made by the same person. Another piece of evidence, dating from the 19th century, is a commemorative plaque that I stumbled upon in 1998 during a visit to Versailles outside Paris. Right at the entrance to the palace there are a number of plaques acknowledging donations and one of them bears the inscription 'M. Plantard 1891'. I must admit I was quite surprised to come across the name Plantard here. However, what struck me most was the date – the exact same year in which Saunière is said to have discovered the parchments in the church of Rennes-le-Château. Although some researchers believe it to have been in 1887, Saunière singled out the first-mentioned year by inscribing 'Mission 1891' on the Visigoth pillar outside the church. The exact same date also appears on the Plantard coat of arms. There is therefore reason enough to believe that the Plantards' association with the Razès goes back much further than Pierre Plantard and also that there is indeed some kind of link between them and the whole enigma of Rennes-le-Château – which would of course be in accordance with the said mentioning of this family in the parchments. Several of Pierre Plantard's friends were clearly of the opinion that this family played a considerable role in the whole affair, hence their writings about it. As was already mentioned, the poet too regarded Pierre Plantard as an exceptional individual, which is evident from his description of his friend in this stanza. 2.3 Name and number When introducing his friend, the poet first of all refers to his name. Pierre Plantard's full names were Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard de Saint-Clair. The name Plantard apparently comes from 'plant-ard', which means 'rejeton ardent' – 'fiery/sprouting shoot'. One Madeleine Blancasall states that Sigebert, the son of Dagobert II, adopted this name and that his descendants carried it to this day. The Plantards allegedly acquired the added name of Saint-Clair after the marriage of Jean XIV Plantard with Marie de Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 1546. Interestingly, during the years of the Second World War, Pierre Plantard also called himself Pierre de France, by means of which he possibly wanted to signify that he is the rightful king of France. This would imply that he had already seen himself as a contender for the French throne from an early age. This claim stems from events dating back to the Merovingian era, when the majors of the palace dethroned these monarchs and came to the throne themselves. They were later known as the Carolingians – after King Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great. The Catholic Church is said to have broken a treaty with King Clovis by acknowledging the Carolingians as rulers and as a result, the descendants of the Merovingians, i.e. the Plantards, still lay claim to the French throne. The Plantards, however, are only one of several families who lay, or have laid, claim to the throne of France. Besides them, the Orleans branch of the French dynasty has also raised their hands, as have the Chambords – the descendants of Charles X. The latter's last contender, the count of Chambord, died without an heir in 1883, after which this family, according to the writer of Le cercle d'Ulysse, shifted their support to the Plantards. 'It was they who formed the Merovingian movement which still exists today'. The question arises why the Plantards are convinced that they have a greater claim to the French throne than any of the other French dynasties who have ascended the throne since the Merovingians. Is this because they are the 'oldest' Frankish dynasty, or is there another reason altogether? The poet supplies some clues ... 2.4 Descendants of David According to the poet, his friend's name is a mystery. It is typically said of God that His name is a mystery. These words of the poet could therefore be indicative of some or other conviction that the Plantards actually are of 'godly' descent. The authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail claim it to be possible that the Plantards are descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. When questioned about this, Pierre Plantard, however, refused to commit himself to such a belief, saying it could not be proven as these events took place too far back in time. He then rather emphasized the fact that Jesus had brothers. He reiterated, though, that the Merovingians are from Judaic descent and specifically the Davidian lineage. This claim makes one wonder whether some individuals actually relate the meaning of the name Plantard, 'the sprouting shoot', to the 'shoot' from King David's family line referred to in the Bible – one of the metaphors used for the Messiah (cf. Isaiah 11:1). The poet further states that his friend has a 'number', to wit that of a 'famous seal', which undoubtedly refers to the so-called seal of Solomon (the star of David). This seal consists of two triangles placed over one another in such a way that they form a hexagram ('hexa' meaning 'six'). One often sees the hexagram superimposed over the map of France. One of the covers of the magazine Circuit, the mouthpiece of the Prieuré de Sion, which was established in 1956 and of which Pierre Plantard once was the editor, shows exactly this. Pierre Plantard's association with this hexagram would therefore correspond to his chosen name, Pierre de France. The reference to the seal of Solomon obviously again leads to the house of David. The Plantards' association with this seal would then be symbolic of their claim to have been born into King David's family line.

Fig. 6. A cover of the Circuit showing a  map of France with a hexagram

2.5 The pilot of the imperishable ark Next, the poet compares his friend to the pilot of a ship. It is, however, not just any ship, but an 'ark', and one that is imperishable, which inadvertently reminds one of Noah's ark that came through the Flood unscathed. This metaphor refers to the secret order of the Prieuré de Sion. In their statutes, the Grand Master is called the 'nautonnier', the same word the poet uses for 'pilot'. The Prieuré de Sion is therefore described as an imperishable ark; imperishable because of its continued existence throughout the centuries, according to occult tradition. Pierre Plantard stated that he was admitted into this order on the 10th July, 1943, on the recommendation of the priest Francois Ducaud-Bourget. According to Dossiers secrets d'Henri Lobineau, the Prieuré de Sion dates back to 1188, or even earlier, when it was called the Order of Sion. The families associated with this order include the St. Clairs, Lorraines and Stuarts. Although most researchers do not take these claims seriously, the name Order of Sion does correspond to the so-called Realm of Sion, a well-known order from the 19th century that is also associated with some of these families. That these two orders are in fact one and the same, is evident from Chaumeil's remark in Le trésor du triangle d'or [25] ('The treasure of the Golden Triangle') that a type of Scottish Rite Freemasonry that was earlier typically associated with the Stuarts, actually resides under the Prieuré de Sion: 'The upper grades or degrees of this Freemasonry ... were the lower grades or degrees of the Prieuré de Sion.' [26] This was most likely also true of the Realm of Sion. Pierre Plantard told Henry Lincoln and his co-authors that this Prieuré de Sion was not really a secret organisation, but rather a 'discreet society' that had to do with a 'family affair'. It appears that it was only run as a secret organisation at times. When Pierre Plantard was admitted into the Prieuré de Sion, he was already the Grand Master of another secret order called Alpha Galates. He was afforded this position at the young age of 22 after the retirement of count Maurice Moncharville, who was also his mentor. It is astonishing that figures like Prof. Louis le Fur, who held a senior position in the Vichy administration, and Hans Adolf von Moltke, a German diplomat from one of the most famous aristocratic German families, could look up to such a young person as Grand Master. It most certainly could have had something to do with Pierre Plantard's alleged descent. In the 21st January, 1943, edition of the Alpha Galates' official paper, the Vaincre, Prof. Louis le Fur states that a 'great German, one of the Masters of our Order' (Hans Adolf von Moltke) referred to Pierre Plantard as 'Pierre de France', with all the monarchistic undertones inherent in this title. According to Le Fur, Von Moltke had said: 'I have the pleasure to say, before my departure for Spain, that our Order has at last found a chief worthy of it in the person of Pierre de France. It is therefore with total confidence that I depart to perform my mission; for while not deluding myself about the perils I run in discharging my duty, I know that until my last breath my last watchword will consist in recognition of Alpha and fidelity to its chief'. In 1955-1956, an internal struggle is said to have raged within the Prieuré de Sion, which seemingly resulted in the establishing of their own (another) Prieuré de Sion by Pierre Plantard, André Bonhomme, Jean Delaval and Armand Defago. This Prieuré de Sion was registered in France in 1956. According to Jania MacGillivray, the dispute had something to do with a family feud. In the article 'The treasure, the priest and the Priory' she writes: 'The person who holds the key to all these mysteries, if mysteries they are, is Pierre Plantard, whose magnificent family ring, bearing the inscription 'Et in Arcadia ego', is a continual reminder of a better world somewhere ... And if one wonders why Chaumeil wrote his book, his reply is contained in an allusion to a schism in the Plantard family some years ago. One branch, he hints, held that the secret of the Priory of Sion belonged to the Church; the other claimed that it was public property.' [27] Very little doubt exists that the alleged unlawful moving of the parchments at the end of 1955 by demand of Pierre's uncle, Etienne Plantard, had something to do with this split. The group associated with Pierre Plantard clearly belongs to the part of the family that is of the conviction that the 'secrets' of the Prieuré belong to the public. The registration of the 'new' Prieuré de Sion, as well as the publication of the Merovingian genealogies by 'Henri Lobineau' (both in 1956) were clearly related to the disclosure of the 'secrets' – and in particular a first step in the announcement of the Plantards' claims. In 1967, the same year Du Plantier published Dossiers secrets d'Henry Lobineau, this group went one step further by publishing Gérard de Sède's Le trésor maudit de Rennes-le-Château, which obviously drew a lot of attention thereto. In 1982, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was published, in which the English-speaking world got acquainted with Pierre Plantard and his claims. Subsequently Dan Brown has also employed these themes in his bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. In the meantime, Pierre Plantard allegedly warded off a complete schism in the order, after which, from 1963-1981, he, Gaylord Freeman and Antonio Merzagora together were at the helm. During this time, Le serpent rouge came onto the scene, linking the 'friend' in the poem to the grand mastership of the Prieuré de Sion. The poet's use of the word '[p]erhaps (as the pilot of the imperishable ark)' in the description of his friend could be related to the expectation that Pierre Plantard would become Grand Master due to his descent from one of the exceptional European families, or otherwise to this joint grand mastership. It appears that on the 17th January, 1981, Pierre Plantard was indeed elected Grand Master, a position he held until the 10th July, 1984. It was during this time that he supplied the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail with copies of the notarized documents – possibly the final step in lending credibility to his claim to the French throne, as these documents 'confirm' his descent from the Merovingian rulers. He was in all probability unaware of the fact that at least one of these documents was fabricated. As was mentioned earlier, Michael Baigent and his co-authors suggest in The Messianic Legacy that the group responsible for the forgery was the Knights of Malta. This group is almost certainly connected with the 'other' faction Jania MacGillivray refers to in her article and they most likely wanted to prevent Pierre Plantard from successfully following through with his claim to the French throne. What was to be Pierre Plantard's big moment, subsequently contrariwise led to his claims being entirely discredited. The earlier assertions by his friends that the coded documents were in fact forgeries only contributed to the perception that the whole thing was a scam. To me, it seems highly likely that harming Pierre Plantard's reputation were attempts made by the 'other faction' to sweep everything in under the carpet once again. In Key to the Sacred Pattern: The Untold Story of Rennes-le-Château, Henry Lincoln calls it 'agitated attempts ... to establish that the entire affaire is a fraud' [28]. By discrediting the whole 'affaire', they diverted the public's attention away from any real secrets that could be contained in the documents in the French National Library. In so doing, this faction tried to ensure these would remain secret due to their conviction that they belong to the Catholic Church. It is entirely possible that there are indeed real secrets between all the documents that have been deposited in the French National Library and that the secret woven into the poem Le serpent rouge, and for which the coded texts are to serve as clues, is one of them. As was mentioned earlier, these texts had not been devised by De Chérisey, as he claimed, and most probably relate to a real centuries old secret of the Hautpoul-Blanchefort family. The reason the poet dedicated this entire stanza to Pierre Plantard was maybe to ensure that, once the riddle was solved and the 'treasure' found, Plantard would inextricably be connected with it. His acclaim of Plantard was possibly meant to prove that he was worthy of the 'treasure'. This praise is especially noteworthy if one takes into account that it most probably came from Jean Cocteau himself. It makes one wonder even more whether the numerous attempts to discredit the person of Pierre Plantard actually project a true image. In view of the fact that the greater part of Plantard's life in all probability is not public knowledge, and that due to the secret nature thereof, he could probably not defend himself, one should perhaps reserve judgement. 2.6 A column on his white rock The poet goes on to compare his friend to a pillar standing on 'his' white rock. The most famous pillar in the Rennes-le-Château mystery surely is the one in which Saunière allegedly discovered the parchments and on which he carved the words 'Penitence, Penitence' and 'Mission 1891'. He subsequently planted it upside-down in the garden of the church and fixed a statue of the crowned Virgin Mary on top. A clear photograph of Saunière next to this pillar is to be found in Pierre Jarnac's Histoire du trésor de Rennes-le-Château [29]. The poet's mentioning of a white rock can therefore imply that he is referring to something in the Razès region – and it is not hard to find exactly that. At the northern entrance to the Sals Valley at Rennes-les-Bains there is a huge white rock called Blanchefort, which literally means 'white fort'. On the back of Louis Vazart's Abrégé de l'histoire des Francs is a photograph of Pierre Plantard's son, Thomas, sitting on Blanchefort, with the Sals Valley in the background. This picture depicts exactly what the poet describes – a Plantard on a 'white rock'. It is therefore without any doubt this famous rock the poet is referring to (see Figure 7). The poet's friend is therefore standing on Blanchefort, looking south, and past the 'black rock'. There is indeed also exactly such a rock in the area, called Roque Nègre, which literally means 'black rock'. It lies just south of Blanchefort, a bit lower down on the mountainside. The poet's friend is, in other words, looking past this rock in the direction of Rennes-les-Bains and the hills south of the town. The description in the poem therefore corresponds exactly to the topography of the Blanchefort area just north of Rennes-les-Bains.

Fig. 7. The back cover of Louis Vazart's  book

One tends to miss them at first, but the directions which the poet indicates – some less explicitly than others – are in actual fact crucial. In the first stanza, he only speaks of a journey through unknown parts for which the 'parchments' are to serve as a guide, but in this stanza, he gives the first clear geographical directions – to all appearance from where the route through the area begins. In the following stanzas, he describes the route south from there. As could be expected, given the connection between the parchments and the Hautpoul-Blanchefort family, this particular area had been part of their domain. As in the first stanza, white and black are once again juxtaposed. In this case, it is the white rock and the black rock. This whole stanza is also written in parallels: The friend is introduced, but also described; the poet speaks of his name, but also his number; he is described as a pilot, but also a pillar. Dualism is clearly the name of the game in Le serpent rouge. [25] Chaumeil, J. 1979. Nice: Alain Lefeuvre. [26] Ibid., p.136. [27] 1979. French translation in Bonne Soirée, 14 August, 1980. [28] Lincoln, H. 1997. Gloucestershire: Windrush, p.147. [29] Jarnac, P. 1998. Belisane: Cazilhac.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: Background

This is the Background to the 13 chapters of the book Discovering the Keystone, Solving the Riddle of The Red Serpent after 40 years by Guillaume Brouillard. This book is named after one of the most important documents associated with the Priory of Sion, namely Le serpent rouge, which was part of a cache of documents deposited in the French National Library between 1956 and 1967. This document holds the key to the mysteries of Rennes-le-Château with which most people are familiar through Dan Brown’s the popular novel The Da Vinci Code. These mysteries, however, do not merely concern the holy grail but also the temple treasures of Jerusalem.

On the 17th January, 1967, a short document titled Le serpent rouge, meaning ‘The Red Serpent’, was published in Pontoise, France. To this day, the document is shrouded in sheer mystery. The cover shows a coat of arms on which are depicted a pitcher with water flowing from it and the head of a horse. At a glance, the pitcher and flowing water could be mistaken for a serpent, or even some kind of monster. Spanning the coat of arms is the motto ‘LENE BUXEUM-EOUS SCAPHFE’, of which nobody has as yet risked an (acceptable) interpretation. The document itself comprises a poem and notes on two Parisian churches.

That this is everything but an ordinary and least of all insignificant document is evident from the fact that another symbol appears on the cover, to wit the seal of the Rosicrucian Order. This seal consists of three concentric circles. In the inner circle, the letters M and S are combined into one symbol. In the next ring is written ‘rosa-crux.1099.1188’, and in the outer ring, 36 small circles appear, with the letter P right at the top and the letter S right at the bottom. One later discovers that the letters PS refer to the Rosicrucian Order called the Prieuré de Sion (the Priory of Sion).

The use of this Rosicrucian symbol indicates that Le serpent rouge was initially circulated in the secret world of occult organisations, of which this order is one.

Fig 1. The cover of Le serpent rouge.

i. The authors

The three authors of this document, Pierre Feugère, Louis Saint-Maxent and Gaston de Koker, call themselves the ‘three brethren’ – in all probability referring to the Brethren of the Rose Cross. Not much is known about them, except that all three died tragically shortly after Le serpent rouge was published. On the 6th March, 1967, Saint-Maxent and De Koker were found hanged, and the following day, so too Feugère. The way in which they died, and the fact that their deaths were almost concurrent, lead one to believe it was the result of their leaking the order’s secrets.

These unfortunate incidents only deepen the mystery surrounding the document. If these three persons’ transgression was punishable by death, the document must surely contain information of immense value to the group it concerns – in this case the Prieuré de Sion. It is, after all, not very common for three authors of specifically a secret document to die more or less simultaneously, and on top of it, to all appearances by being executed. Judging from this mere fact, Le serpent rouge unquestionably contains highly sensitive and top secret information not meant for the eyes of outsiders, and perhaps not even certain members of the Rosicrucian Order itself.

ii. Just another smokescreen?

When it comes to the hidden world of secret organisations, it is, however, wise not to swallow everything that’s dished up. More often than not, the explicit goal is to mislead the uninitiated, which could very well also be the case with Le serpent rouge. The first thing that springs to mind, then, is whether the names on the document were not perhaps borrowed to conceal the identity of the true author(s). The content of the document, as well as the fact that this was but one of several similar writings that appeared in the French National Library at that time, and just about all under different aliases, lead one to believe that this holds true for this document as well.

The obvious question then is: Who is the true author(s) of Le serpent rouge?

In their booklet Rennes-le-Château: A Bibliography [1], John M. Saul and Janice A. Glaholm list all the books and writings related to this subject. Underneath the names of the ‘authors’ of Le serpent rouge they noted the following: ‘The names Feugère, Saint-Maxent and De Koker are said to have been borrowed from contemporary reports of suicides. The true author is likely to be Pierre Plantard and/or Philippe de Chérisey.’[2] This supposition probably originated with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, co-authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, who, together with Jonathan Tootell, advised Saul and Glaholm on the content of their booklet.

If Pierre Plantard and/or Philippe de Chérisey were indeed the true author(s) of the document, a couple of questions remain. For instance: If Feugère, Saint-Maxent and De Koker’s names had only been placed on the document after their deaths to protect the true author(s), the writing could obviously not have been published on the 17th January, 1967, as is stated on the document, as they only died in March of that year. The deposit slip in the French National Library furthermore states that Le serpent rouge had already been received on the 15th February, 1967 – almost a month before the purported authors died! This date could, however, have been backdated with a little help from a library employee.

In view of the fact that the alleged authors are said to have committed suicide, one can also not help but wonder why three seemingly unrelated persons would simultaneously decide to hang themselves.

It seems that, in the end, more questions than answers will remain as to the identity of the true author(s) of this document.

iii. The poem

The first part of Le serpent rouge consists of a poem with the same title. It is of extraordinary poetic quality, and comprises 13 stanzas. The poem was signed by ‘Louis Saint-Maxent’, with ‘October 1966’ written underneath. Although Pierre Plantard or one of his friends could have put together this document, it is highly unlikely that any of them was capable of writing such an exceptional poem. Some writers are of the opinion that the author is more likely to have been someone like the famous painter and poet Jean Cocteau (1889 - 1963), who, like Plantard, is said to have been a Grand Master of the Prieuré de Sion.

Back to the poem itself: Each of the 13 stanzas falls under one of the signs of the zodiac, which in this case consists not of 12, but 13 signs. The additional sign is that of the Serpent-handler, inserted between the signs of Scorpio and Sagittarius. Given the title of the poem, it is not surprising to find a stanza under the Serpent-handler.

It is only when one starts analysing the details in the poem that it becomes clear why Le serpent rouge is veiled in such mystery. There is absolutely no question that it does indeed contain a secret of immense proportions. The poem is written in the form of a riddle in which specific clues were very cleverly weaved. There are references to mysterious symbols that have to be deciphered and a ‘solution’ that must be obtained.

From stanza to stanza one is drawn in by this singularly odd set of riddly clues, until one is told: ‘To this, Dear Reader, be careful not to add or remove an iota … meditate, Meditate again. The base lead of my writing perhaps contains the purest gold’ – which is yet another clue.

Only towards the end of the poem the red serpent itself, which is clearly at the heart of the mystery, is mentioned. It is described as an ‘enormous beast’ that is ‘red with anger’, and one whose coils have apparently been rolling down through the centuries.

But more about that later.

iv. The secret lies in the Razès

From the clues in the poem it is clear that the secret primarily relates to the region of the ancient Razès, which is in the south of France, in the Languedoc, south of Carcassonne. In the Razès – once the stronghold of the Visigoths – are two small towns where over a century ago truly mysterious things happened that have given rise to almost a cult following. These are the twin towns of Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains. Centuries ago, the former seems to have been called Rhedae, which according to certain experts means ‘swift serpent’.

At the end of the 19th century, the parish priest of Rennes-le-Château, Bérenger Saunière, is said to have discovered certain parchments in his church, after which his life changed dramatically. Overnight, this once impoverished priest was a man of enormous wealth, undertaking one building project in the town after the other. Among these were the erection of the beautiful Villa Bethania and the famous Tower of Magdalene. Some writers are convinced his sudden fortune stemmed directly from the discovery of the parchments, stating he either came upon a treasure along with it, or discovered the directions to a treasure in the parchments.

Another of Saunière’s projects was the restoration of his church, dedicated to Mary Magdalene, which included some very peculiar changes, such as a devil with the holy-water stoup on his back at the entrance, and curious depictions of the 14 stations of the cross. Although these correspond greatly to those in the church of Rocamadour, for example, they contain considerable diversions from the latter with regard to detail.

As for the town of Rennes-les-Bains, the parish priest, Henri Boudet, a close friend of Saunière’s, in 1886 published an odd piece of work entitled La vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains [3] (‘The True Celtic Language and the Stone Circle of Rennes-les-Bains’). In this, he details the area around Rennes-les-Bains and also supplies a map of the region. He specifically mentions an enormous stone circle with a 16 - 18 km circumference, and furthermore makes the bizarre statement that the early Celts spoke Anglo-Saxon (English). Up to this day, no-one has ever seen this stone circle, and some deem his off-the-wall statements as clues concerning something of enormous value hidden in the area.

The poem Le serpent rouge therefore on the one hand contains information pertaining to the interior of the Rennes-le-Château church, and on the other, to the area around Rennes-les-Bains. Most everything in the poem indicates it is here that one will find the most important clues to the ‘solution’ the poet speaks of.

Later on one discovers that the parchments Saunière allegedly found also contain crucial information, as do certain paintings – among others those by Poussin called ‘The Shepherds of Arcadia’, and the ones painted by Delacroix in the St. Sulpice Church in Paris.

v. Two Parisian churches

Besides the poem, the document Le serpent rouge contains a set of notes, including various sketches, maps and a genealogy. The last eight of the 13 pages comprise ‘notes on St.-Germain-des-Prés and Saint Sulpice of Paris’, as is indicated by the subtitle of the document. These two Parisian churches are situated close to each other on the banks of the river Seine. The church of St.-Germain-des-Prés (‘des prés’ meaning ‘of the open field’) is the oldest in Paris, and is a monastery chapel built in 542 to house the relics King Childebert, son of the famous Frankish king Clovis, brought back from Spain. The St. Sulpice Church, on the other hand, is a parish church founded by the abbot of St.-Germain-des-Prés. The existing building was erected in 1642 on the same spot where the earlier church stood.

The notes also include an article on the history of the monastery of St.-Germain-des-Prés, wherein is stated that the church was built in the exact same place where earlier stood a temple of Isis, the Egyptian goddess. Various sketches accompany the article, including one of St.-Germain-des-Prés just before its demolition in 1794, a sketch of the monastery itself (supposedly done by Gaston de Koker), as well as a sketch of the bank of the river Seine where the monastery was later built as it looked in 1615. There are also sketches of the graves of King Childebert, the founder of the church, and King Chilperic, who was buried there. Another article by ‘Pierre Feugère’ concerns Childebert and his wife, Ultragothe.

As far as the St. Sulpice Church is concerned – which is also mentioned in the poem – one later on discovers that the most important item in the notes is the floor plan of this church, signed by ‘Louis Saint-Maxent’. This plan clearly shows the meridian that is indicated by a copper line running across the floor of the church. To the left of this line the letter P is written, and to the right, the letter S – in other words, PS. The word ‘PRAE-CUM’ also appears next to the meridian line.

Accompanying an article called ‘Le bi-centenaire de Mazarin – 1861’ (‘The Two Centuries since Mazarin – 1861’) are two sketches of the inscription on the gnomon to be found on the copper line in the northern wing of the church. There is also a sketch of the mausoleum of the priest Jean-Baptiste Languet de Gergy, in whose time the gnomon was erected. The Chapel of the Holy Angels, situated at the back of the church, also features prominently in the poem.

Fig 2. The floor plan of the St. Sulpice Church in Paris.

Also included in the notes are the adjoining sketches of three men: Jean-Jacques Olier (1608 - 1657), founder of the new St. Sulpice Church, Eugène Delacroix (1798 - 1863), who painted the three paintings with angels as theme in the church, and the painter Nicolas Poussin (1593 - 1665), who is not directly linked to the church. All three of these men are mentioned by name in the poem. Right underneath these sketches is a short quote by the celebrated opera singer Emma Calvé (1858 - 1942), dated the 7th May, 1939. She was romantically linked to the priest Saunière of Rennes-le-Château, who allegedly visited Paris in 1891 or 1892.

vi. The Merovingian bloodline

The genealogy included in the notes is that of the earliest Frankish kings, the Merovingians. Although it was one of them who founded the monastery of St.-Germain-des-Prés, namely Childebert – a block is drawn around his name in the genealogy – it seems odd that one’s attention is drawn to this early dynasty. Underneath the genealogy are two maps of Gaul from the Merovingian era – one of 511 A.D. and the other of 620 - 632 A.D.

This Merovingian genealogy differs somewhat from the common Merovingian genealogies in that it includes Sigebert IV, the son of Dagobert II. Underneath his name is written ‘Septimania’, which is a region in the south of France, also shown on the mentioned maps. Septimania is the region in which the Razès lies – the area that is central to the poem Le serpent rouge. What is strange, though, is that during that time, Septimania did not belong to the Franks, but to the Visigoths.

According to this genealogy, then, King Dagobert II had a son called Sigebert, who apparently came to this area in the south of France at some point. It would therefore seem that the ‘red serpent’ and the whole enigma of the Razès are somehow connected with this Sigebert.

vii. Solving the riddle

The impression the document as a whole leaves is that it contains information in the form of clues to solve the riddle embedded in the poem. On the inner front cover one then indeed finds the depiction of a man squatted in front of scattered cubical stones, seemingly lost in thought, with the caption: ‘Discover the sixty-four stones one by one’, which links with a line from the fourth stanza: ‘I am able to discover the sixty-four dispersed stones of the perfect cube.’

As was mentioned earlier, the specific spot the clues are supposed to lead one to, is in the region wherein Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains lie. Pierre Plantard, who is connected with the authorship of the document, visited this area towards the end of the 1930s – and it was not to marvel at the bird-life; he fine-combed the Sals Valley at Rennes-les-Bains under the pretence that he was an archeologist. In his book Rennes-le-Château et l’énigme de l’or maudit [4] (‘Rennes-le-Château and the Enigma of the Accursed Gold’), Prof. Jean Markale refers to this visit of Plantard, stating that he closely searched the heights and cliffs in the river valley and that he was particularly interested in the Fountain of Magdalene and the Queen’s Baths. He apparently also paid particular attention to the two tombstones of an earlier local ruler, Paul-Urbain de Fleury, in the cemetery of Rennes-les-Bains. With him he carried the scarce book by the priest Henri Boudet, La vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, which deals exclusively with this area.

Fig 3. The figure at the cubical stones.

What is quite noteworthy is that virtually all the landmarks mentioned in the recounting of Pierre Plantard’s visit to the Sals Valley feature in Le serpent rouge. The Plantards had also owned a piece of land in the region of Blanchefort and Roque Nègre, which lies in the area where one enters the valley of Rennes-les-Bains from the north. In former times, there had also been a goldmine here, where according to the authors of Web of Gold. The Secret History of a Sacred Treasure [5], a treasure had most probably been hidden.

viii. The temple treasures

In the writing Les descendants Mérovingiens ou l’énigme du Razès Wisigoth (‘The Merovingian Descendants or the Enigma of Visigothic Razès’), there are a couple of interesting comments about this alleged treasure. This writing was circulated among members of the Swiss Alpina Masonic lodge and was also deposited in the French National Library. The purported author is Madeleine Blancasall – in all probability a pseudonym of Pierre Plantard, his friend Philippe de Chérisey, or Plantard’s wife, Anne-Léa Hisler. According to this script, the treasure hidden in the area consists of 25 000 000 golden Francs, which is part of the Merovingian king Dagobert II’s treasure, and an additional 19 500 000 golden Francs, allegedly part of the treasure of the Visigoths of the Razès. Although these numbers are clearly highly exaggerated and a (feeble) attempt at emphasising the value of the treasure, it is interesting that Pierre Plantard is said to have taken part in the moving of gold bars worth a hundred million Francs to the Union Bank of Switzerland in 1952.

The most famous treasure said to be found in the region is the one the Romans had robbed from the temple in Jerusalem, which the Visigoths later brought here after their pillaging of Rome. Pierre Plantard himself referred to this treasure in a conversation with the authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, who write: ‘In 1979, M. [monsieur] Plantard had said to us, quite categorically, that the Prieuré [de Sion] was in possession of the treasure of the Temple of Jerusalem, plundered by the Romans during the revolt of A.D. 66 and subsequently carried to the south of France, in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château. The treasure, M. Plantard stated, would be returned to Israel ‘when the time is right’.’ [6]

It could therefore very well be that the poem Le serpent rouge is somehow connected with this treasure. There is, after all, mention of the ‘purest gold’ in the poem, and one of the paintings of Delacroix the poet emphasises indeed revolves around the temple treasures.

If the intricacy of the poem is anything to go by, it is certainly possible that what one is dealing with here are in fact directions that could lead to the biggest treasure of all – the treasure of the Temple of Jerusalem. As was mentioned earlier, some writers are of the opinion that the famous Jean Cocteau was the writer of this poem, which makes one wonder whether he did not perhaps write it as a sort of last testament.

Some experts believe the poem to be related to the geometrical pattern according to which the Rennes-le-Château church was laid out, and others that it describes the mysterious process that is symbolic of the inner path of a mystic’s development. Although both of these suppositions could be correct, right from the start, however, it seemed to me to rather primarily involve the Sals Valley in the Rennes-les-Bains region, containing directions for a route through the area. Visiting Rennes-les-Bains for the first time, I couldn’t wait to see if such a route does in fact exist. Needless to say, I was quite thrilled when I discovered that the first clues in the poem do indeed correspond to such a route.

Next, I will set out exactly how I went about analysing the 13 stanzas of the poem in consecutive chapters and elaborate on the information related to each clue. The complex thread of the content is carried through on each of the many levels the poet saw fit to weave into the riddle, up until the final solving of it. In conclusion, I venture an opinion as to the political and religious implications of the discovery of the actual keystone.

[1] Saul, J.M. & Glaholm, J.A. 1985. London: Mercurius.

[2] Ibid., p. 19.

[3] Boudet, H. 1886. Carcassonne. Reissue: 1984. Belisane: Nice.

[4] Markale, J. 1986. Paris: Pygmalion. Translation: Graham, J. 2004. The Church of Mary Magdalene. The Sacred Feminine and the Treasure of Rennes-le-Château. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions.

[5] Patton, G. & Mackness, R. 2000. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.

[6] Baigent, M., Leigh, R. & Lincoln, H. 1982. The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail. London: Jonathan Cape, p. 235.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: Preface

It’s been nearly 20 years now since I first read about Le serpent rouge (‘The Red Serpent’) in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

From the onset I was rather intrigued by the poem in this secret document of the Prieuré de Sion (‘Priory of Sion’) and the extraordinary riddle it contains. Little did I know that it would eventually urge me to travel thousands of miles and have me guessing for many years.

After obtaining the entire document in 1998, I could purposefully and systematically fine-comb the stanzas for clues and research every single one. With each visit to the areas mentioned therein, I found answers to some of the clues, and slowly but surely the solution began to unfold. Finally, nearly 40 years after the document was first published, the final breakthrough came about.

Of all the secret documents relating to the Rosicrucian Order, the Prieuré de Sion, Le serpent rouge is undoubtedly the one of the finest quality. The riddle woven into the poem is also of the highest order. Contrary to the fictional riddle in The Da Vinci Code, which is also linked to the Prieuré de Sion, this riddle relates to an authentic Prieuré document.

I have also consulted significant French documents and genealogies that, to the best of my knowledge, have never appeared in an English publication. The translation of the original poem from French, as well as the translations from other French sources, are my own.

According to the poet, the riddle will ultimately lead one to the new temple of Solomon, wherein a treasure of incalculable worth is hidden – evidently nothing less than the temple treasures of Jerusalem. Although it had not been my intent to find the treasure, but rather to solve the riddle in the poem, the climax of my research was when I discovered the actual highly secret keystone to which all the clues in the riddle lead and that has been present in a secret location for many centuries.

In view of the extremes the relevant secret groups had gone on to devise the riddle over literally centuries – even the St. Sulpice Church in Paris had been laid out according to the geometry of the area in which the keystone had been hidden – this discovery will undoubtedly have far-reaching political and religious implications.

I trust that the journey through the stanzas of the poem, up until the solving of the riddle, will captivate the reader as much as it did me.

Guillaume Brouillard

[wilsondownes]

Le Serpent Rouge

1.Comme ils sont étranges les manuscrits de cet Ami, grand voyageur de l'inconnu, ils me sont parvenus séparément, pourtant ils forment un tout pour celui qui sait que les couleurs de l'arc-en-ciel donnent l'unité blanche, ou pour l'Artiste qui sous son pinceau, fait des six teintes de sa palette magique, jaillir le noir.

How strange are the manuscripts of this Friend, great traveller of the unknown. To me they had the appearance of being separate; however, they form a whole for the one who knows that the colours of the rainbow give unified white, or for the Artist who under his paintbrush brings forth black from the six tints of his magic palette.

2. Cet Ami, comment vous le présenter? Son nom demeura un mystère, mais son nombre est celui d'un sceau célèbre. Comment vous le décrire? Peut-être comme le nautonnier de l'arche impérissable, impassible comme un colonne sur son roc blanc, scrutant vers le midi, au-delà du roc noir. This Friend, how does one introduce him to you? His name will remain a mystery, but his number is that of a famous seal. How does one describe him to you? Perhaps as the pilot of the imperishable ark, unmoved as a column on his white rock, looking attentively towards the south, beyond the black rock.

3. Dans mon pélérinage éprouvant, je tentais de me frayer à l'épée une voie à travers la végétation inextricable des bois, je voulais parvenir à la demeure de la BELLE endormie en qui certains poètes voient la REINE d'un royaume disparu. Au désespoir de retrouver le chemin, les parchemins de cet Ami furent pour moi le fil d'Ariane.

During my testing pilgrimage, I attempted to clear a path with the sword through the impenetrable vegetation of the woods. I wanted to reach the residence of the sleeping BEAUTY in whom certain poets saw the QUEEN of a vanished kingdom. Desperate to find the way, the parchments of this Friend were for me the thread of Ariadne.

4. Grâce à lui, désormais à pas mesurés et d'un oeil sur, je puis découvrir les soixante-quatre pierres dispersées du cube parfait que les Frères de la BELLE du bois noir échappant à la poursuite des usurpateurs, avaient semées en route quant ils s'enfuirent du Fort blanc.

Thanks to him, from now on with measured steps and a sure eye, I am able to discover the sixty-four dispersed stones of the perfect cube that the Brothers of the BEAUTY of the black wood, escaping the pursuit of usurpers, scattered along the way while they were fleeing from the white Fort.

5. Rassembler les pierres éparses, oeuvrer de l'équerre et du compas pour les remettre en order régulier, chercher la ligne du méridien en allant de l'Orient à l'Occident, puis regardant du Midi au Nord, enfin en tous sens pour obtenir la solution cherchée, faisant station devant les quatorze pierres marquées d'une croix. Le cercle étant l'anneau et couronne, et lui le diadème de cette REINE du Castel.

To assemble the dispersed stones, work with square and compasses to put them back together again in regular order. Seek the meridian line going from the East to the West, then look from the South to the North, finally in all directions, to obtain the searched-for solution, positioning oneself in front of the fourteen stones marked with a cross. The circle being the ring and crown, it is the diadem of this QUEEN of Le Castel.

6. Les dalles du pavé mosaïque du lieu sacré pouvaient-être alternativement blanches ou noires, et JESUS, comme ASMODEE observer leurs alignements, ma vue semblait incapable de voir le sommet où demeurait cachée la merveilleuse endormie. N'étant pas HERCULE à la puissance magique, comment déchiffrer les mystérieux symboles gravés par les observateurs du passé. Dans le sanctuaire pourtant le bénitier, fontaine d'amour des croyants redonne mémoire de ces mots: PAR CE SIGNE TU le VAINCRAS.

The slabs of the mosaic paving of the holy place could be alternatively white or black, and JESUS, like ASMODEUS, observes their alignment. It seemed impossible for me to see the summit where the marvellous sleeping one remained hidden. Not being HERCULES with magic power, how does one decipher the mysterious symbols engraved by the overseers of the past? In the sanctuary, however, the holy-water stoup, fountain of love of believers, reminds one of these words: BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER him.

7. De celle que je désirais libérer, montaient vers moi les effluves du parfum qui imprégnèrent le sépulcre. Jadis les uns l'avaient nommée: ISIS, reine des sources bienfaisantes, VENEZ A MOI VOUS TOUT QUI SOUFFREZ ET QUI ETES ACCABLES ET JE VOUS SOULAGERAI, d'autres: MADELEINE, au célèbre vase plein d'un baume guérisseur. Les initiés savent son nom véritable: NOTRE DAME DES CROSS.

From the one that I wanted to free, rose towards me the emanations of perfume which impregnated the sepulchre. Formerly some called her: ISIS, queen of benevolent springs, COME TO ME ALL OF YOU WHO SUFFER AND WHO ARE OVERWHELMED AND I WILL COMFORT YOU; others: MAGDALENE, with the famous vial full of healing balm. The initiates know her true name: OUR LADY OF THE CROSSES.

8. J'étais comme les bergers du célèbre peintre POUSSIN, perplexe devant l'enigme: “ET IN ARCADIA EGO…”! La voix du sang allait-elle me rendre l'image d'un passé ancestral. Oui, l'éclair du génie traversa ma pensée. Je revoyais, je comprenais! Je savais maintenant ce secret fabuleux. Et merveille, lors des sauts des quatre cavaliers, les sabots d'un cheval avaient laissé quatre empreintes sur la pierre, voilà le signe que DELACROIX avait donné dans l'un des trois tableaux de la chapelle des Anges. Voilà la septième sentence qu'une main avait tracée: RETIRE MOI DE LA BOUE, QUE JE N'Y RESTE PAS ENFONCE. Deux fois IS, embaumeuse et embaumée, vase miracle de l'éternelle Dame Blanche des Légendes.

I, like the shepherds of the famous painter POUSSIN, stood puzzled in front of the enigma: “ET IN ARCADIA EGO…”! Would the voice of the blood bring forth to me the image of an ancestral past? Yes, the light of the genius crossed my mind. I reflected, I understood! I now know the fabulous secret. And marvellous, when the four horsemen jumped, the hoofs of one horse left four imprints on the rock. Here is the sign that DELACROIX had given in one of the three paintings of the chapel of Angels. Here is the seventh sentence which a hand had drawn: PULL ME FROM THE MUD, THAT I DO NOT STAY THERE SINKING. Two times IS, embalmer and embalmed, miraculous vial of the eternal White Lady of Legends.

9. Commencé dans les ténèbres, mon voyage ne pouvait s'achever qu'en Lumière. A la fenêtre de la maison ruinée, je contemplais à travers les arbres dépouillés par l'automme le sommet de la montagne. La croix de crète se détachait sous le soleil du midi, elle était la quatorzième et la plus grande de toutes avec ses 35 centimètres! Me voici donc à mon tour cavalier sur le coursier divin chevauchant l'abîme.

Started in the shadows, my journey could only end in Light. At the window of the ruined house, I gazed through the trees stripped by autumn, to the summit of the mountain. The cross of crète stood out under the midday sun. It was the fourteenth and the biggest of all with its 35 centimetres! Hence, here I am on my rider’s circuit on the divine steed crossing the abyss.

10. Vision céleste pour celui qui se souvient des quatre oeuvres de Em. SIGNOL autour de la ligne du Méridien, au choeur même du sanctuaire d'où rayonne cette source d'amour des uns pour les autres, je pivote sur moi-même passant du regard la rose du P à celle de l’S, puis de l’S au P … et la spirale dans mon esprit devenant comme un poulpe monstrueux expulsant son encre, les ténèbres absorbent la lumière, j'ai le vertige et je porte ma main à ma bouche mordant instinctivement ma paume, peut-être comme OLIER dans son cerceuil. Malédiction, je comprends la vérité, IL EST PASSE, mais lui aussi en faisant LE BIEN, ainsi que CELUI de la tombe fleurie. Mais combien ont saccagé la MAISON, ne laissant que des cadavres embaumés et nombres de métaux qu'ils n'avaient pu emporter. Quel étrange mystère recèle le nouveau temple de SALOMON édifié par les enfants de Saint VINCENT.

Celestial vision for the one who remembers the four works of Em. SIGNOL around the Meridian line, even at the choir of the sanctuary from where radiates this source of love from one to another. I turn around, letting my gaze pass from the rose of the P to that of the S, then from the S to the P … the spiral in my mind becoming like a monstrous octopus expelling its ink. The shadows absorb the light. I am dizzy and I bring my hand to my mouth, instinctively biting my palm, perhaps like OLIER in his coffin. Curses, I understand the truth, HE HAS PASSED, in doing THE GOOD, like THE ONE of the flowery tomb. But how many have sacked the HOUSE, leaving only embalmed corpses and numerous metal objects they were unable to carry. What strange mystery is concealed in the new temple of SOLOMON set up by the children of Saint VINCENT.

11. Maudissant les profanateurs dans leurs cendres et ceux qui vivent sur leurs traces, sortant de l'abîme où j'étais plongé en accomplissant le geste d'horreur: “Voici la preuve que du sceau de SALOMON je connais le secret, que de cette REINE j'ai visité les demeures cachées.” A ceci, Ami Lecteur, garde toi d'ajouter ou de retrancher un iota … médite, Médite encore, le vil plomb de mon écrit contient peut-être l'or le plus pur.

Cursing the desecrators in their ashes and those who live in their tracks, leaving the abyss into which I was plunged while performing the gesture of horror: “Here is the proof that I know the secret of the seal of SOLOMON: that of this QUEEN, I have visited the hidden dwelling places.” To this, Dear Reader, be careful not to add or remove an iota … meditate, Meditate again. The base lead of my writing perhaps contains the purest gold.

12. Revenant alors à la blanche coline, le ciel ayant ouvert ses vannes, il me sembla près de moi sentir une présence, les pieds dans l'eau comme celui qui vient de recevoir la marque du baptème, me retournant vers l'est, face à moi je vis déroulant sans fin ses anneaux, l'énorme SERPENT ROUGE cité dans les parchemins, salée et amère, l'énorme bête déchainée devint au pied de ce mont blanc, rouge en colère.

Returning then to the white hill, the sky having opened its sluices, it seemed to me that I was sensing a presence near me, standing in the water as one who had come to receive the sign of baptism. Tuning myself toward the east, I saw in front of me, its coils unrolling without end, the enormous RED SERPENT cited in the parchments. Salty and bitter, the enormous beast, let loose, became at the foot of this white mountain, red with anger.

13. Mon émotion fut grande, “RETIRE MOI DE LA BOUE” disais-je, et mon réveil fut immédiat. J'ai omis de vous dire en effet que c'était un songe que j'avais fait ce 17 JANVIER, fête de Saint SULPICE. Par la suite mon trouble persitant, j'ai voulu après réflexions d'usage vous le relater un conte de PERRAULT. Voici donc Ami Lecteur, dans les pages qui suivent le résultat d'un rêve m'ayant bercé dans le monde de l'étrange à l'inconnu. A celui qui PASSE de FAIRE LE BIEN!

My emotion was great. “PULL ME FROM THE MUD”, I said and awoke immediately. I failed to tell you that it was in fact a dream that I had this 17th JANUARY, the festal day of Saint SULPICE. Subsequently, my trouble persisting, after the usual reflection, I wanted to tell you a story of PERRAULT. Here, then, Dear Reader, in the pages that follow, the result of a dream that lulled me into the world of the strange and unknown. To the one who had PASSED away DOING THE GOOD!

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent: Book Cover

Writers, mystery buffs and even serious scholars have pondered over, discussed and written numerous books and articles regarding and about highly secretive documents, sporadically deposited in the French National Library in Paris during the 1960’s. These documents became known as the Dossiers Secrets or Secret Files and contain genealogies of the Merovingian kings and their descendants as well as information about age old and highly sensitive documents allegedly discovered by Bérenger Saunière, enigmatic priest of Rennes-le-Château in the south of France at the end of the nineteenth century. These documents are also said to contain information, until then unknown, about an extremely secretive and apparently centuries old Rosicrucian Order, the Priory of Sion.

It wasn’t until 1967, however, when a document closely related to the so-called Dossiers Secrets containing a mysterious riddle in the form of a complex poem consisting of 13 stanzas with the even more mysterious title Le serpent rouge or The red serpent, was published, that enthusiasts and experts alike really started taking note, with speculation and attempted deciphering of the riddle reaching fever pitch intensity.

The poem and more specifically the riddle not only impressed with its complexity and style but also perplexed and mystified commentators and experts, well known and less well known, from all over the world for decades to come but none of them has ever really succeeded in solving the riddle satisfactorily. That is until Guillaume Brouillard did so, and in English, after 40 years of the document’s publication and many years of dedicated research and study and numerous visits to the St Sulpice Church in Paris as well as the twin villages of Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-le-Bains and surrounds in the Aude in the very south of France, amongst others.

The elaborate riddle contained in this authentic Priory of Sion document, entitled Le serpent rouge, appears to be a kind of map, a map of the location of nothing less than the lost temple treasures of Jerusalem. As such, Brouillard has discovered and photographed the actual keystone, the very existence of which has been the subject of fierce debate and speculation and where the elaborate riddle contained in the poem eventually leads to.

Due to certain circumstances, many regard the events surrounding the Priory of Sion and even the Order itself as a hoax. Brouillard, in his fascinating book, Discovering the Keystone - Solving the Riddle of The Red Serpent after 40 Years, however, proves quite the contrary. As he unravels the riddle piece by piece in astounding detail and clarity it becomes perfectly clear that the existence of the Priory and the events surrounding it are definitely fact and most definitely not fiction. As a consequence the political and religious implications of this remarkable discovery are truly of the greatest possible importance.

Brouillard’s  groundbreaking work provides essential and compulsory reading for everyone remotely interested in the enigma surrounding the events that happened more than a century ago in the remote French village of Rennes-le-Château, the enigma of the Priory of Sion, the enigma of the Dossiers Secrets, the enigma of the treasures of Jerusalem and last but certainly not least, the enigma of the Holy Grail itself!

It provides pure unadulterated and fascinating insights into hitherto unsolved questions regarding these issues and catapults this entire subject into an entire new dimension.

[wilsondownes]

The Red Serpent Society: Genesis

Imagine for one second, in our modern, scientific, materialistic, fast paced, internet enabled, tech-centered, information obsessed world, an immense treasure of a forgotten world being discovered.

A treasure so great that it has the potential to alter the modern world as we know it! It whispers of the existence of Judaism’s most ancient and holy temple artifacts, the temple treasures of Jerusalem!

A treasure so great, a treasure transcending the mere temple artifacts of gold by revealing the true guardians of this treasure and proving their remarkable claim to a forgotten lineage, like the alchemist, transforming simple lead into pure gold, the forgotten grail kings of old!

Join The Red Serpent Society on our journey and follow our discovery! We will share one post every fortnight for the following six months.

Your faithful servants,

The Red Serpent Society