Arcadia Discussion Zone

Not directly from what I've seen.

TCP

Sauniere was short on funds when the border with Spain was closed. The

hide-out for the royal was in Girona.

Bump!!

After giving it some thought I've come once again to conclusion that there's no point in continuing.

mmm toast

Hey! that looks just like American toast Davinho. I wonder if it tastes the same?

I always find bread different in each country. I really don't care for any of the bread I've eaten in the US

Thats because we get most of our wheat from your commonwealth member to our north.

One of the joys of southern France - fougasse http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink ... tinet.html

Exhuming without permission..??

Any evidence?

TCP

I wish. Tempted to say what I've gleaned from this website over time, but that won't wash.
I seem to remember there are records of disgruntled villagers complaining to the mayor(?) about Sauniere grubbing around at night in the graveyard, assisted by his ADC, Marie.
His explanation if I remember correctly was "defragging" the graveyard to make more room.

Seems kind of an odd thing to do at night.

TCP

Exactly!! Seems he didn't get what (all) he wanted from the crypt, which could be explored at leisure. I guess he hoped all the villagers were snugly tucked in. (My conjecture).

IIRC, the protest note of the mayor and the people from RLC was sent to Couiza police. Anyway, that document is known.

Thanks Egi, there were disjointed bits floating around as you no doubt perceived.

He could just as easily have been hiding something in the graveyard for someone else to retrieve under cover of darkness while the village slept.

TCP

Uh no...we import some in the form of processed products, but we are also the world's biggest EXPORTER of wheat. My response to Davinho is "buy better quality bread when you're here!" but I know what you mean too - it's just that if you are at a decent sized store, or bakery, the variety and quality is pretty amazing IMHO, just not in many restaurants...

Yes, I suppose so.....but why do it where it may (and was) be observed? Much smarter surely to hide whatever on one of his "walks". But we're straying, the original Q was have we any evidence of criminal behaviour on his part. Is the answer "Yes"?

Righto you lot, rise and shine, back to work!!
Hottie asked a question.
Anyone prepared to discuss further?

An investigation of gendarmerie of the brigade of Couiza appears to have taken place in 1917. The Spanish authorities have, in their turn carried out a survey in this direction around 1930 and it suggests that the Abbé Saunière could have grown rich by making a traffic in gold with Spain.. An article in the L'Indépendant, 22 March 1980 speaks of this in some detail.

- Perillos

It is recorded that a Roman proconsul by the name of Cæpion took from a votive lake 80 tons of gold and money and immediately re-melted this into ingots. This apparantly disappeared during its transport towards the port of Narbonne following an attack by these Volkes Tectosages upset by this profanation of their sacred offerings to the lake. They would have then withdrawn to the high valley of the Aude and would have hidden this treasure in this area which with it's high vantage points and many caves is easy to defend.

One is of course reminded that in 1830 a man out walking in the Garrigue found a gold ingot weighing 20 kilos and not long after this in 1860 near to Le Bezu another man found a gold bar made up of partially smelted Arabic coins and weighing almost 50 kilos. These discoveries are confirmed and are undisputed.

The Garrigue is of course a very large wooded area right next to the village of Brenac which you can see clearly from the vantage point at Rennes le Chateau.

Sacking of Delphi and Greece
The one we concern ourselves is earlier who along with Bolgios Brennos was the legendary leader of the Celts on thieir invasion of Macedonia in the second century BCE. Though Bolgios led the invasion of Macedonia Brennus succeeded in crossing his whole army over the river Sperchios into Greece proper, where he laid seige to the town of Heraclea and, having driven out the garrison there, marched on to Thermopylae where he defeated an army raised by a confederation of Greek cities. Brennus then avanced across Greece, where he decided to go on to Delphi, which was reported as the treasure house of Greece. Brennus and his army of 30,000 set off to attack the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the ultimate goal of his expedition. (The Temple at Delphi is where Apollo slew the Python, the son of Gaia - Mother Earth) Here it is said that Brennus was defeated by earthquakes and thunderbolts that reduced the soldiers to ashes; snow storms, showers of great stones, and "ancient heroes appearing from the heavens". In the midst of this snowstorm, Brennos and his men were attacked near the Parnassus mountains. The Celts were soundly defeated and Brennos was mortally wounded. As he lay dying, he gave the order for all of the wounded to be killed, and all the booty to be burned, as the army would never make it home if they had to carry the wounded warriors and their plunder. After giving the order, Brennos drank some wine and then took his own life.

The remnants of his army who escaped this defeat became the Gauls and settled on the Hellespont in the country surrounding Byzantium. Some of them crossed the Bosporus and settled in a part of Asia Minor that came to be called Galatia and one of the towns they founded became modern Ankara. The others returned to their homelands in Gaul, keeping in trust the treasures of Brennus' campaign. The Amphictyonic League instituted new games, the Delphic Soteria ("deliverance" or "salvation") to commemorate their victory.

Strabo reports a story told in his time of a treasure consisting of fifteen thousand talents of gold and silver - supposed to have been taken from Delphi and brought back to Tolosa (modern Toulouse, France) by the Tectosages, who were said to have been part of the invading army. Strabo does not believe this story, arguing that the defeated Gauls were in no position to carry off the spoils of Delphi, and that in any case Delphi had already been despoiled of its treasure by the Phocians during the Third Sacred War the previous century.

But one must remember that the army of Brennus had already conquered most of Greece and had ample opportunity to carry off the treasures from the Temple of Zeus, Dodona and Olympia.

These Tectosages are spoken of in some length by the Abbe Henri Boudet in his book La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes les Bains.

I never thought I'd say this....thank God for Roscoe, we may be off the Hammott case at last.

Yes Roscoe, tantalising, but all mostly unconfirmed, not hard proof that our Abbe was a felon.

The pivotal point here turns on whether - or not - these agents were working on behalf on the Spanish government, or another interested party who would have reason to go looking for the disposition of funds they believed belonged to them.

In 1930 Alfonso XIII had no claim to the throne of France; the Carlist claimant, Don Jaime, Duke of Madrid, was very much alive at the time, as was his uncle Don Alfonso Carlos, Duke of San Jaime. The French claim rested with them. When ex-King Alfonso eventually did inherit that claim - in 1936 - he was under no illusion that he might ever see a return to monarchy in France. What he did, actually, is consolidate his position as aîné des Capétiens - head of the house of Bourbon and, thus, of the French royal house. He'd ceded his rights to Spain years before.

TCP

"You're walking on gold, there's enough to feed the whole village for a hundred years and still there would be some left over." - Claire Corbu quoting in a live interview on the TV special "History of a Mystery" what Marie Denarnaud had said to her when Claire was a child living in the village .

Starting watching from 5:45 onwards

Was there gold?

Well people thought he had found treasure

This from 1936





From Dr Jean Girou's book.

Marie Denarnaud was still living in Rennes le Chateau at this time, she was 68 years old. Noel Corbu and his family wasn't anywhere near Rennes le Chateau at this time.

She didn't appear to have an income but she owned property and some very good furniture as this letter confirms:



This and the fact that gold ingots and coins have been found around Rennes le Chateau (and are still being found) then one can hypothesize that Saunière did indeed have a source of gold at his disposal.

What was this gold?

It wasn't the Treasure from the Temple of Solomon. That is at the bottom of the Mediterranean. If it was the Ark of the Covenant then the Zionists would be all over the place like a rash. They aren't.

Likely it was the Treasure of Delphi brought to the area by the Volques Tectosages. The evidence for this is from a story related by an old Ariegois related to Otto Rahn. The Druids placed the gold/treasure inside a magic circle because they thought it was cursed.

There is also this curious story (translated from french):





This may be the entrance.
Or this


The latter because of the painting in Rennes les Bains church known as Christ and the Hare.



Boudet, the former curé of Rennes les Bains church and a contemporary of Saunière, allegedly wrote in a book, with three versions dated 1891, 1914 and another in 1914, (The first version appears to have been signed by Edmund Boudet) about, the born again brother of Mary of Bethany, Lazarus and the book is called “Lazare Véni Foras!”(Lazarus step forward). In this book Boudet told us to think about a Hare which encourages us to think about a treasure.

I would recommend caution, it may be booby trapped. However what ever may have been in there has probably long gone.

Given the legends of hidden, long-lost treasures it is understandable that the locals might have attributed Saunière's sudden and unexplained wealth to such a find - especially as he did turn up a few ancient articles in the church, which he showed to others. But how would he have turned a large cache of artifacts into spendable cash without giving himself away? How could he trade ancient coins and ingots for goods without converting it to modern currency? He'd have to have a buyer, perhaps a collector, willing to keep mum about it. As far as I know nothing like that has ever been discerned from his papers.

Unless, of course, he had modern coins that could be spent or converted to paper currency without raising eyebrows. Then it would be unlikely that the source was found, but rather that he was the recipient from a source or sources as yet not positively identified.

The fact that Spanish "agents" - be they government agents or agents of a private citizen - came looking for the "source of funds" thirteen years after Saunière's death suggests three possibilities:

1. Money was coming into Spain from RLC, the question was how it was moving through.

2. Money had stopped coming into Spain when Saunière died, and the intended recipients were looking to retrieve it.

3. These agents had some claim of proprietary right to the money, either on behalf of the Spanish state or another interested party in Spain.

TCP

But why would Boudet be dropping clues leading to a hidden treasure? Why wouldn't he retrieve it himself? Unless, of course, he was intentionally indicating a drop point for a known party to retrieve it?

I think we're conditioned, by old eyewitness accounts, to believe that Saunière was digging something up under cover of darkness, rather than burying something for someone else to retrieve later.

TCP