Read this:
Keep the sick pills handy.
From that famous book
Mysteries of Templar Treasure and the Holy Grail: The Secrets of Rennes le Chateau.
R. Lionel Fanthorpe, Patricia Fanthorpe
(Never heard of it: I'm worn out already just reading the title)
Quote:
No bloodhound with a nose for truth could ever hope to be in the same league as Paul Smith. If he were an income tax inspector, a Scotland Yard fraud squad superintendent or a district auditor, the careless and the dishonest would cringe and tremble at the sound of his name. Undoubtedly Paul could also have made a high reputation for himself as an analytical chemist - if chemistry had interested him as much as Rennes does. His appetite for facts is voracious. He devours all the relevant data, cross references it thoroughly, re-checks everything three times and still keeps a question mark handy in case he's overlooked something. Paul goes to war with two battle cries emblazoned across his banner. "Who said so?" and "Where did he get it from?" His appendix to the present volume, for which the authors and publishers are most grateful, is a mine of tightly compressed, granite hard information.
Pardon me a moment I need the toilet.
Thank you Mr and Mrs Fanclub.
If he was a tax inspector I'd be getting a rebate by now. If he'd been an analytical chemist he'd have blown himself up.
The key words here are
tightly compressed Tightly compressed to the point that anything he doesn't like doesn't get mentioned.
Whenever I cross swords with him I always ask him to rewrite his passage about Jacques Cholet. Where Smith boasts that the whole church was investigated and nothing was found. Then I mention Cholet's own words and point out that he found some documents in the church. Smith instantly, without offering any corroborative evidence instantly dismisses them as fake.
He quotes Cholet as saying he didn't find anything but conveniently leaves out this piece from Cholet's report:
Quote:
RESULTS OF THE RESEARCHES
A) On my own account I excavated both under and behind the altar but found nothing.
I also excavated in line with and in front of the altar - again nothing. Under the staircase of the pulpit is another staircase that runs down to the cemetery. In the small tower to the left of the sacristy it seems that the stones of the party wall with the apse are arranged in the form of a discharging arch, but this is vague. Under the floor of the sacristy I found the beginning of a staircase running southwards. Its steps were roughly hewn and it was as wide as the entry to the sacristy. In the year in question I had to abandon my researches, as both my holidays and my financial resources had come to an end.
B) Some years later, a quite wealthy person agreed to finance my work, my holiday and my staff. So I returned. We wasted a great deal of time in vain discussions and in trips to obtain an excavation permit. At the beginning I was also made to tear up the floor of the church, starting from the pulpit: my sponsor, a pendulum enthusiast, had located the entrance of the underground passageways there - but we found nothing. I persevered as far as the foundations of the church, digging as far as virgin soil. We found the outline of numerous empty vaults. We resumed the same task along the south wall, with approximately the same result, the only difference being that all the human remains, which were missing on the other side, had been placed there higgledy-piggledy. On the advice of a female clairvoyant we were urged to excavate behind the Altar - but found nothing. The winter and the snow then obliged us to stop work.
C) With Mr. Domergue and his friends we dug an approach trench about 18 metres long through solid rock, starting from his property. Mr. Domergue was convinced that the entrance to the underground passages was near the Altar, but the approach trench got as far as the area underneath the altar and we found nothing. This same researcher had already dug on his own, starting from a place that was part of the former presbytery, following the course of a bricked-up chimney which seemed to have served as a breather. He abandoned it, having lost the route of the chimney. He also dug from the path that ran alongside the cemetery at the north-west angle of the cemetery, but again without result. He used explosives to remove the cover of a well situated on his property. It was there that he found the parchment of Dominique de Mirepoix. In principle it is in this well that the underground passage should emerge. In its inner walls nothing looked as if it had been made with human hands. He also began digging in the foundations, in the tank under the old forge, but without result.
D) Long before these excavations took place researchers from Carcassonne had shut themselves up inside the church. They excavated without asking anything and without saying anything afterwards as to whether they had found anything or not.
E) Plenty of other researchers have come and dug without result.
13) They say that, down the centuries, two people have succeeded in entering the underground passages:
A shepherd pursuing an escaped goat followed it into a hole where he found human remains and where the soil was strewn with gold coins. He brought quite a large quantity of the coins out with him but was accused of theft and executed. They also say that a priest found some treasure in the time of Louis XIV. In 1959, when I was working in the church, a postman came in and said to me: 'There is an underground passageway which runs from the church to the chateau, but I wouldn’t go there for anything in the world'. He also said to me: 'The Curé Saunière used to get a lot of money orders sent to him through the post'.
We've got your number Smith.
Here is a genuine report honestly given by M. Cholet and Smith leaves out the bits he doesn't like.