Arcadia Discussion Zone

I'm sure I remember HL also saying "bread" was used in the same way too, maybe I am mistaken

i meant a boulanger...there was no double entendre.

and where is the four à pain/bread oven at the presbytère ?

...and why didn't they use it ?

rhetorical question btw...there seems to be no sizeable chimney in the kitchen at all....don't you find that strange, where did Marie do all her famous cooking ?

Isn't there a tunnel under the chimney in the kitchen? Seem to remember that from somewhere

maybe...that's where i'm heading, but can i continue on my bread theme for a moment before i forget.

In Saunière's comptability carnets...there are entries concerning bread that come under the various headings of...

Mandat du pain
Soldé le mandat du pain
au Boulanger
Soldé le pain
Soldé le pain à Camredon
Donné a Camredon
Donné au Boulanger
Reste soldé au Boulanger
Soldé au Boulanger

Saunière spends between 500 and 600 francs a year with the Boulanger in the years 1897 to 1900...

the price of a kilo of bread in 1895 was 0.35 fr ( 35 centimes) in 1900 it was 38 centimes.

4.35 kilos of bread a day...

so that's an awful lot of bread...surely Marie, who was such a good cook and famous for her cooking (and with such a tiny chimney an all)...surely she would have baked her own in a bread oven...what am i missing here, i can't find any trace of a four à pain, communal or otherwise...did the whole of Rennes le Château get their bread delivered or did they all walk down the hill to Couiza or wherever to buy their bread ?

On the other hand - if the funds received by Saunière were intended to go toward the care and feeding of certain refugees scattered about the Pyrénées after, say, a military defeat, then I suppose he would be spending a lot on bread.

TCP

there were 6 in the family were there not, (Saunière & his mother... M. et Mme Dénarnaud and their daughter and son) so 4.3 kg is probably about correct, but why did he not have it made in the village, where is the four ?...there isn't one in the presbytère because the kitchen is in the place of the original church entrance imho...the original west entrance.

remember...the bread would have been made with whole brown flour in those days, so the bread is very heavy...and a family size Miche or Boule weighs in at 1.6 kgs.

Would that 1.6 kgs. of bread have fed a family of six for three meals per day? Or would that cover a single meal?

TCP

TCP forgive me for not telling you but I have to write the article up first on it
I've been waiting to see if this train of thought was going to get here
And it has

yes there is archeological evidence of relics coming from France up the Mississippi river
and you ask how do they know this because the archeologist being very brilliant scraped off a painting
transported by the river boats up the Mississippi
New Orleans Spanish Moss

so Sandy if you want an example I have one...the relic is part of the True Cross
it resides in America

but keep on going with the discussion of traveling relics
I'm very interested

Hi all,
Just a thought, with all the talk of Sauniere's links to the monarchy and his Austro Hungarian ties. Throwing that together with the Tour Magdala being a possible observation point, money changing hands, his love of sneaking between the graveyard and his estate and also a convenient hidden room in the church ( with possibly other locations as well ). Is it possible that BS was being paid off to have a place ready for someone to hide out during the oncoming war and other political issues?
I know this has been raised before, but it kind of fits. His love of haut cuisine would go down well with fussy guests and the locals were apparently used to "strangers" visiting him. Almost hidden in plain sight?
Possible or not? Just musing.
Regards
Nic

Perhaps Sauniere was being paid by Jean-Stephane de Hapsbourg to find the three genealogy parchments.

Twenty-four years before the war ever started?

Just a suggestion here, but the royal family nearest and dearest to Saunière's heart happened to be living in exile in Austria-Hungary at the time. The seat of the tiny Légitimiste Bourbon court, Schloss Frohsdorf
near Lanzenkirchen in Niederösterreich, lies just a few kilometers from the Hungarian border.



Saunière's "royalist" ties weren't to Austria-Hungary or its ruling dynasty, but to his own country's claimant living in Austria.



This fellow.

TCP

Is that what Irmine told you?

"Jean-Stephane", or rather Johann Stefan, was not surnamed "Habsburg". He was the grandson of a Habsburg archduke who made a morganatic marriage and whose descendants were surnamed "von Meran".

And I really doubt that any Habsburg would have the slightest interest in the Hautpoul genealogy, their own was far grander and more complete.

TCP

"François Bérenger Saunière (11 April 1852 – 22 January 1917)"
Austria-Hungary was a multinational realm and one of the world's great powers at the time. The dual monarchy existed for 51 years until it dissolved on 31 October 1918 before a military defeat on the Italian front of the First World War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary
Not that war Tim ! I should have been clearer and used the phrase ongoing not oncoming !

Agreed. But is it viable that he was being paid off to secure a bolt hold for an exiled or deposed "claimant" ?
Regards
Nic

Austria was at peace between 1866 and 1914, what "ongoing" war are you referring to?



Only if the claimant planned on making an appearance at some point to rally his troops for another invasion of Spain - which, actually, the papers as late as 1909 thought was a distinct possibility since there were still so many of the troops milling around the border region. But I think as far as lodgings go, there would have been no shortage of aristocratic families willing to offer their chateaux for "the King's" comfort.

TCP

"François Bérenger Saunière (11 April 1852 – 22 January 1917)"
Austria-Hungary was a multinational realm and one of the world's great powers at the time. The dual monarchy existed for 51 years until it dissolved on 31 October 1918 before a military defeat on the Italian front of the First World War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary
Not that war Tim ! I should have been clearer and used the phrase ongoing not oncoming ![/quote]


Ok, but remember back in 1990 - 1991 Iraq. Would you have been that surprised to find America and England etc in Afghanistan in 2012? 22 years later. There were lots of political manipulation going on around 1900, from the Dual Alliance, Bismark and the Bosnian Crisis etc. I just wondered IF BS had close ties with anyone with a political heads up he may have pre-empted some of the situation that followed



Fair enough, I just brought it up as its a previously discussed theory and RLC isn't exactly as obvious as an aristocratic chateau.
What is your view on the correspondence between BS and the Austro Hungarian empire? Existent or not ? If so why, because I doubt he was sharing his lotto win
Regards
Nic

The hiding place was in Girona.

Saunière was given money by Marie-Thérèse of Austria, countess of Chambord, and widow of the Count de Chambord, last claimant to the throne of France, who had died in 1883. She gave Saunière no less than 3000 French francs – roughly 45,000 Euros in today’s currency.

Couldn't say, to be quite honest. But one thing to remember about that period of time - European monarchy was a family affair. All the crowned heads were related to some degree to all the other crowned heads, and given the alliances being formed at that time there was an overarching sense among the ruling classes that the best means of diffusing international tension was between cousins; or, if not, they'd fight together. WWI relieved the royals of that misconception as family relationships fell apart. But in the 1890s and early 1900s, Europe was enjoying a peaceful Indian summer and its ruling dynasties never felt more secure on their thrones.



I doubt very much that Saunière had any dealings with the Austrian government or its ruling family. I'd be more inclined to think that he could have been in touch with his own exiled royals living in Austria. We know he received a nice gift of money from the Comtesse de Chambord - born a Habsburg, true, but also the de jure Queen of France by marriage - and I don't see any reason to think that his devotion to the Legitimist cause wouldn't have extended to her nephew, the next successor.

TCP

How is it that a humble priest from a bucolic backwater in the south of France came to have any dealings, financial or otherwise, with members of monarchical families?

Just thought of something sort-of quasi relative (maybe). I can't link it to Saunière directly but it was going on around him.

When the Third Carlist War ended and the Carlist forces were routed, the bulk of them fled over the mountains into France. This was in 1876, nearly a decade before Saunière was appointed to the presbytery in RLC. The "King" was taken into custody by the French authorities and exiled to Britain. His officers and troops, however, dispersed into the mountains and hid out, waiting to see what their next move would be. They couldn't go home to Spain where they faced arrest or execution. Some, mostly officers, were taken in by aristocrats (many of whose sons had fought in the Carlist forces themselves); others turned to the churches for sanctuary. More than three decades later some were still in France, making their living as builders and handymen. Others, loyal to the cause and hoping for a call to assemble, came and went across the border clandestinely. Their hopes for another invasion petered out in 1909 when the old claimant died and his son proved disinterested in fighting. Some of the old veterans of 1876 never did go home.

If Saunière was operating as a link in some sort of underground railroad operation then secret hiding places and observation points on his property could have served that purpose. I can't point to anything definitive to prove Saunière himself was involved, but other priests in the border region were, that's been documented.

TCP

Carlos, Duke of Madrid?

His politics, his vocation, and his location. Légitimiste in his politics, traditionaliste in his Catholicism, and strategically located to serve the interests of his "king" - although one wonders if he kept up the faith after 1892, when his "king" decided to cease pursuing his French claims. Perhaps that's when Saunière decided the money he was sitting on was his to spend at will, in his eyes there was no longer a cause to support.

TCP

Sí, claro.

The titular "Carlos VII" of Spain and "Charles XI" of France. Aîné des Capétiens from 1887 to 1909.



TCP