Was Pierre Plantard an innocent babe or was he a third-rate confidence-trickster?

Did the Abbé Bérenger Saunière really discover a mystery, a secret and a treasure – or did he get his money from trafficking in masses relating to the conflict between Church and State in 19th Century France?

Why do people keep repeating that it was impossible for Abbé Saunière to have said so many masses – the simple fact is that he accepted more money than he was able to say masses for – and he was in effect convicted of fraud.

That is, unless he was dabbling in a money-laundering scheme, to do with the [unofficial] Roman Catholic Church and parishioners against the atheistic French Republic that would have been secretly known about to the people that were sending him all the money; of which the Carcassonne Bishopric would have secretly suspected.

It is not too difficult to work these things out!

Of course, if our True Believers ignore these obvious possibilities then we know that we are on the right track – nobody can get “high” from this! The essence of conspiracy theories and alternative history is to get “high”! They cannot get “high” from basic and ordinary historical facts!