Since the beginning of my ministry at Rennes-le-Château (1 June 1885) I have carried out repairs to the church, a building which, when I found it, was in a most deplorable state. I have tidied it up, furnished, decorated and embellished it, to the point where one would say, on seeing it today, that it has become a true 'covenant church'. With the parish council's permission, I have created a superb garden containing, as ornamentation, a magnificent Calvary, with a supply of water, and a conservatory on an integrated site.

I have restored the parish cemetery, repaired or rebuilt from scratch the walls of the cloister, and installed a huge entry gate in wrought iron and freestone.

I have repaired the presbytery and, so to speak, made it as good as new, both inside and out, and I have also equipped it with a water-tank, the abundant and delicious water from which is one of the glories of this house, as well as obtaining, on my own initiative, certain necessary sums of money to achieve these particular results. I cannot find words to describe what I have had to suffer and endure in the way of torments and quarrels and trials of all sorts at the hands of the civil administration, the church council of the parish, the ecclesiastical authorities, and my own family. Yet I had never asked anyone – and was not asking anyone - for one penny. I alone had taken on the job of paying for everything, and by the grace of God I had succeeded.

During 1900, anticipating that the day was perhaps not far off when the government and the municipal authorities would take the presbytery away from us, I took advantage of an opportunity to purchase several plots of land adjoining my home. It was there, in May 1901, that I began to lay the foundations of a villa which was intended to replace the presbytery, should the day dawn when this latter building was taken away from me. Around this building, built in the style of the Renaissance, and now fully completed and furnished, lie kitchen and pleasure gardens. There is a circular cloister, above which is located a covered walk forming a terrace from which one can enjoy the most magnificent view imaginable. This promenade, which is unparalleled in the region, terminates at the right-hand end in an extensive veranda with winter-gardens and a turret, with staircases leading to the lower floors, and at the left-hand end in a square tower, on two floors, the whole of the turret being crenellated. This part serves as my library and office.

Once my new home and its outbuildings had been built, and all the finishing touches put to them, it was my intention to offer the entire group of buildings to the Monsignor – as I had already had the honour of telling him I would do, some years ago, in a personal conversation in his offices at Carcassonne, and as I have reminded him again in writing quite recently – to serve as a retirement home for aged or infirm priests, a place where the poor old people would have been short of nothing, what with all the fresh air, etc. – they would even have had a place reserved for them in the parish cemetery. Let us not forget, however, that, to coin a phrase, if money is the sinews of war, it is also the sinews of building. All these building works, purchases and decorations have already cost between 100,000 and 150,000 francs, and have not yet been entirely paid for, and this sum does not include my personal work, digging, labouring, transport of materials, etc., etc.

Now that, today, everything is finally completed, on the basis of a few anonymous letters, reports of greater or lesser degrees of reliability (the work of a few lay people and, above all, of envious and jealous colleagues, for the priest has no enemy like another priest) the Monsignor is demanding to know, categorically, the source of all the money which has been used for this building work. He insists on knowing, categorically, the names of the people who have given the money to me, the sums which they have entrusted to me, and their intentions in giving the money to me. In a word, he wants me to submit to him an account book showing all my building work, together with details of receipts and expenditure. As it happens, the book he is asking for does not exist, and there remain to me only a few trifling receipts; even if this book did exist, I would not, in all conscience, feel obliged to make it available to him. He should desist from demanding that I divulge to him the names of any donors, since to publish them without being authorized to do so would be to run the risk of bringing discord into certain families or households, in which certain members have made donations to me without the knowledge of their husbands, or behind the backs of their children or their heirs.

In order to force me to speak on this subject, the ecclesiastical authorities seem to be accusing me of having constructed these buildings – as well as enriching myself – with fees for Masses in which I was trafficking, and not with donations as I claimed, basing their allegations against me upon several letters in their possession which emanate almost entirely from religious communities asking the Monsignor if they can, in all conscience, continue to send me Mass intentions to discharge, or else informing him that they have received a series of letters from me making such requests. My reply to this accusation is that it is true that, just like all my impecunious colleagues, I have requested Mass intentions, but that I have either said these Masses myself, or else arranged for them to be said by priests now deceased, or by regular clergy in exile who, in their time, have rendered me various services.

These priests are: my poor brother, who died five years ago; Monsieur Cassignac, former parish priest of Le Bézu; Monsieur Gabelle, former parish priest of Arques; Monsieur Cabrel, who retired to Limoux; Monsieur Raynaud, former parish priest of Fa; Monsieur Tisseyre, former parish priest of Serres; a priest from the Tarn; as well as two expelled regular priests, whose names I have forgotten; and the Reverend Father Ferrafiat, a Lazarist of Notre Dame de Marceille who, on the occasion of two missions to Rennes, and in other circumstances, has asked me to give Masses to colleagues under his spiritual direction.

The ecclesiastical authorities are unhappy that the names which I have supplied of people to whom I have entrusted Masses are those of priests now deceased – they would have preferred living priests to dead ones. In order to verify my statements, to which they seem to attach little faith, they are asking me for receipts from the donors of these Masses. Unfortunately, I do not have any, any more than any of my colleagues has. No one has ever asked me for a receipt for Masses which have been said, and I, for my part, have never requested them from other people. As a result, I have no receipts to show them, any more than I have a notebook or Mass Register – something which I have never had, nor felt the need to maintain. A single little sheet, which I afterwards burned, has always been enough for me.

Just over a year ago, when I was invited to the Bishop's offices, the Monsignor asked me to promise that I would no longer request Mass intentions outside the Diocese, adding that he himself could furnish me with them whenever I found myself short of them. I promised to obey him, but he came to the conclusion that I had gone back on my word, that I had deceived him, and that, in spite of everything, I was continuing to ask for them, partly because I had continued to receive intentions from outside the Diocese without my having requested them, and partly because, at the same juncture, he had received several letters in which people asked him if, in all conscience, they could continue to send me Masses to say. In short, and to conclude, I have either said myself, or arranged for colleagues or other priests to say, all the Masses for which intentions were sent to me. My conscience gives me no cause for reproach, and I alone accept responsibility, if there is any responsibility to be accepted. He is still accusing me of having continued, in spite of his ban, to request Masses outside the Diocese. My reply to him is that quite a few other priests do the same, as I know for certain, and that some even collect them from within the Diocese of Carcassonne and send them to foreign Dioceses. Yet I am the only one who is actually seen doing it, made into a marked man, and hunted down.

I have never trafficked in Masses as I have been accused of doing, nor, as certain priests in high places have done, have I ever arranged for Masses to be said at 1 franc 50, when the actual fees were at a higher rate, and kept the difference for my church or good works. The only thing you could fairly accuse me of doing would be of having kept to myself all the Masses charged at 2 francs or higher, and giving the cheaper ones to other people – that I might have done.

[Bérenger Saunière]