The biggest factors for attracting people to Rennes-le-Château in the beginning were Noël Corbu, Robert Charroux, Gérard de Sède, Pierre Plantard, Philippe de Chérisey, Henry Lincoln and Dan Brown.

Now that they have all been easily discredited and debunked even by the French (mostly) – new pseudo-historians and charlatans have taken their place – Christian Doumergue, Patrick Mensior, Paul Saussez, Laurent “Octonovo” Buchholzer, Franck Daffos, Thierry Garnier, Jean-Pierre Garcia, Pierre Silvain, André Douzet, Jean-Michel Pous – to name but a few. These characters have taken over as the leading mythmakers since Noël Corbu, Gérard de Sède, Pierre Plantard and Henry Lincoln.

The biggest sham of the subject matter remains the church crypt at Rennes-le-Château, although titles such as “The Secret Financial Notebooks of Bérenger Saunière” are equally just as popular.

The main sources of Rational Information remain to be René Descadeillas (1974), Abbé Bruno de Monts, Jean-Jacques Bedu, David Rossoni, Bernardo Sanchez da Motta (Portugal), Massimo Introvigne (Italy) and Bill Putnam & John Edwin Wood (England) – simply because they do not debunk by replacing with another conspiracy theory. They can be described as trustworthy and rational researchers. They know it’s an air-drawn fabric of a “mystery” by referring to the evidence of Abbé Sauniére’s trafficking in masses, his ecclesiastical trial of 1910-1911, his losing his priesthood – subjects avoided by people who peddle the “mystery” – if their names and works are avoided by the mythmakers then they are responsible sources of information.

By the way, René Descadeillas stated on page 114 of Mythologie du Trésor de Rennes (1974) that his introduction to Rennes-le-Château was in 1957 as part of a mandate of the Society of Arts and Sciences of Carcassonne, making it plain that he did not partake in any excavations or theorise about any treasure (so much for the ramblings in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail).

Notice that there wasn’t anyone else before Noël Corbu in the mid-1950s. It was Noël Corbu who essentially started the ball rolling about the Rennes-le-Château “mystery” madness, and everything has followed on like one accretion after another accretion. Jean Girou in 1936 mentioned that the locals believed that Saunière “discovered a treasure” – but Jean Girou scoffed at that allegation and it has to be conceded that even Girou’s account does not date from Abbé Saunière's lifetime. Girou’s account is also a recent discovery and does not fit in with what has been happening since the 1950s.

Auguste de Labouïsse-Rochefort who wrote during the early 19th century referred to the “Legend of the Devil’s Treasure” (unsupported by any earlier testimony); where he concluded that “the millions are imaginary” and his story seems to symbolically reflect the tragedy and misfortune of the author’s father-in-law.