There is a disaster area of a website that is a rich vein of booby traps and incendiary devices, containing all the fantasies and myths of Abbé Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château into 2023.

I give a brief outline of the rubbish presented on the website, and show that all the stories have either a prosaic explanation or are plain inventions without proof.

It is only hearsay evidence that the former Abbé Bérenger Saunière collapsed and died while in his Magdala Tower in Rennes-le-Château; that he was found by his maid Marie Dénarnaud. Nobody knows where Saunière was when he died. Far from living a strange and inexplicable life, Abbé Saunière's life is surprisingly well documented. His correspondence, Diaries, and Account Books have all survived, although they are still not available for public scrutiny.

Fifteen letters to Abbé Saunière, representing his Trafficking in Masses activities, were once temporarily shown on the website of André Galaup (1938-2021). Galaup was a friend of Antoine Captier and Clair Corbu, who possess all of Abbé Bérenger Saunière's unpublished archives. Presumably, Galaup soon removed the letters after he discovered they were used as proof of Saunière's Mass Trafficking activities, because Galaup was a true believer in the mirage of Abbé Saunière's “treasure”.

Abbé Bérenger Saunière was not a wholly truthful character, because he falsely claimed the village of Rennes-le-Château was called Rhedae (disregarded by modern historians and archaeologists). What the priest wrote on the back of his postcards that he produced for local tourists, can be best described as historical romance and unreliable.

Abbé Bérenger Saunière offered Abbé Eugène Grassaud, the priest of Amelie-les-Bains 1900-1908 (then later priest of Saint Paul de Fenouillet, 1908-1945), a chalice in vermeil – but we don't know anything else. It could have been just a gift from one priest to another and therefore another unremarkable fact.

Being a Roman Catholic priest before Vatican II 1962-1965 (when the use of Latin was no longer mandatory by the Roman Catholic priesthood), it would have been quite normal for Abbé Bérenger Saunière to inscribe Biblical Latin sentences on the pediment of the building of his church. The installation of a devil beneath the church's holy water stoup would not have been “unusual” since it was common practice for congregations to make the sign of the cross when entering a church – except in Abbé Saunière's case the devil would have represented the French Republic. Making the sign of the cross would have simply been making the devil vanquish that was also making the secular French Republic vanquish (the installation of the figurines in Saunière's church were made in 1896-1897, not before Saunière's success in trafficking in masses activities in 1896).

Moving back in time to 1887, Abbé Saunière replaced his old altar that was a donation from a rich widow. Abbé Saunière claimed that the old altar was made of stone which was partially embedded in the back wall of the church and supported on the front by two Carolingian pillars. Except there is no evidence to support this, according to René Descadeillas, who collected old church reports describing the interior of the church of Rennes-le-Château – that never mentioned any such pillars (Mythologie du Trésor de Rennes: Histoire Veritable de L’Abbé Saunière, Curé de Rennes-Le-Château; Mémoires de la Société des Arts et des Sciences de Carcassonne, Années 1971-1972, 4me série, Tome VII, 2me partie; 1974).

It was later claimed by Noël Corbu during the mid-1950s that one of those pillars (that was used as a plinth for the Virgin of Lourdes), that contained the date of 1891 – was the year of the “discovery of Saunière's parchments”. Henry Lincoln later repeated this in his Chronicle BBC Two documentaries as well. It was only after the publication of Jacques Rivière's book in 1983 that the story changed and the factual account of Sauniere's activities were given, when Rivière reproduced Saunière's copied receipt on page 68 (in Jacques Rivière, Le Fabuleux Trésor de Rennes-Le-Château! Le Secret de L’Abbé Saunière, 1983).

Therefore, the imagined story of the “discovery of rolls of wood sealed with wax in the pillars and the discovery of parchments” was changed from 1891 to 1887 after 1983.

Likewise the story of the discovery of the “Dalle des Chevaliers” (Knight's Stone) – this was claimed to have been found in Saunière's church as part of the renovations – but we only have Saunière's word for that. It was not discovered as part of any official archaeological dig. (The accounts by Henri Rouzaud and Henri Guy rest solely on the hearsay evidence of Bérenger Saunière alone, and do not represent any independent archaeological testimony.)

Lots and lots of amazing treasure stories begin to accumulate, all dating from the mid-1950s. Quote: “behind the altar, still under the slabs, someone discovers a cache filled with money” – it just follows on and on from here. Stories without any provenance of any treasure being discovered in Rennes-le-Château. Very quickly, whole multitudes of people become attracted and addicted to this story that is based on absolutely no evidence at all.

It has already been noted previously that the tomb discovered by Abbé Saunière in 1891 could simply have been a tomb from the ancient cemetery that the workers had dug up, that was situated opposite the existing cemetery, when they began building Saunière's office in 1891. There is nothing remarkable about this. There is an equally prosaic explanation to every treasure story.

This claim about Monsignor Billard (1829-1901), has been discredited dozens of times. Quote: “In 1891, on the advice of Mgr Billard, bishop of Carcassonne, Saunière went to Paris during the summer to decrypt the parchments.” But this is simply another variation of the lie about Monsignor Billard, because in the original version of the story [the myth], Monsignor Billard went to Paris in person in 1901, and it was subsequently found out this was impossible. Quote from 1967: “Billard did not hesitate in March 1901 to go to Paris in person to try and shed some light on the matter. But Billard, who was in poor physical health and was virtually in retirement at Prouille for the last two years of his life, died in December 1901, and would therefore simply not have been capable of undertaking such a trip to Paris in March of that year.” As is usually the case with Rennes-le-Château “research”, there are as many versions of false stories as there are people.

Again: “Saunière met notably Emma Calvé, opera singer, Claude Debussy and the occultist Jules Bois.”

True Fact: There is no evidence for any of this. Indeed, in relation to Emma Calvé, Antoine Captier and Claire Corbu admitted as much in their book L’Héritage De L’Abbé Saunière (1985), where they reproduced on page 66 the only connection they could find between Emma Calvé and Abbé Saunière. The opera singer depicted on a chocolate wrapper.

Again: “Saunière brought back from this trip [to Paris] the reproduction of a painting by Nicolas Poussin, exhibited at the Louvre, the Shepherds of Arcadia. The painting has a peculiarity: it seems to represent a landscape near the village of Arques, not far from Rennes-le-Château and a tomb that exists there.”

True Fact: According to The Louvre they only started making copied reproductions of “The Shepherds of Arcadia” available during the early 1900s. The painting by Poussin does not depict the landscape surrounding the area of Les Pontils in the region of Peyrolles. It was formerly the tomb of Louis Lawrence and was destroyed in 1988 by the then owner of Les Pontils, because he became tired of treasure hunters trespassing on his property.

Again: “Saunière received a donation from the Countess of Chambord.”

True Fact: This bogus claim originates from the handwritten list of donors by Abbé Saunière's defence solicitor, Dr Huguet of the diocese of Agen during his 1910-1911 ecclesiastical trial. It is an obvious bogus list of donors designed to distract attention away from Abbé Saunière's selling of masses activities.

Again: Saunière “is also suspected of having erased the inscriptions on a curious slab, that of the tomb of Marie de Nègri d'Ables. She is a woman who, on the eve of her death on January 17th, 1781 entrusted to Antoine Bigou a family secret regarding Rennes in 1774. Bigou is said to have concealed the documents relating to this secret in one of the pillars of the altar of the church of Rennes. The funerary tomb slab of Marie, moreover, has always aroused astonishment because the epitaph of the Marchioness contains errors, and strange links between the words.”

True Fact: More unverified claims first dating from the mid-1950s begun by Noël Corbu.

Again: “Saunière, moreover, coexists with the maid he had met and employed in 1886 at the age of 18, and it is with her that he carries out excavations in the cemetery, travels the countryside at night, organizes receptions at his home all with the assistance of this maid ...”

True Fact: There are no allegations of any “excavations in the cemetery” in the original documents.

Again: “the ecclesiastical authorities, after unsuccessfully trying to remove him [Abbé Saunière] from his parish, condemned him in 1910 for “mass trafficking”. Saunière resigns from his priesthood the following year.”

True Fact: Abbé Saunière resigned from his priesthood in 1909 after refusing his nomination at Coustouge. Abbé Saunière, during his ecclesiastical trial of 1910-1911, agreed with the accusations of mass trafficking that were made against him. Quoting from a document dated 5 November 1910: “CONSIDERING that Abbé Bérenger Saunière admits to having requested and obtained a considerable number of Masses, without contesting the figures given by the Official Prosecutor” (given in Jacques Rivière's 1983 book, containing transcripts of Abbé Saunière’s ecclesiastical trial).

These are all manufactured and often-repeated myths given without any evidence, still repeated in 2023 by “researchers” who do not double-check the facts.

Quote: “With his death (Abbé Saunière) there begins to be born a wonderful story, that is told among the surrounding villages: that of a country priest with much energy and colourful behaviour, who found a treasure or a secret which made him a rich man, which allowed him to realise all the astonishing architectural arrangements he made on the land he was able to buy and build his domaine.”

True Fact: You cannot treat this popular addiction because it is a religious faith. Just like every time that Hercules tried to cut off the head of the Hydra, two more would grow in its place.