Today’s story plunge us back in France, my very own country, back in the 1900. Back in the days, France was a newly formed republic in Europe in the outcome of years of political turmoil, and the fall of Emperor Napoleon III after a lost war against Prussia, brought the first challenges to this republic whilst the Dreyfus affair was splitting the country in two, but now the country was now a newly formed version of an old nation. Paris remained the centre of France, even though that never truly changed, and the country was still the most populated in Europe. This period of time was called La Belle Epoque, or, in English, the nice epoch, and it was when the French culture, through arts, literature, musics and other achievements, had its sphere of influence growing considerably. Yet, this period was also mostly marked by the emergence of occultism, and spiritualism. People were more believing in stories of lost treasures, and this would directly have an impact on the story that will come today.

And, whilst I grew up in a city, but my family came from the northeast of the country, from a small village in Alsace, a place that, at the period where the events occurred, did still belong to Germany as it was lost during the war against Prussia. But, whether it’s north or south, there has always been this cliché in France about villages. You know, the kind of, everybody knows each other's life, and gossip about everyone in the local café or bar, well it’s in this set up that our story will take place today. The fact is, whilst the country was starting to enter into the industrial age, the small village of Rennes-le-Chateau, and, by extension, more globally the south of the country, was less affected by the change, the south remained where people were enjoying their holidays, and not really a place where industries choses to emerge.

But one thing remained: the south was profoundly catholic and religious. Even more as it emerged from the tension brought by Dreyfus affair, the case of a Jewish soldier who was accused of treason of which I’ll certainly talk about in a future season of The Mysterious Life and Death. Its in this climate that the main protagonist of this story, Francois Berenger Sauniere was born in 1852. He was born in a small village, Montazels, which is very close to Rennes-le-Chateau, and, as a result, has a good knowledge of the surroundings. He is the second son of Joseph Sauniere and Marguerite Hugues, a couple who will eventually have eleven kids, four of them will however die young. The couple settled there and they were, let’s say not wealthy but had a quite comfortable situation, and they actually had a very nice house, whom it is said was always well maintained. As for today, we can still see their house.

Berenger Sauniere was, to say the least, a brilliant student. Pretty much like the Chevalier d’Eon, if you guys remember. As a student, he will be in what is called the Grand Seminaire de Carcassonne, in the nearby biggest town, where he learned Latin, Ancient Greek and, more exceptionally, Hebraic. He was such a brilliant student that his skills allowed him to remain in the seminaire, which is pretty much like a high school or a college, catholic style, but as a teacher later in his life. Later, he will obtain a degree in the Seminaire of Narbonne, another city close from Montazels, even more prestigious, and it’s pretty much here that his career in the church will start. After the seminaire, he became a deacon, and shortly after, in 1879, he became priest, in the city of Allet-les-Bains. He will stay there for three years, before being moved to the Clat, another village, where he’ll stay another three years before going back to Narbonne, to become a teacher again. So it was all about moving in the region, locally.

But, even though he was qualified, and, in fact, considered as one of the best student the Seminaire has ever had, Sauniere was a bit of a reputation. And not a good one. It is said that he was a bit of a troublemaker, in some ways. His hierarchy didn’t approve him much because he wasn’t afraid to express his opinions in public. He was openly monarchist, in a newly formed republic was probably not the best thing to be, and he was accused of spreading new ideas, probably too modern, amongst the youth. And, as a result, after tensions with his hierarchy, Sauniere was sent, once and for all, to Rennes-le-Chateau, which was, according to other fellow priests, the worst place where a priest could be sent. Why the worst, because, even though the church was here from the 12th Century, it was in a nearly derelict state. The rectory, which is where the priest lives, behind the church, was almost inhabitable as the roof collapsed and the priest who was in office there had to live in a nearby house at a parishioner. On top of that, Rennes-le-Chateau was a very small village, and also very poor, undergoing a massive rural exodus as, there was no job there. For example, when Sauniere was born, the village counted 400 inhabitants. It counted half of it when Sauniere took office there back in 1885. Today, the village counts nearly 91 people permanently living there.

As I mentioned, the church is in an absolute disastrous state on his arrival. The painted stained-glass windows were all covered with wooden plates as it got destroyed by the wind and the rain, and, he understood the urgency of the situation. So, he looked at the finances of this local church, and, there wasn’t a lot left for him. On top of that, the Rennes-le-Chateau has been flagged by the Department Council because of the hazardous situation where the tower of the bell was, as it threatened to collapse on the habitations nearby. And even though funding requests have been sent, this was not given any response. So if you think you had a shitty day at work, think about him when he arrived there.

The problem with Sauniere was that, as I mentioned, he was the guy who liked to say aloud what was not meant to be said aloud, he didn’t really enjoy this little thing called diplomacy. And as the French General Elections of 1885 were to take place in a few months, and as the Sunday’s mass was THE event everybody in the village was going every Sunday, he pushed the churchgoers to vote for the royalist party, diabolising the newly elected masonic republic as he used to say, and, perhaps this spectacle may have pleased the churchgoers and pushed some in their convictions, it didn’t please the mayor of the town, who, as a result, made sure that, any request he may have made for financing the repairs of the church would not be granted for at least six months, by sending himself a letter to the minister in charge of the church. But, as Sauniere still had friends in Narbonne, he managed to bypass the interdiction, asking at the same time, to be named teacher at the Narbonne Seminary. So, at least, he could still be granted funds.

And I think friendship was what saved him on several occasions: as he settled there, he made friend with a beverage seller, who turned out to know a bit about masonry. So, Sauniere made a deal with him: as he managed to get a bit of money out of the mass he was giving, the deal was, I give you a bit, and in exchange, you carry out the work I need for my church. After all, the church of Rennes le Chateau was in a dire situation, and as a result, he needed money, and, as we say, every little helps, perhaps the fact that Sauniere had a bit of what we would call today “attitude”, let’s say that it played a few tricks for him.

Either way, as Sauniere with his friend managed to have the roof of the church repaired, he managed to obtain in July 1887 a donation of 700 francs from a parishioner, and this came as a gift for him. Why, because now, the altar could finally be repaired. And that’s what he did. He managed to sign a contract with a masonry company and, the thing was, this altar was very, very old. It was certainly as old as the church was, but as everything was falling apart, the altar has not been refurbished or changed ever since and, as a result, this donation came as perfectly since the money was enough to finally have it repaired. And its here that the real story starts.

One day, as the church was closed and the workers start to lift up a big stone sustaining a pillar of the altar, some sort of box in a recess was found. Immediately, they call the Priest, who was still around supervising the site, and they asked him what this thing could be. As Sauniere open it, various scrolls were discovered. Those scrolls were written in an old language, hardly understandable from the workers. Sauniere, on the other hand, seems to be more aware of what it is. And he started acting very strange, requesting the workers to go. It was something like, “please, listen guys, that’s enough works for today… how about you guys go to the bar nearby and drink something? Drink something, it’s on my tab today!”, and even though the workers stressed the fact that there was still a lot to do, that they weren’t done, Sauniere was urging them to leave. The workers were intrigued by this sudden shift of attitude, and eventually left the church.

But of course, Rennes le chateau is a small village and, of course, the workers went to the bar afterwards. And they do what every normal human being would do in such situation, they talk. And, the thing is, you remember the story when Sauniere was the diplomate guy, preaching to vote for the Royalists at the next general elections? Turns out that the story came to the attention of the mayor of the city quite quickly. And since the mayor and the priest were the two most important people of the village, every story about Sauniere was a juicy story. So he headed to the church, and ask Sauniere: what on earth have you found?

At first, Sauniere refused to say what it was, but since he was the mayor and, as such, was the first police officer of the village, he ordered Sauniere to bring to his office what he found in the recess under the altar. Understanding that, by law, he couldn’t say no, Sauniere gave to the mayor's office a copy of the content of those scrolls. And, from what is known, those documents were actually four documents, one of them was a genealogical tree, two of them were wills from people long dead, and the last one was the most enigmatic: it was a scroll that had wordings that had absolutely no meaning. The question as to whether those manuscripts were genuine is contested, since those were copies forged by Sauniere himself, so nothing proves that these were genuine or not.

Either way, nothing really dramatic comes out of this story, and Sauniere resumed his work in the church. Until that day: in 1891, during the refurbishment of the church’s nave flooring, the workers discoved, buried under the flooring, a slab made of stone. As they unearthed it, this slab was sculpted, but hidden. And at the very moment this got exhumed, Sauniere acted once again the very same weird way as he did when the scrolls were found. “Go, guys, it’s fine, you’ve been working hard today and you’re tired, go get yourself a drink on me, it’s fine, I got this now!” They all wonder what has happened again, and, same story. Except that this time…

This time, first, he disappeared from Rennes-le-Chateau from some time, and it is known that, he said he was going to Paris for a few days… apparently to follow some researches. But when he came back, Sauniere seemed to be now in a total autopilot and more and more disconnected from the villagers, and the story of the first discovery of the scrolls was on everyone’s lips in the village. What is Sauniere hiding? So everyone started speculating on this, and many theories came, none being confirmed by Sauniere, indeed. Something else was also curious: it was known that he hired an assistant, named Marie Denarnaud, who, in the time as the events unfolded, was nearly in her twenties, while Sauniere was nearly thirty five, and this led to a lot of gossiping amongst the churchgoers and parishioners. Was Marie his mistress, or a simple servant? It made even more gossiping when it has been learned throughout the village that she was made her heiress, and this was known to everyone, but either way, this was just the tip of the iceberg. No, amongst the newly strange habits of Sauniere, it was to learn more about the surroundings of the rectory and the cemetery. And around 1892, Sauniere started to see things a bit bigger: not only during the night he and Marie were both going to the cemetery and start digging there, but he received several complaints from villagers as, it is said, he was trying to erase epitaphs from tumbstones. His attitude was definitely strange, and led everyone to start wondering what was happening.

His attitude became even more questioned when he started, sometimes for days, to run away from his church with bags carried on a donkey’s back, or simply bags that he carried himself. And… well, one of the main rule when you’re a priest is, you’re not really allowed to make money. You must live simply. And Sauniere lived in a certain poverty until that day. List and greed are sins. And a priest must not be a sinner. He must be clean. Or at least… making sure he acts clean while in office.

And whilst everyone started questioning and gossiping about Sauniere’s behaviour, his lifestyle completely changed starting from 1895. Starting from this year, he spent a lot of money not only to have his church just refurbished, but completely upgraded. Same as for the rectory and, by extension, his parish. His next-level upgrades of the church of Rennes-le-Chateau are achieved in 1897, and, at the same time, his lifestyle passed from broke to arrogantly rich. But, it’s not completely over. No, he stepped up the game at an unexpected stage. It’s pretty much as if the guy passed from level 1 to level 10 with a cheat code.

In 1899, Sauniere, in the name of Marie Denarnaud, purchased six big lands in Rennes-le-Chateau, and start building up there some sort of mini-zoo, where monkeys and other exotic animals were purchased. Yeah, because, why not, you know? At this period, he also managed to have some Rhum brought up straight from Jamaica because, you know, it’s nice, and it’s good. But that’s not over, yeah, because there, Sauniere builds up a very luxurious house, the Villa Bethanie, and also two towers, one made of stone and the other of glass, and the one made of stone is today his most iconic piece of architecture of the landscape of the actual Rennes-le-Chateau, called the Magdala Tower. It’s where his library was. And, you know, things are going very well for Sauniere. He even received high-profiles personalities in his villa, personalities whose names are unknown and kept secret… no, our man has never been so happy at work apparently. The church of Rennes-le-Chateau has never been so wealthy. For him, it was certainly a pleasure to be at work.

So now, you guys may wonder, where does the money come from? Because, he was poor ten years ago, and now the guy’s suddenly rich, so… what happened? He had brothers and sisters, so he couldn’t have inherited from someone who died… or has he really found a treasure? While his suspicious demeanour says that, it is possible, it still is a bit far-fetched. How comes our mate managed to upgrade his church, and start spending so much whilst he was struggling a few years ago? Well, authorities were wondering the same thing. And by authorities, I obviously mean… his very own hierarchy. Yeah, because a priest isn’t running a business. He is not supposed to be wealthy, it’s not in his job description. Plus, the guy is already a bit of a disturbing element so… of course, speculations were about to turn sour very, very quickly.

And problems would start very early: Monsignor Beauvin de Beauséjour became the new bishop of Carcassonne back in 1902. So, to a priest, a bishop is, long story short, his manager. And the two weren’t really friends. Accessing the bishop, he nominated Sauniere to another parish, in 1909, Coustouge, to which Sauniere said that, perhaps time has come to come back to the right path, and time to renounce to his newly immense wealth…

No, come on, of course he refused the nomination. And it’s from this point that things escalated very quickly between Sauniere and the church: as relationships between him and Beauséjour tarnished at a fast pace, not even a month later, on the 29th of January 1909, Sauniere resigned from his position in Coustouge, becoming as a result a free priest. But Beauséjour, wanting to get a final explanation on the disobedience of his priest, launched against Sauniere a Bill of Indictment, leading to an ecclesiastical investigation, as Sauniere was suspecting of three things: first, of course, the most obvious, disobedience to his bishop. Second, his newly wealth acquired indicated that Sauniere, rather than having found a hidden treasure, would have actually trafficked masses, which was, of course, illegal and, even less moral, and finally, he was being accused of money laundering. I mean, not in those terms. In ecclesiastical terms, it sounds like “exaggerated and unjustified expenditures to which fees generated by the mass may not explain”.

So here you might be wondering, mass trafficking? What the hell is that? Well, remember that, we were barely starting the era of the Industrial Revolution, and, Religion still had a strong influence in France, as well as western countries. Perhaps things have changed today, but back in the days, if you were cheating on your wife, stealing on something, or whatever illegal thing, or immoral thing you’d have committed… well it was common practise, indeed, but you know that, this is a sin that may bring you to hell. Turns out, you’re dying, or you know that, you’re at the dawn on your life and, you don’t want to leave Earth with that, when you’ll appear before God’s Court. People were terrified by this idea. So to make sure that your ticket for paradise would still be granted, some priests, who perhaps were less scrupulous about eternal life, offered a private mass, where you could confess your worst sin, or sins. Of course, this was in exchange of an undisclosed fee. Which makes, in a way, paying for your very ticket for paradise.

As he was notified of his indictment, Sauniere received a notification that the first hearing would take place on the 16th of July 1910. He didn’t show up. Neither did he on his rescheduled hearing of the 23rd of July, a week later. As he acted like a renegade, the church officially suspended him for a month and ordered him to repay all the money acquired through his sold masses. On August of the same year, another hearing was scheduled but he didn’t attend either, it’s only on November’s hearing that he came and was sentenced, as a result, to ten days of spiritual retreat in the monastery of his choice, alongside being removed from Rennes-le-Chateau. But things didn’t end up there: he may have been punished for his actions, but… yet no one still had the final word on what truly happened at Rennes-le-Chateau. Was he really selling masses? Or has he found a treasure? The doubt was still there, as nothing really explained the sudden wealth of Sauniere.

So now you would think, he went to his retreat and settled his penitence and finally decided to behave like the church wanted him to behave. Having complied with his sentence, having served his ten days retreat, Sauniere applied, straight to Rome, to be reinstated at Rennes-le-Chateau, but his application went unsuccessfully, instead attracting more troubles on him than solutions. He was required to bring his account books. He eventually provided invoices that seemed completely surrealistic, and this, later, would have proven to be completely fake invoices. A third and final hearing, in November 1911, happened, to bring a full light on this mysterious affair, to which, indeed, Sauniere didn’t show up. As a result, he was permanently suspended from his priesthood. Now the question was, okay, we know something dodgy had happened there… but why on Earth did Sauniere want so bad to be reinstated at Rennes le Chateau?

So, of course, this brought to an end the story of Priest Sauniere, but the mystery remained around what truly happened during his time in office at Rennes-Le-Chateau, because both Sauniere and Denarnaud, even though it was said that they were no longer in touch, kept their lips sealed. For Sauniere, Rennes-le-Chateau may have been a gigantic step forward, the reality brought him a hundred step back, and his life ended as he tried to sell religious artefacts, becoming incredibly poor and finishing his life alone. We know that he still tried to build a summer house in 1914 but the project was abandoned because he couldn’t afford it. And, it was on a sombre day of January 1917, that, aged 64, Bérenger Sauniere died, not having said a word about the true origin of his real wealth. His grave and funeral fees were paid by Marie Denarnaud, and he was buried in Rennes-le-Chateau.

Many speculations have emerged about his real wealth, which, after his Death, Marie Denarnaud managed to keep. Of course, as all eyes were on her, everybody wanted to know, many theories have been raised. It could have been the treasure of Blanche de Castille, wife of the French King Louis VIII, who was said to have buried a treasure in the area. Denarnaud died in 1953, still remaining mysterious about the entire story. We know, however, as a grand total, Sauniere spent nearly 26,500 Francs, which, considering the inflation, represents nearly over ten million euros today, throughout his entire estate. And the fact that Sauniere remained silent about the true nature of his activities led to years and years and years of speculation. What was Sauniere hiding in the end?

Ah, Bérenger Saunière and the enigmatic aura surrounding Rennes-le-Château, an affair that has puzzled historians and inspired treasure hunters for over a century. Whether you’re captivated by the whispers of hidden treasure, ancient secrets, or even clandestine societies, Saunière’s story feeds our hunger for the inexplicable. Much like the coded parchments and concealed compartments, the true nature of the Rennes-le-Château affair is a labyrinth of questions wrapped in an enigma. And isn’t that the essence of a great mystery? To leave us pondering, speculating, wandering through a maze of ‘what-ifs’? So, as you sit there contemplating the cryptic and the concealed, I invite you to share your theories in the comment section. Could they be the key to unlocking a long-buried truth or just another layer in a never-ending puzzle? Until our next rendezvous with the enigmatic and the inexplicable, keep your minds open and your eyes skywards. See you next week, fellow seekers of the unknown.