There is a great deal of mystery surrounding the small hamlet of Rennes-le-Château in France. During the 1800s, a priest named Bérenger Saunière came into enormous wealth while officially only having only a very modest income stream. Despite being a modest priest of a small French village, Saunière had a number of very powerful and influential acquaintances such as the Archduke Johann Salvator von Habsburg and his confidant of many years, Emma Calve, a woman who was prominent in Parisian esoteric circles at the time.
With the unexplained wealth he acquired, he was able to reconstruct the local church, which was reputed to have dated back to the 6th century. When removing some of the old structure, documents with esoteric codes were found within the stone structure and promptly removed. The church was reconstructed in a very odd manner for a Catholic church. Inscriptions with the words "This place is terrible" were etched into the church, as well as demonic imagery, and the skull and bones, a prominent symbol within Rosicrucian freemasonry.
His enormous unexplained wealth raised the suspicion of the local clergy. The bishop called him to account, to which he refused to explain the source of his wealth. The local tribunal suspended him, but curiously, the vatican overruled them and reinstated him. Shortly thereafter, despite being in reputed excellent health for his age, he suffered an unexplained stroke. Before he died, another priest was brought in to administer last rites, but refused to do so. Upon his death, he left no will, and it is believed that whatever wealth he maintained was passed to Marie Denarnaud.
After WW2, the French government instituted a new currency, and asked for the exchange of old francs for the new currency. Rather than explain the source of her wealth, Marie was seen burning her massive collection of old franc notes. Before her death, she promised the purchaser of her villa that she would give him a powerful secret. Before she could offer her secret, she suffered an unexplained stroke and died.
Going further back into history, Rennes-le-Château was an important city in both Roman and Visigothic times. Some believe that the treasures the Romans recovered during the sack of Jerusalem in 70AD from the temple of Solomon were brought to Rome. During the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in the 5th century AD, it is alleged that the treasures of Jerusalem were brought back to Rennes-le-Château.
One of the documents recovered during excavation of the ruins of the old church makes a cryptic allusion to Poisson, a famous 17th century French painter. An interesting side note is that after visiting Poissin in 1656, Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances to Louis XIV of France wrote an intriguing letter to the to his brother. It read:
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He and I discussed certain things, which I shall with ease be able to explain to you in detail things which will give you, through Monsieur Poussin, advantages which even kings would have great pains to draw from him, and which, according to him, it is possible that nobody else will ever rediscover in the centuries to come. And what is more, these are things so difficult to discover that nothing now on this earth can prove of better fortune nor be their equal.
Shortly thereafter Fouquet was imprisoned for the remainder of his life in complete isolation, with all of his correspondence confiscated. Following the imprisonment of Fouquet, the King of France went to great lengths to obtain and sequester Poissin's original "Les Bergers d’Arcadie" into his private apartment of Versailles.
Et in Arcadia ego (Les Bergers d'Arcadie), Nicolas Poussin (1638)
For centuries, official art experts maintained that the scene depicted in the painting was wholly mythical and dismissed any theories that the inscribed tomb existed as conspiracy theory.
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In the early 1970s, however, an actual tomb was located, identical to the one in the painting identical in setting, dimensions, proportions, shape, surrounding vegetation, even in the circular outcrop of rock on which one of Poussin’s shepherds rests his foot. This actual tomb stands on the outskirts of a village called Arques -approximately six miles from Rennes-leChateau, and three miles from the chateau of Blanchefort. If one stands before the sepulchre the vista is virtually indistinguishable from that in the painting. And then it becomes apparent that one of the peaks in the background of the painting is Rennes-leChateau. There is no indication of the age of the tomb. It may, of course, have been erected quite recently but how did its builders ever locate a setting which matches so precisely that of the painting? In fact it would seem to have been standing in Poussin’s time, and “Les Bergers d’Arcadie’ would seem to be a faithful rendering of the actual site. According to the peasants in the vicinity, the tomb has been there for as long as they, their parents and grandparents can remember. And there is said to be specific mention of it in a memoire dating from 1709.
Some believe the inscription on the painting "Et in Arcadia ego" is a latin anagram that when transcribed, translates to "Begone! I conceal the secrets of God!"
There are many strange unexplained coincidences surrounding Rennes-le-Château, Bérenger Saunière, and the mysterious ancient tomb which was discovered. For those who are interested in further research, I'd recommend reading "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" by Michael Baigent et al. It can be found online in epub, kindle, and pdf form here:
https://archive.org/details/HolyBloodholyGrail
The BBC also produced a documentary regarding it: