Fire and refurbishment

The curé had by this time made himself incredibly unpopular in the village. The acrimony between Saunière and the annoyed villagers escalated in July 1895 when a fire in one of the village barns threatened the entire village, and the firemen, in order to quench the flames with water, forced their way to the tank built into the base of Le Reposoir, used at this time as Saunière’s library. Saunière was away during the time, and had the only keys. The curé was anything but pleased by the invasion of what he considered his property (although properly it did not belong to him, but to the commune), and made an official complaint to the Gendarmerie. No action was taken against the firemen, however – indeed, the council was unimpressed by Saunière’s complaint, making it clear that the building was not his, and that the firemen had been perfectly within their rights to gain access to the water in order to ensure the safety of the village. In fact, the local Parish Council imposed sanctions upon him for refusing to assist in putting out a fire.

This must have been galling to Saunière. The building had been paid for by money he had garnered. He felt strongly that the building was his – and the church, too, was being refurbished with funds that he provided. But he did not stop with his refurbishment project: on the contrary, the restoration of the church escalated between 1896 and 1897. There is an estimate from September 1896 for the erection of a vault, including new windows and preparation of the walls for painting – the estimate is for 2,400 francs. Giscard, sculptor and painter in Toulouse, was contracted in November to provide all the sculptures and sculptural features for the church’s interior, to be done in a style selected by Saunière from Giscard’s catalogue. Total cost: 2,500 francs, which was paid by Saunière over four months in 500-franc portions. From Giscard’s catalogue, Saunière also selected a plaster statue of the Devil supporting the holy water stoup, which cost an additional 300 francs.¹⁶

1897 saw extensive refurbishments indeed. The church walls were thickened by a brick skin, the chancel was enlarged, five new windows were put in, the cemetery walls were rebuilt, the Calvary was erected and the presbytery was completely remodelled. Saunière allowed the Dénarnauds to move in with him. With such a massive rebuilding of the church finally nearing completion, Saunière felt it was entirely appropriate that Pentecost would see the Bishop of Carcassonne, Monseigneur Billard, present to re-consecrate the “new” church and honour it with a speech. The bishop doubtless asked for an explanation about how such a project could have been paid for, and Saunière made a point of explaining in his speech (a draft of the speech is extant)¹⁷ that “For all this, Monseigneur, I owe a little to my parishioners, much to my economies, and much to the dedication and the generosity of certain souls who are strangers to this parish.”

The total cost so far had been approximately 27,000 francs.