The family Dénarnaud provided lodgings during this period. Their house was close to the church – it was convenient for the young priest.

Saunière had extremely strong royalist leanings (probably exacerbated by the poor preferment he’d been given), and this brought him almost immediately into trouble upon his arrival at Rennes-le-Château. He preached his anti-republican views from the pulpit in the dilapidated church, reading aloud political articles from La Semaine Religieuse de Carcassonne² and urging the villagers to vote against the Republican Party which, he said, was hostile to the church.

Political hot water

Alas for him! The Republican Party won the October 1885 election, and Saunière’s behaviour was reported to the Department Prefect and from thence to the Minister of Culture. Saunière was not the only priest in trouble – three others were also reported for similar behaviour, and the Minister demanded that Monseigneur Billard remove all four from their posts.

The Bishop only partially complied; he issued reprimands to the four men in question. But this was not good enough for the annoyed Minister. He ordered that the priests not be paid their salaries by the local commune, a measure which – since the government, not the Church, paid priests’ salaries – was entirely within his jurisdiction. The Bishop countered that by naming Saunière a supervisor at the Narbonne seminary.

While thus in temporary exile from his post as curé, Saunière was in no very enviable position. His salary as supervisor was not even equal to the low amount he was to be paid as parish priest (900 francs per annum), so Saunière turned to fellow royalist sympathisers in Narbonne. He was fortunate – the Countess of Chambord seems to have been sufficiently moved by Saunière’s punishment for his anti-Republican speeches to have gifted him with a good sum of money (either 1000 or 3000 francs – the confusion arises because of Saunière’s later shenanigans with his accounts).

The church project

The situation continued thus for a year, but the commune’s demand that their priest be reinstated finally resulted in the suspension being lifted. Abbé Saunière officially took up his duties as the parish priest on the 1st July 1886. Almost the first act he undertook was a loan to the Parish Church Council of 518 francs, for the purpose of repairing the church. His main concern at this period was to have the church of which he was parish priest become modernised and beautiful, probably for two reasons. Firstly, it offended his dignity to be curé of a poor and dilapidated church. Secondly, a more modern and pleasing church would attract more worshippers, and coincidentally increase the demand for Masses to be said by him. (The saying of a Mass was worth one or two francs. Three Masses a day would double his salary.)

Also, at some point either in 1885 or 1886, a complete reflooring of the church was undertaken, during the course of which it’s probable that a stone slab was lifted and found to have on its downward side some decorative carving. Saunière, at any rate, discovered the stone and decided to use it as a paving slab in front of the church’s Calvary. There’s no real mystery about this stone, designated the Dalle des Chevaliers. But it’s certainly given rise to some far-fetched theories which are discussed elsewhere.