Introduction

    

There is no published biography of Abbé Bérenger Saunière. The poor curé (parish priest) of a remote and impoverished village is not the usual stuff of biographies. Yet Saunière, as one of the central figures in a fast-growing myth of astonishing proportions, has insensibly become more and more important… not really because of what he did, but because of what it is said he did (or knew). That there is no evidence to support the mythology seems not to matter, for in any myth, it is belief, not fact, which drives its machinery.

The mythology related to Saunière concerns Rennes-le-Château, an isolated village in southern France’s Languedoc region in the Department of Aude. It is said that Saunière somehow became aware, or was aware, of a fabulous treasure hidden somewhere beneath the church of the village, and that this treasure enabled Saunière to spend vast sums of money in restoring the church, building a villa of noble proportions, and more. Further details of the myths are attributed to him, making him almost like the spinner of straw into gold in the fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin. If one sifts through the actual evidence, one finds indeed more straw than gold… and the truth of the curé, although not simple, is far from the mythologised version popularised today.

Early years

Bérenger was born in the small village of Montazels on the 11th of April, 1852, one of eleven children born to Joseph and Margeurite Saunière. Four of the children perished in infancy, leaving Bérenger, Alfred, Martial, Joseph, Mathilde, Adeline and Marie-Louise.

Bérenger’s father was the Mayor of the village, a prosperous mill owner. He could afford to have his sons well educated, and Bérenger spent his school years at the School of St Louis in Limoux, followed in his twenties by studies at the Grand Seminary in Narbonne. Two of the boys took holy orders – Alfred and Bérenger. Interestingly, Alfred (younger than Bérenger) entered holy orders before his older brother did. Bérenger was twenty-seven before he entered the priesthood.

His first position was as vicaire (curate) at Alet-les-Bains. Almost a year later, in 1882, he was appointed as curé desservant (priest-in-charge) at Le Clat by the new Bishop of Carcassonne, Monseigneur Billard.

Appointment as curé

Three years later, in 1885, Bérenger Saunière was appointed as curé of Rennes-le-Château, by no means a highly sought-after appointment. The village had a population of 298, almost all of whom were land workers and extremely poor. There was no reliable water supply for the village, which was accessible only by pack animals. It was no surprise that the church, Ste Marie Madeleine, was “in a dangerous state… the church is too small for a population of 500 souls… We do not recommend repairs or extensions, but to wait until the commune can afford a new church for about 4,500 francs” – according to a report by architect Girard Cals (1853)¹. The presbytery, too, was in shocking disrepair, and Saunière was obliged to take lodgings until it could be made habitable.