THIS IS A TERRIBLE PLACE

The above caption for this blog is the inscription by Abbe' Sauniere over the door of Ste-Marie-Madeleine at Rennes-le-Chateau (of recent fame in Dan Brown's, THE DA VINCI CODE). Rennes-le-Chateau's one permanent business is an occult bookstore, where you can pick up a copy of the 1970s bestseller, HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL. Brown's recent success has got the whole world occult fairy tale machine wound up and running again.

Did Berenger Sauniere, a parish priest in the 1890's, who began spending huge sums of money on himself and an embellishment of his church, discover proof of Jesus' tomb in Rennes and make his fortune by blackmailing the Vatican to keep its mouth shut? Or, did he find the Holy Grail or the treasures of the Visigoths, Merovingians, or Templars? Recent theory leans toward the faboulous treasure of the Jews, stolen from Jerusalem by Titus in 10 AD, pillaged by the Visigoths, then carted from Rome to Carcassonne in the 5th century. When Sauniere was appointed priest at Rennes-le-Chateua, the village was in a sorry state of disrepair. During repairs in 1891, the priest supposedly found, under a statue of the Virgin, a parchment in a glass phial. Soon, Sauniere was seen digging in the local cemetery at night. He then began spending money like nobody's business, some of which was used to pave the road up to Rennes and redoing the church.

His restoration was in a style the French labelled "St.-Sulpicen" after the garish church in Paris. Decorative style did not seem to be the priests main concern. Rather, lookk at the unorthodox imagery in the plastere statues which apparently convey a secret message. One instance,you see both Mary and Joseph holding babies. Sauniere got in hot water with the Catholic Church over the demonic figure that supports the foot by the door, representing not Satan, but Asmadeus, the guardian of the treasure of Solomon. We were not allowed to use the flash on our cameras, therefore our pictures are not of good quality.

In keeping with our pattern, we enjoyed lunch at this "Terrible Place" and Pat even pulled out her sketch pad and worked while we explored.