Guillem de Gellone (755 – 814) in French, also known as William of Orange or William with the Short Nose, after a legend in which a Saracen cut off part of William’s nose in battle.

William’s mother was a daughter of Charles Martel, making William a cousin of Charlemagne, at whose court he spent his youth. His father Theodoric (Thierry IV) was the Count of Autun and Toulouse and is said to have been of Merovingian descent. He functioned as King of Septimania. William of Gellone is one of the pivotal characters in the controversial book Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and the late Richard Leigh. In the book it is claimed that the Merovingian bloodline descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, making William a Jew of Royal Blood. Their main source of information was the book A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France (1972) by the American historian Arthur Zuckermann. Zuckermann claims that William was indeed of Jewish descent. Local folklore would indicate that he was of the House of David. William was said to have respected Sabbath even during battles, had the Lion of Judea in his Coat of Arms and spoke Arab and Hebrew fluently. This carries extreme relevance in relation to Lincoln, Baigent & Leigh’s theory that the Holy Grail represents the Holy Bloodline of family descendance from the biblical King David through Jesus and Mary Magdalene into the Royal French Merovingian Dynasty.

In 790, after his father had died, Charlemage confirmed William in descending his father as the second Count of Toulouse. He took up arms against the army of the Moor King Hisham I who had proclaimed Holy War against the Christians and penetrated the Languedoc as far as Narbonne. He is most famous for defeating the Arab forces in the area around Orange on 30th April 800. After many years of fighting, the Muslims retreated back into Spain, discouraged by Willliam’s attitude of never giving up. William ended his military career reconquering the territories around Barcelona in 803. Among the many titles he gathered was ‘Count of Orange’ (the first one) and ‘Count of Razès’, the area now know as Rennes-le-Château.

In 804 William founded what is now known as the Benedictine Abbey of Gellone in the French town of St. Guillem-le-Désert. He had been inspired to do so after he had found back his childhood friend, St. Benoît of Aniane, himself a vassal of Charlemagne. Initially, the Monastery was called Monastery of St. Crucis in Gellone, after a relic donated by Charlemagne containing a piece of the true cross which is still there today. In 806 William withdrew from civil and public life and entered the Monastery he had founded himself. According to Zuckermann, during this period of his life William was initiated in the ancient Jewish Kaballah and the rites of personal transmutation. He is said to have died in the Monastery on 28th May 814, before Charlemagne. That date is disputed by some scholars based on a document by Dhuoda, wife of Willam’s brother-in-law Bernhard of Barcelona. In her ‘Liber Manualis’ that she kept until 843 for the benefit of her son, she mentions all her deceased relatives. The most famous of all, William, isn’t mentioned, implying that he was alive at least until 843.

William was twice declared a saint, the last time by Pope Alexander II in 1066.

St. Guillem-le-Désert soon became an important place of pilgrimage. How important St. William became can be deducted from the fact that Count Raimbaut II visited St. William’s tomb before he left for the Holy Land as one of the leaders of the First Crusade in 1096.

Especially his victory in Orange made William subject of and in epic works like La Geste de Garin de Monglane, Dante’s Divina Commedia, Speculum Historiale by Vincent of Beauvais, and Willehalm, an unfinished epic romance by Wolfram von Eschenbach, better known for his most famous work Parzeval. Wolfram notably writes that the Grail castle was to be found in the Pyrenees, in the area that was owned by William of Gellone in the 9th century.

In his book Wolfram von Eschenbach und die Wirklichkeit des Grals, the Swiss scholar Werner Greub published the results of a life-long study into the works of his teacher Rudolf Steiner. Greub considered Von Eschenbach’s Parzifal as the only veritable Grail account. After long and meticulous research, Greub concluded that William of Gellone had been Von Eschenbach’s primary source of information. William was the character Wolfram had named Kyot de Provence. Von Eschenbach later dedicated his monumental work Willehalm to William of Gellone.

Some of Werner Greub’s research into the real life sites of the Grail as described by Wolfram von Eschenbach is available online in English on the Willehalm website.

Archaeologist Brigitte Gibrac-Lescure suggests that the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Rennes-le-Château might have been founded by Guilemme de Gelone in the IXth century judging from the similarities between the design of the Knight’s Stone, the Visigothic altar pillar and similar features in the Abbey of St. Guilhem-le-Désert.

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Images of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Photos copyright Frans and Corjan de Raaf

Jean Pierre Jacques Auguste de Labouïsse-Rochefort was born in Saverdun (Ariège) on 4th July 1778 and died in Castelnaudery (Aude) on 22nd February 1852. He was a French historian. In 1832 he published a book entitled ‘Voyage à Rennes-les-Bains’ in which he described a treasure, guarded by the devil close to the Château de Blanchefort. According to the locals, he recounts, it concerned nineteen and a half million pieces of gold.

Once a nice sunny day, the devil put the gold on display where it was spotted by a young sheperdess who lived close to the site. When she returned with her parents, the treasure had disappeared. A sorcerer was called in for help. The sourcerer tells the villagers he is prepared to help if he gets half of the treasure and the help of the villagers in catching the devil.

The sorcerer went on a search for the devil. When the villagers heared a great noise they got afraid and fled. The sorcerer left for Limoux, disappointed and angry.

Labouisse-Rochefort then describes that the Marquis de Fleury, who owned the ruins of Blanchefort, threatened to sue the villagers for violating his terrains, linking this tale to actual facts.

Labouisse-Rochefort ends with a little poem about the treasure:

Comme un misérable nu
Avec sa mine hagarde
Le front chauve et biscornu
Armé d’une hallebarde
Au pied de ce mont chénu
L’ange de race bâtarde
Au ton sec et saugrenu
Tient constamment sous sa garde
Cet immense revenu
Que de ce roc je regarde
Comme si j’étais venu
Pour lui monter une garde
Et voler ce contenu
Que de céder il n’a garde

Labouisse-Rochefort’s description of this local legend demonstrated that the historical roots of the Mystery of Rennes-le-Château are much older than the story of Abbé Saunìère. There was talk of a local treasure long before he surfaced.

Noel Corbu was clearly inspired by this book. In the tape recording he made to entertain the guests of his hotel he too spoke of nineteen-and-a-half million pieces of gold.

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Book cover of ‘Voyage à Rennes-les-Bains copyright Morgan Roussel

Nicolas Pavillon (1597-1677)

It was during the reign of Pavillon as bishop of Alet-les-Bains that allegedly the Shepherd Paris fell into a hole while chasing a sheep and found gold. It is in this story that the mystery of Rennes-le-Château finds his historical roots. According to French researcher and author Franck Daffos, the shepherd discovered the hiding place of the material and spiritual treasure of Jerusalem. What followed was a fierce legal battle between, Blaise d’Hautpoul on whose land the gold had been discovered, King Louis VIX, the brothers Nicolas and François Fouquet and Pavillon. According to some researchers it was no coincidence Pavillon was sent to the Languedoc. It is claimed that he was sent there with the specific purpose to recover the treasures and relics of Jerusalem by the secret society Compagnie du Saint Sacrament. If you want to understand the mystery of Rennes-le-Château and, what the stakes could really be, you should start investigating this corner of French history.

Pavillon,, a follower of Saint Vincent de Paul,, made history as, the French icon of Jansenism. Some time after he had been sent to Alet by Richelieu to become the new bishop he converted to Jansenism and became a fierce advocate of orthodox catholicism. Jansenism took a stand against, France portraying itself as the ‘most christian nation’, while at the same time allying with the protestant Netherlands and Germany for the sole purpose of bringing down the Austrian House of Habsburg. This was no small thing. By choosing Jansenism the bishop not only allienated himself from his King and Country but also from pope Alexander VII.

According to Daffos, Pavillon had much of the treasure hidden in a specially made vault below the sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Marceille in Limoux. It was this money that was used to build Saunière’s estate and to code and record the nature and location of what has become known as the treasure of Rennes-le-Château.

The whole story is explained (in French) by Franck Daffos in this video I made for Radio Rennessence:

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Charles de la Cropte de Chanterac was the last Bishop of Alet-les-Bains.

On 12th July 1790,, just after the French Revolution, the, French National Assembly signed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. This bill required all priests to swear allegience to the nation, above all other authority. This meant Rome and the Pope and, would certainly result, in excommunication of those who signed. The French priests were forced into an impossible position and strongly divided. Many refused to sign, either fleeing or remaining to incite counter-revolution among the peasantry in already largely royalist regions like the Vendée and Brittany. When the pressure became unbearable in August 1792, De Chanterac, accompanied by a group of some 20 priests from the Alet region fled to Spain. Among them was Antoine Bigou, priest of Rennes-le-Château. Other priests from the area of whom their presence in Spain has been documented include L. Raynaud, F. Ginette, J. Loubet and G. Cairol.

De Chanterac died in the Spanish town of Sabadell during his voluntary exile on 27th April 1793 at the age of 70. He lies buried in the Church of Sabadell.

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Abbé Bernard Mongé was, the village priest of Niort-de-Sault. He was found dead at the entrance of his garden, on 27th May, 1732. Investigations showed he had been murdered by François de Montroux, bailif of the Pays du Sault. De Montroux was also, the uncle and appointed, tutor, of the young Marie de Nègre d’Ables, at the time of the incident., François was not a popular man and he had been trying to buy a house that was intended to help expand Mongé’s presbytery. The Abbé had refused to sell it. De Montroux was sentenced to exile for his crime, but the sentence was later revoked because, he convinced the court someone had falsely accused him., François d’Hautpoul, who married his, niece Marie in November 1732, spent almost 3 years, cleaning up the administrative mess, De Montroux, had left behind in Niort., In the last year he bought the very house De Montroux and Mongé had been quarelling over with money that François has left behind.

Niort-de-Sault lies very close to Le Clat, the first parish in which Bérenger Saunière served as a priest.

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