Abbé Saunière was an avid collector of postcards. He sometimes put little adverts in magazines inviting people to send him cards. One know example is the advert he put in ‘La Semaine de Suzette’. As a result he for example received a card from a certain Anne Marie Maître from Nantes in Bretagne.

After the priest had finished the construction of his domain in 1907 he had a series of postcards produced himself. For the set he selected 33 photos of his domain, the Church, the Château Hautpoul, the village and one or two locations in the vicinity to which he attached special relevance. The cards give a great impression of the domain in the early 1900s. Saunière, his maid, his dogs, the villagers, they all proudly pose in front of the brandnew buildings and manicured gardens.

The number of cards was 33 and they were sold for 10 ct. each to visitors of the area, attracted by its long history, the works of Saunière or taking a break from the hot baths in Rennes-les-Bains. Commercially it wasn’t a bad move as he wrote in one of his letters to a friend: “All the bathers take the complete collection”, bathers of course being the visitors to the spa of Rennes-les-Bains. “The cards have so much success that I can hardly keep up supplying them” he added.

The number 33 carries special relevance for Christians. It is the age of Jesus when he was crucified. In relation to Saunière it should also be remarked that 33 is a pivotal number in freemasonry. It is the highest possible grade one can have in a masonic organisation. We know Saunière was involved in masonic activities. French researcher and author Daniel Dugès, in his book Rennes-le-Château entre La Rose et l’Équerre, argues that Saunière’s church is in fact a Masonic Temple.

All cards depict places in and around Rennes-le-Château with one odd exception. The 33rd card displays the Rocks and Cascades of Saoutadou. The photo, reproduced here with kind permission of the owner Christian Doumergue, shows Marie Dénarnaud, Saunière sitting with a white umbrella and an unknow figure at these waterfalls that are situated in the Brenac area.

The complete set of 33 cards was recently re-compiled and published by Michel Azens in his book Rennes-le-Château, Fenêtre sur Tour.

Selection of the postcards:

[View with PicLens]

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In 1906, Saunière started construction of the Tour Magdala. The word ‘Magdala’ carries an appropriate double meaning. The gospels mention a village called Magdala in Galilee as the birthplace of Mary Magdalene. In Aramaic, the native tongue of Jesus, the word Magdala means ‘tower’ or ‘fortress’ (Migdal in Hebrew). On the original plans for the tower that Saunière made, he called the tower ‘Tour d’Horloge’. Some say the Tour Magdala looks like a Knight’s tower on a chessboard that needs to be moved in a straight line horizontally or vertically.

The Tour Magdala is a neo-gothic tower that sits on the far west corner of Saunière’s estate. If you climb the narrow spiral staircase to the top of this strange building an exit the little tower (échauguette) on the top deck, you are rewarded with an incredibly wide view of the surrounding countryside. It is hard to capture it here in photos or mere words. Many of the places that play a part in the enigma and legends of treasure are visible.

The Tour Magdala served as Saunière’s personal study and library and as such replaced the, reposoir after it’s completion in 1906. The wooden housing for his books on the ground floor was made to measure and took a month to complete. In 1907 he seriously started collecting stamps, postcards and books. He sent all his correspondents little metal boxes and asked them to fill them with stamps and send them back to him.

From 1908 onwards, Saunière directed his attention fully to his vast collection of books. To create order in the stacks of papers, magazines, pamphlets and books, he hired Henri Baret a librarian from Castelnaudary, who stayed with him for three months. No receipts or records survive of the collections of books and stamps. Most were sold or given away by Marie Dénarnaud after Saunière’s death and we know very little of their content. When the Derain-Raclet bookshop in Lyon went bankrupt around 1950, three books were found that were marked ‘François Béranger Saunière, Priest at: Aude, town of Rennes.’ These works were entitled: ‘the Prophecy of the Popes allotted to St. Malachy’ by Abbé Joseph Maitre, 2) ‘History of the Large Forests of Gaule and Old France’ by L.F. Alfred Maury and 3) “Celtic Monuments, or Research on the Worship of the Stones, Preceded by a note on the Celts and Druids, and followed Celtic etymologies’ by Mr. Camby.

Although the Tour Magdala doesn’t appear to an illustrated treasure map like the church, there are some peculiarities about it. In the last tile, in the extreme west corner of the floor there is a red dot. Though many will argue it’s just a fault in the tile, it does point up to the staircase to the window that points straight into the direction of a ancient grotto, about a mile in the distance called ‘Grotte du Fournet, dite de la Magdeleine’, which translates as ‘The Burial Site of, the Magdalene’.

The spiral staircase inside the tower has 22 steps, 22nd July being the feast day of Mary Magdalene. Andrew Gough has an article about this feature.

There is a little chimney on the roof of the tower, connected to the stove at ground level. The exhaust is beautifully modeled in a traditional opening representing the holy trinity. In a straight line through the holy trinity of the chimney lies the mountaintop of Pech Cerda.

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Panorama copyright Gilles Vidal.

1 Church of St. Mary Magdalene
2 Sacristie
3 Calvaire
4 Grotto
5 Reposoir
6 Cemetry Gate
7 Ossarium
8, Original tombs of Bérenger Saunière and Marie Dénarnaud
9 Notre Dame de Lourdes, jardin de Vierge
10 Presbytery
11 Villa Bethania
12 House Chapel / Winter Garden
13 current tomb of Bérenger Saunière
14 Orangerie
15 Belvédère
16 Tour Magdala
17 Parc
18 Villa Gardens

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved

In January of 1890, the Rennes-le-Château Municipal Council approved Abbé Saunière’s request to refrubish the public square in front of the Church. After a year of gardening, the first bit was completed and officially opened by the placement of a statue of Notre Dame de Lourdes on the upside-down Visigoth pillar, Saunière had saved from the old altar. At the ocassion, in the presence of the bishop Monseigneur Billard of Carcassonne, 24 children of the village made First Communion. They did a Tour de Mission, carrying the statue of the Virgin around the entire village in, a procession involving all parishioners. At the end of this procession, the statue was installed on the pillar.

, The design of the garden is very explicit, combining geometrical shapes that remind of Sacred Geometry. Closer inspection shows that the, layout of the garden perfectly mirrors the layout of the Church.

1. The circle around the Calvaire (16) matches the outline of the back of the Church.
2. The Calvaire (16) in the garden matches the position of the Altar (20) inside the Church
3. The position of ths statue of Notre Dame de Lourdes (7) matches the position of the confessional (19) in the church. Was this the reason that Saunière had the words “‘PENITENCE, PENITENCE” inscribed on the pillar?
4. The Knight’s Stone was found straight in front of the Altar. Saunière later used it as a stepping stone towards the Calvaire (16) , in the exact same position.
5. The Grotto, (13), in the garden is in the same position as the “Isoloir” (9), the Secret Room adjacent to the Sacristie. It is generally assumed, Saunière has this room built in 1892 to cover the entrance to the Church’s crypt. What does that say about the Grotto of Mary Magdalene?

Map of the, Church, Gardens in Rennes-le-Château (Paul Saussez)
1. Church
2. Cemetery (1831 enclosure)
3. Presbytery (12th century)
4. Stable
5. Courtyard
6. Low Walls (1891)
7. Notre Dame de Lourdes (June 1891)
8 Porch (November 1891)
9. Isoloir (Secret Room) (January 1892)
10. Gateway (1894)
11. Reposoir (1894-1895)
12. Gardens (1890-1897)
13. Grotto (1894)
14. Ancient Baptismal Font
15. Ossuary (1895)
16. Calvary (1897)
17. Villa Bethania (1901-1905)
18. Veranda / House Chapel
19. Confessional
20. Altar

,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Drawing copyright Paul Saussez, taken from the book Rennes-le-Château, Saunière’s Secret by Jean-Luc Robin.

In 1897 Saunière finished the works on the church gardens. On the 6th of June the gardens were inaugurated by Monseigneur Billard, the Bishop of Carcasonne on a visit to Rennes-le-Château. The commemorative plaque can still be seen on the Calvaire today.

The stone piedestal and the large cross form the centerpiece of the gardens. The exact placement of the Calvaire must have been very important to Sauniere for he had it erected and broken down again twice at a considerable cost before he was satisfied with the result.

The Dalle des Chevaliers (the Knight’s Stone) that he had discovered lying upside down in his church was used as a stepping stone for the stairs of the Calvaire. He must not have realised what the historic importance was of the stone and it was already greatly worn out when it was re-discovered and salvaged by a local in 1926. An inscription at the top of the piedestal reads:

CHRISTUS AB OMNI MALO PLEBEM SUAM DEFENDIT,
which is a well-known phrase meaning: ‘May Christ protect his people from all evil.

Around the piedestal the inscriptions read: IN CRUCE VITA, IN CRUCE SALUS, AIMONS, SALUONS, RESPECTONS NOTRE CROIX.

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