Dame Marie de Nègre d’Ables (1714-1781)

Dame d’Hautpoul, d’Auxillon, et de Blanchefort. Widow of François d’Hautpoul-Rennes (last Seigneur of Rennes-le-Château +1753), Marquis de Blanchefort.

In November 1732, François d’Hautpoul Rennes married a young 19 year old orphan. Her name was Marie de Nègre d’Ables, Demoiselle de Niort et de Roquefeuil. Her ancestors where bailiffs for the kings of the Pays de Sault, a valley not far from Rennes-le-Château. Through this marriage, the lands of the Hautpouls where extended by the Seigneury of Niort, the Seigneury of Roquefeuil and territories in Mérial, Fontanès with a number of tenanted farms and canals. François died in 1753, being the last Seigneur de Rennes in the main bloodline of the Hautpouls. Marie lived for another 28 years in the Hautpoul’s manor (currently known as the Château Hautpoul), with one of their three daughters Marie Anne-Elisabeth d’Hautpoul de Rennes.

the Château Hautpoul in the early 1900’s (left) and in March 2007 (right)

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Abbé Antoine Bigou (1719-1794)

Saunière’s predecessor as prête of Rennes-le-Château from 1776 to 1792. Bigou was the priest and confidant of the family Hautpoul de Blanchefort. On her deathbed, Marie d’Hautpoul confided her family’s secrets to him since she represented the last member of the main branch of the Hautpoul family. Bigou is believed to be responsible for the enigmatic engraving of her horizontal (arcadia stone) and vertical tombstone and allegedly hid parchments with clues to her secret in the church at Rennes-le-Château, where Saunière later found them.

In August 1792, as a result of the French Revolution, a law was passed dictating that the clergy were to be made employees of the state, elected by their parish or bishopric, and the number of bishoprics was to be reduced. All priests and bishops were to swear an oath of fidelity to the new order or face dismissal, deportation or death. A group of some 20 priests from the region of Alet-les-Bains fled to Spain headed by Charles de la Cropte de Chanterac, the last bishop of Alet. At least 5 of them arrived in Terrassa, close to Sabadell and one in Llorena, both villages in northern Spain. Bigou was probably accompanied by François-Pierre Caneuille, priest of Rennes-les-Bains. It is unclear what happened to the successor of Marie de Nègre Hautpoul as lord of Rennes, the Marquis Paul François-Vincent de Fleury. Some stories say he fled to northern Spain as well.

It is in this climate of unrest and revolt that Bigou had to hide his secret. He was 73 when he left Rennes-le-Château and knew it was unlikely he would return. It is believed he covered the external entry of the church crypt with Marie de Nègre’s tomb and encoded a message in her tombstones. Additionally he left a parchment in the wooden baluster supporting the pulpit on which he indicated the location of the tomb and its special significance. It was this parchment, Saunière retrieved almost 100 years later.

Before he left to Spain, Bigou left a mysterious page in the parish registry reading multiple time “Jesus de Gallilée n’est point icy” (Jesus of Galilee is not here). This phrase has led to much speculation as to what the priest meant. Veteran French researcher André Douzet has written some interesting articles about this.

A religious Spanish group claims to have Bigou’s diary in their possesion. Patrice Chaplin, in her book City of Secrets, claims that Bigou lived his last years and was buried in a forest near Bésalu in northern Spain.

©2007-2008 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved

Elie Bot (1861-1947)

Elie Bot was a local limonadier (soda-maker), mason and builder from Luc-sur-Aude who knew Saunière very well. It was Bot who did all the major building work for the priest including the renovations of the church, the Tour Magdala and the Villa Bethania. He was also a guest during some of Saunière’s lavish parties in the Villa Bethania. It is hard to think that he knew nothing of the priest’s secret. Bot is buried in a big tomb he built for himself and his family that he decorated in the same fashion as Saunière’s church.

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©2007-2008 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved

Ariduchesse Marie-Thérèse de Modène, Comtesse de Chambord (1817 - 1886)

Member of the Habsburg family. Widow of Henry V d’Artois (1820-1883), last of the Bourbons and pretender to the throne of France. She donated 1.000 goldfrancs to Abbé Saunière for restoration of the church in Rennes-le-Château. The amount was paid out in two installments in 1886. She died in the same year and never saw the results of her donation. The Abbé used the money to start the restoration during which he did his discoveries.

©2007-2008 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved

Monseigneur Paul-Félix Beuvain de Beauséjour (1839-1930)

16 Dec 1839 Born in Vesoul
1863 Ordained Priest
13 May 1902 Appointed Bishop of Carcassonne
5 Apr 1930 Died Bishop of Carcassonne

Successor of Mgr. Billard from 1902 until his death in 1930. De Beauséjour insisted on Saunière to uncover the sources of his wealth and when he kept refusing to do so accused him of trafficking in masses. Even though the Abbé could never have amassed the money he spent with selling fake masses alone, the Vatican convicted him twice and forbade him to carry out his priesthood, only to be re-instated ‘in articulo mortis‘ (at his death).

©2007-2008 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Photo of Mgr. de Beauséjour taken from Franck Daffos’ book Rennes-le-Château le puzzle reconstitué (only available in French)