One of the first renovations Saunière undertook was the replacement of the old altar. The altar he installed and that we can still see in the Eglise Madeleine today was produced by Maison Monna of Toulouse and cost 770FF. The altar was paid for by Madame Cavailhé de Coursan. The old altar was transported to the presbytery. It would later serve in his personal chapel at Villa Bethania after his suspension by Mgr. Beauséjour. The old altar was already devoted to Mary Magdalene, as can be seen on an early picture of it in the Abbé’s private chapel in the winter garden.

On his new altar, Saunière had a bas relief sculpted of Mary Magdalene in a grotto with the usual props. Until halfway the 1980s, the church of Puichéric had a stained glass window almost identical to the scene on Saunière’s altar as you can see from the great photo by André Goudonnet of that window in 1982.

There are however a number of diversions on the bas relief from the stained glass window and the other similar known depictions of Mary-Magdalene that were added by Saunière.

Originally, at the base of the altar, a phrase was inscribed:

JESU MEDELA VULNERUM SPES UNA POENITENTIUM PER MAGDALENAE LACRYMAS PECCATA NOSTRA DILUAS.

It is bad Latin for Jesus, you remedy against our pains and only hope for our repentance, it is thanks to Magdalene’s tears that you wash our sins away. This sentence is pure heresy and must have raised many an eyebrow when it was first put on display. The power to wash away our sins is directly linked to Magdalene’s tears here rather than to the blood of Jesus or his death on the cross. The scene was painted by Saunière himself, with the help of his good friend Abbé Eugène Grassaud. Today, the inscription is no longer there. An exact copy of this sentence however, features at the bottom of what is known as the Grand Parchment.

At the left side of the scene, what appears to be two buildings are painted. People have concluded they are the Tour Magdala and the Chateâu Hautpoul, but that is far from certain. You might as well say that they are the letters J and M for Jesus and Mary or the ruines of the Château de Coustaussa as is claimed by others. If they have been indeed been meant to show the silhouet of the Rennes-le-Château hilltop in the distance, there would be a remarkable similarity with the view from the Grotte du Fournet, dite the La Magdeleine, the grotto in the Vallée des Couleurs that is known in folklore as the burial site of the Magdalene.

Another oddity is the way Mary Magdalene has crossed her fingers in the esoteric symbol of the XXX, indicating that she knows of a great secret (in the masonic meaning of the symbol). There are a couple of other Mary Magdalene statues that have crossed fingers like that. One is in the Provence near St. Maximin La Saint-Baume and the other one close to Rennes-le-Château in the church of Belpech. The strangely crossed fingers are also found in some enigmatic paintings of great artists that are sometimes associated with the enigma. The most bizar story is without a doubt the story of Jean Cocteau’s death. Jean Cocteau, painter, writer, performer and according to Les Dossiers Secrets alleged Grandmaster of the Priory of Sion. He died an unsuspicious death from a heart attack in 1963. Being a national celebrity, he was placed on the bier and an army of photographers was allowed to shoot him one last time. Jean Brunelin, a well-known French photograper with a great interest in the enigma noticed the peculiar way Cocteau’s fingers were crossed and photographed them. Much to his surprise, when he compared his photos with those of his colleagues shot earlier, he discovered that the hands were folded ‘the normal way’. In other word: someone had purposely forced the deceased’ fingers into this unnatural shape, damaging the corpse. What was so important about the position of a dead man’s fingers that someone violated his deathbed?

The information about Jean Cocteau in this paragraph is based on an article that appeared in Les Carnets Secrets Magazine no.5, 2006. More about the Altar and its possible relic is described in this article from 18th January 2008.

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In the summer of 2007, Hollywood icon Patrice Chaplin released her book City of Secrets. This book, which is actually an elaboration on her books Happy Hour and Albany Park, she introduced an angle of the Rennes-le-Château mystery that had so far been completely unknown. What she claimed was controversial form the start and some of the documents she printed in her book as evidence were demonstrably forgeries. However, much like Pierre Plantard’s Priory of Sion, Chaplin’s Gerona might hold some true elements. Much of her story could have happened as she describes. Fact is she claims it’s entirely a true account of what she witnessed and was told.

Gerona is a beautiful medieval town in the North East of Catalan Spain. Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Charlemagne and the Aragons ruled the city at some stage in history, all leaving traces of their presence in the local culture and buildings. In the 12th century Gerona housed a flourishing jewish community with the most important Kaballistic school in Europe.

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