French researcher Jacques Rivière, who unfortunately passed away in 2006, left us some of the most serious books on the mystery of Rennes-le-Château as well as a great many things to ponder. On of his most intriguing claims was that, if the points of all the summits of the hills in the Aude are joined up, they reproduce the figure of Mary Magdalene as she appears on the bas-relief of Saunière’s altar, her head being the ramparts of Carcassonne.

Another leading Rennes researcher, Pierre Jarnac, has repeated this exercise and confirms that this does appear to work.

If this was indeed meant to be a map, then at the intersection of the cross on which the Magdalene’s gaze is fixed lies the village of Puichéric. That’s an amazing coinicidence, since in Puichéric, the church used to have a stained-glass window with exactly the same scene. Rivière believed that the secret is the locations of some very rich mines.

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The locations associated with the mystery of Rennes-le-Château can be found in the French Languedoc-Roussillon area. Roughly the area is marked by the city of Carcassonne in the North, the Pyrenees in the South and Perpignan on the Eastern perimeter.

The two main areas of focus in the mystery are the region around Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains (RED rectangle) and the Perillos region (BLUE rectangle).

The most important place is Rennes-le-Château itself. Here you’ll find the domain of Abbé Saunière, the church of St. Mary Magdalene that he renovated and refurbished as well as the Château Hautpoul, once home to the important Hautpoul-Blanchefort family that appear to be at the root of the mystery.

The Château de Blanchefort and the Château de Bézu both play a role in local legends involving the Knights Templar.

Montazels is the birthplace of Abbé Saunière.

Rennes-les-Bains is the place where Abbé Boudet wrote his enigmatic work La Vraie Language Celtique in which he allegedly hid 12 hding places of treasure. It is also the village where you’ll find Mount Cardou, the Devil’s Armchair, the Source of the Circle, the Source of the Madeleine and the enigmatic tombs of Abbé Jean Vié and Paul-Urbain de Fleury.

In Coustaussa you’ll find the ruined Château de Coustaussa and the church and presbytery once inhabited by Abbé Gélis who’s incredibly violent murder was never solved and might have a relation to the mystery.

Mount Bugarach is the most prominent landmark in the area, steeped in mystery and legend.

Saunière allegedly depicted the area around the ruined village of Perillos on a model of the Holy Places he ordered just before his death. The landscape features a perfect triangle between the chapel of the ruined Château de Salvaterra, the chapel of Oriole and the chapel of St. Michael in the ruined village of Perillos.

The Château or (Forteresse) the Salses was built by the Aragon’s, once rulers of this part of France that feature in the Perillos myths and legends.

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