![]() Of course, this sudden increase in wealth didn’t go unnoticed. They entertained rich and important people, and Marie wore the latest fashions from Paris. His housekeeper, Marie Dénarnaud, her father, and her brother moved into the villa with him. He built a grand home called Villa Bethania, a large tower (the Magdala Tower) where he studied, an orangery, a garden with a pool, and a cage of monkeys. Then he bought several plots of land and built himself quite an estate. He started spending lavishly on church decorations. It seemed that the minimum-wage-earning priest had come into some money and lots of it. Image Source Fortune Found?Īfter about five years of digging and searching, something else happened. ![]() The Magdala Tower built by Father Saunière. He turned on the charm and continued to bring in donations and to get workmen to volunteer their time on weekends. He embarked upon a major refurbishment project for his little church. Soon they were holding services in the church and he was able to move into the presbytery. The charismatic young priest persuaded the villagers to pitch in, and he convinced business owners to help fund the necessary repairs. I guess they figured he couldn’t make it any worse. The presbytery was uninhabitable, and he had to lodge with one of the parishioners for a while. The church had a leaky roof, the broken windows were boarded up, and the bell was cracked all the way around. Then because of being “too independent” he was sent to Rennes-le-Château, a small village of about 300 inhabitants and a dilapidated church dedicated to Mary Magdalene. He was newly-ordained and had been teaching at a seminary in Narbonne. In 1885, in the Languedoc region of southern France, there lived a charismatic thirty-three-year-old priest called François-Bérenger Saunière. ![]() Father Saunière - The priest with a secret
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |