Someone recently wrote on a certain website:

[Paul Saussez] “talks about Sauniere's monetary gains [while referring to the priest's traffic in masses] being partly due to the looting a stolen religious or hidden treasure from the ancient church [?crypt] or from a local Bishop from hundreds of years before [hidden before the Revolution] – discussed by another good French researcher Patrick Mensior.”

It is known from Abbé Saunière's 820 pages of correspondence record of letters sent and received between 1896-1915 that he accrued some 250,000 francs from selling masses (existing on microfilm in Archives de l'Aude, Carcassonne, File numbers 1Mi8l/l and IMi8l/2). Add to this the rest of his trafficking in masses activities that have not been revealed to the general public, in the possession of Claire Corbu and Antoine Captier, and the amount would be substantially higher.

Abbé Saunière's works in his church – the renovation, restoration and the new ornaments and new statues, etc – the building of his office – the Tour Magdala – the Belvedere – the Villa Bethanie – the Orangery – the plots of land – all of this would never have added up to the amount of 250,000 francs. This was why he was able to buy lots and lots of bottles of rum and wine – the receipts of which were on display in the Saunière Museum during the 1990s. What's more, the surplus amount of money could have been donated to various other Anti-Republican priests spread over France – since by May 1914 Abbé Saunière planned to build a Summer-House but gave up on the idea at the end of 1915 because the price was too high – 2,500 francs.

It is always much more attractive – and much more addictive – to believe in the fairy-tales that never quite fit the known facts. The real mystery lies in why French and Belgian people, who have got access to all the original source material about Abbé Saunière in their own French language, bother to believe and write books about the fairy-tales at all.

Quoting René Descadeillas: “In November 1956, Monsieur Cotte of the Société des Arts et des Sciences de Carcassonne asked the membership during its monthly session about the treasure of Rennes-le-Château, which led to an investigation of the subject matter. Two members conducted on-the-spot research in March 1957 that lasted for one year. Local historian René Descadeillas commented: “They found no evidence anywhere to support the assertion that, down the ages, any individual, family, group or clan could have accumulated a precious treasure-hoard at Rennes and then concealed it in the locality or its environs. What is more, the activities of the Abbé Saunière were undoubtedly eloquent of the sort of stratagems that he was accustomed to using in order to enrich himself” (Mythologie du Trésor de Rennes, pages 57-58, 1974).