Posted on 11/14/2004 8:49:26 AM PST by aculeus
The mayor of a French village besieged by obsessive fans of The Da Vinci Code has been forced to dig up the body of a mysterious priest and encase it in a concrete mausoleum to deter rapacious treasure hunters.
The cemetery has also been closed after tens of thousands of tourists swamped Rennes-le-Chateau, in southeastern France, where a 2,000-year-old local mystery inspired the plot of the best-selling religious thriller.
Legend has it that the area, known as the "Valley of God" and once a remote Roman outpost, conceals an remarkable collection of religious relics and treasures. They are said to range from simple pots of gold to the body of Jesus Christ, the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant.
Hidden documents are rumoured to hold clues that would challenge religious doctrine by proving that Jesus did not die on the Cross but survived, married Mary Magdalen and fled to France - one of the central claims made in The Da Vinci Code.
Until recently the mayor of the village, Jean-Franois L'Huilier, seemed to be winning the battle against fortune-seekers who tried to disinter bodies and dynamite holes in the walls of its 11th-century church looking for relics.
Now, however, Rennes-le-Chateau has become the latest victim of The Da Vinci Code fever. Since its publication 20 months ago, Dan Brown's heady mix of fiction, fact and legend has sold more than nine million copies in 42 languages.
"The world has gone mad," said Mr L'Huilier. "It's a well-written book but it's a novel, not a historical document. It astonishes me that some readers get to the end and think it's true.
"It's a Philistine minority but they come here and stomp all over the place with no respect for anything or anyone. Last year they even tried to tunnel into the church. It was like something out of a prison escape film. They began digging in the night, put the soil in bags and put the bags in the hole which they covered with a layer of earth so nobody would see during the day. It was only when someone noticed the flower beds moving that we discovered what they were up to."
The legends were fuelled in the 1880s when Abbe Berenger Sauniere, an impoverished Roman Catholic priest assigned to the parish, became inexplicably wealthy. Sauniere - whose name is shared by one of the protagonists in The Da Vinci Code - set about renovating the church, which is dedicated to Mary Magdalen. Above the door he installed a stone inscribed: Terribilis est Locus Iste - "This Place Is Terrible"; inside, a grotesque figure of the devil in a green robe bears the holy water.
Some believe that the irreligious symbols contained hidden codes either to "treasure" or to damaging documents that Sauniere used to blackmail the Vatican. He took the secret of his fortune to his grave in 1917, aged 65, but the mystery has endured.
"At the height of the madness in the 1970s, and it was complete madness, people were using explosives to blow holes all over the place," said Mr L'Huilier. "They got into the sewers, dug into burial areas and smashed through stone walls. It had calmed down a bit. Then the book came out and put Rennes-le-Chateau back on the map again.
"Just two months ago someone pushed over a skull-and-crossbones keystone at the entrance to the cemetery. Luckily it wasn't broken."
Although many villagers believe that there was no need to move the priest's body, at the request of his descendants it has been reburied in the grounds of the museum that adjoins the church.
"He's lying at peace at last under a 3.5 ton sarcophagus surrounded by five cubic metres of concrete. It'll take one hell of a lot of explosive to get through that," said Mr L'Huilier.
While the grave robbers are unwelcome, tourism as a whole is a boon for the tiny, 152-strong community. Last year, the number of visitors surged by 50 per cent to 120,000. Even on grey, rainy days, visitors keep coming up the winding road leading to the village. Last week, Amanda Zizzi-Knight, 48, who comes from Bath but now lives in Spain, said that she and her husband Richard, 46, wanted to come after reading The Da Vinci Code and noticing similarities between the plot and local myth.
"It's a shame that some visitors are causing problems but it seems extraordinary that they've exhumed the priest and buried him somewhere else," she said. "Still, there are a lot of strange people about."
Marie-Laure Busquet, the head of the tourist office, said: "Lots of people are coming here because of The Da Vinci Code. I don't have a problem with them or the book - just the interpretation some put on it, and the damage they do. Some don't seem to realise that it's just a story."
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright
Can someone sum The Da Vinci Code story up for me?
For those incapable of reading the book as a novel, your time is better spent reading "The DaVinci Deception", by Erwin W. Lutzer.
Simply amazing. Hordes of deeply stupid people who can't tell fact from fiction.
Rennes-le-Chateau alert ;-)
It's just like Morse Code, only it's in Italian.
Yo! It's a freakin' MADE-UP FICTION NOVEL!
It's how they used to order pizza delivery before the phone.
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.
The last Gabriel Knight game is about the mystery of Renne les Chateua, it was pretty good
Please go here:
http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/plot.html
I liked it when the conspiracy nonsense was made into a computer game (Gabriel Knight 3) but to go out in real life and dig up graves is just pathetic.
One popular theory is that he stumbled upon a fortune left by a secret Christian military order such as the Templars who took their money from the Middle East and buried it in France and then conveniently forgot or were unable to dig it back up. Another is that the priest stumbled upon conclusive proof that Jesus Christ survived the Crucifixion, sailed to France and founded the French dynasty that lasted until the French Revolution. Under this theory, the Vatican would not be too happy for this to get out and bought him off. Naturally, there are all sorts of clues involving details in old paintings, gravestone inscriptions, mysterious individuals of the time and the like.
People who believe this stuff will believe anything, but there are a lot of them out there.
".. your time is better spent reading "The DaVinci Deception", by Erwin W. Lutzer."
Or THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DA VINCI CODE by Richard Abanes.
Harvest House Publishers.
Just an anomaly noted in passing.
Who was on the grassy knoll?
Thank You
Nine million suckers.
People can be SO stoopid. At the cafeteria table at work one day, some co-workers were discussing the book "Lovely Bones." One of the women actually said she loved the book, and "I never realized heaven would be like that."
Hello? It's fiction, a storybook for cryin' out loud!! No wonder a goof like Michael Moore can have his way with people.
Yo! It's a freakin' MADE-UP FICTION NOVEL! "
So is "Palestine." So what's your point?
I agree. The Di Vinci Code is bunk.
Descendants? Guess he wasn't gay.
Amazing that they believe this fantasy and conspiracy, but ignore the fact the Vatican had assassins for centuries and would have honestly killed him were the stories true.
PURE BS intended to sell books to willing dupes who are ungrounded in scriptural truth!
Well, it could have been great-grand nephews & neices that requested the move. Or he could have been a widower that joined the clergy after his kids grew up.
Those ALSO descended of his mother and father?
Its like taking a couple of sleeping pills and then trying to drive. I found it boring and dull.
The history was old news also.
"The DaVinci Deception", by Erwin W. Lutzer.
Really easy book to read, it summarizes DC and methodically takes it apart.
Better to have that depth than to get caught with a one sentence summary.
http://www.fictionbook.ru/en/author/braun_dyen/robert_langdon_2_the_da_vinci_code/
Yup, like 55M sKerry voters. (I did enjoy the book however, might dig it out and re-read it.)
Crap! More food mentioned on yet another thread, first venison, then fresh apple pie. My guts are gurgling and I'm sooo damn hungry, but don't want to go out in the frigid Boston weather.
Additionally, the disciple Thomas was conjectured to be a twin of Christ, and that's supposedly the way Da Vinci shows him in his "Last Supper."
Also the person sitting to his right (our left) in that painting is obviously a woman (Mary Magdelene.
Imagine being Christ's brother? MAN! That'd be a tough act to live up to, huh?
"Jesus? Yeah, I know Jesus. Little jerk. You know he wet the bed till he was 12? Huh? Some savior, eh? Our dad whipped us when we were 14, he caught us behind the shed drinking water Jesus turned to wine! EVERYBODY wanted to party with JESUS! He got all the girls, too. I hate him."
Ages ago, I read HBHG and the sequel, carefully.
It didn't convince me, but it was interesting.
=== "The world has gone mad," said Mr L'Huilier. "It's a well-written book but it's a novel, not a historical document. It astonishes me that some readers get to the end and think it's true.
Kinda like the 24-hour news cycle, only that has no end ... does it?
So curl up with a good book instead!!!
More evidence the Church is involved in a coverup.
For the record: That was sarcasm. I like Brown's novels, they're fast-paced and interesting. But, they are fiction, not fact. You have to suspend your disbelief to truely enjoy them, but you need to be able to come back to earth when you set the books down.
It's not even fiction. I don't know what it is beside a bunch of SH_T.
Fiction uses made up characters and plots. This "book" takes things held very sacred and twists them and blasphemes. It was a weak attempt to confuse the already confused. Most people saw what is was and lined their bird cages with it.
As someone noted above, it's a novel. For a non-novel version of the same claims:
"Holy Blood, Holy Grail"
regarding that title, one wag in Britain wrote (at the time it came out) that it would be analogous to claiming that Julius Caesar fathered a child by Boudicca, and their living descendant is Ian Paisley.
What faith these zealots display in believing a book of fiction while rejecting the Book of Truth.
"YOU were lucky. I was his cousin, and man was it a drag when we would visit in the summer. He'd see me coming from more than a mile away, and he'd yell out, 'Hey, John, wassup? Need any WATER?' Then he'd tell me to put on some decent clothes, and eat something--said I was nothing but skin and bones and loincloth. Told me one day I would lose my head for a woman. Yea, right, that guy was a laugh a minute."
...
Some believe that the irreligious symbols *snip*
This is an "irreligious symbol"? I've heard it before in inscriptions and in liturgy, but even a not-too-intense Internet search would show a few things:
- "Terribilis est locus iste" comes from the Vulgate for Genesis 28:17, concerning Jacob's reaction to his dream about the famous ladder. ("Terribilis" is translated into English as "dreadful" or "awesome," among other things--so Jacob exclaims, "how awesome is this place!")
- The phrase appears in Masses for the dedication of a church and the anniversary. After all, Jacob goes on to call this place the "house of God."
Once you have these things in mind, it's not so bizarre that a church doorway should feature "terribilis est locus iste." Of course, if you're contemplating digging up and blowing up things on the sly because of what this novel tells you, you probably don't care.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.