Attempts to appeal (1910-1911)
The material is distributed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. From Mariano Tomatis.
With many thanks for Mariano in giving me permission to reproduce his excellent researches!
Given his knowledge in the Vatican, Dr. Huguet chooses an alternative defensive strategy: instead of appealing, the lawyer suggests to Saunière to ignore the deadlines set by the court of Carcassonne; in the meantime, he will contact the Holy Congregation of the Council of Rome to obtain the annulment of the sentence. Perhaps Saunière is not entirely convinced that this "lateral" manoeuvre will play in his favour; the deadline for filing the appeal passes, and only three days later, on 30 November 1910, he sends a letter in which he appeals. But it is too late: on 28 November the sentence had taken on a final and enforceable character. On December 5, the local weekly La Semaine Religieuse de Carcassonne announces to the faithful that Saunière has been deprived of priestly functions and will no longer be able to celebrate Mass1.
On December 11, on issue 13 of the local magazine Le veillès des Chaumières, an advertisement signed by Saunière advertises the sale of masses at 1 franc. The priest will always deny having sent this announcement to the magazine – and in fact the operation has the air of a defamation manoeuvre against Saunière, who would hardly have exposed himself of his own free will in such a clumsy way. On December 17, the date by which he was supposed to provide all the documentation relating to his accounts, the priest sends a letter to Rome to the Holy Congregation of the Council, explicitly ignoring the episcopal request. On 30 December, the court sent Saunière a first warning2, announcing the refusal of the appeal because the request started late than the set time. The priest is invited to appear before the Tribunal on 9 January 1911 at 2 p.m. to present the documentation relating to the accounts and receive further instructions, under penalty of disciplinary sanction. While Dr. Huguet discusses the matter in Rome, Saunière submits a second request for appeal on January 3, 1911, but it was again rejected two days later, on January 5, with a second admonition3 in which the Vicar General confirms the refusal expressed in the first admonition of December 30. In the letter, the priest is granted an extension of fifteen days in order to collect all the required documentation: the new deadline is therefore set at January 24. On 19 January, Saunière made a further appeal. A third ammonition4, with the harshest tones, was sent by the Vicar General on February 18, 1911: a note had arrived in Carcassonne from Rome referring to the requests sent by Dr. Huguet to reintegrate Saunière into his priestly functions. The Vicar perhaps misunderstands the note, mistakenly believing that the priest intends to return to being the parish priest of Rennes-le-Château, and complains like this:
There is no appeal against the judgment handed down, since the letter sent to Rome does not involve an appeal against the judgment of the Court, but is only an appeal for reinstatement in the parish of Rennes-le-Château to which Mr Bérenger Saunière has long since resigned in writing; in his letter of appeal Mr B. Saunière mentions the trial of 5 November 1910 not to appeal against the sentence, but to make false assertions, saying that this trial ended with an acquittal and a place to proceed, even though he knows that it is a real sentence. Once again he confirms the sentence of 5 November 1910 and extends to 2 March 1911 the deadline for the submission of the documentation and to 20 March that for the delivery of the certificate attesting to the attendance, by Saunière, of 10 days of spiritual exercises.
In the meantime the bishop is informed of the announcement that appeared in December in Le veillès des Chaumières; on February 1, 1911 he entrusted the pages of La Semaine Religieuse de Carcassonne5 with an official communication in which he writes among other things:
The diocesan authority of Carcassonne feels its duty to inform the faithful of the diocese, and as far as possible those of the other dioceses:
1° that Don Saunière, old parish priest of Rennes-le-Château, has no right to ask within the diocese, or from other dioceses, money to recite masses
2° who has not received any assignment or authorization to carry out any work having the cult in question
Carcassonne, February 1, 1911.
On February 24, Saunière attempts the appeal for the last time: on February 28 the Vicar sends him a fourth admonition with a lapidary tone:
Given the letter addressed to us by M. Sauniére on February 24, 1911 we maintain entirely and in all its tenor the warning that was sent to M. B. Sauniére on February 18, 1911 with all the consequences that this entails.6
Saunière's strategy is far from naive: the priest knows that he cannot appeal, but by continually extending the terms he hopes that an annulment of the sentence will come from Rome. The presentation of the documentation is the second weak point of his defense: when the Court realised that all the properties are in the name of the housekeeper, the conviction would be confirmed and final, because it would be the most overwhelming proof of the fact that the money collected in so many years was not spent on the purchase of ecclesiastical goods but went to enrich a perpetual secular. The deadline of March 2 passes without Saunière having submitted the documentation; this time the extension is requested for health reasons: to a letter sent on March 6, 1911 Saunière attaches a medical certificate signed by Dr. Roche de Couiza announcing the impossibility of participating in the spiritual exercises commanded. By a letter dated March 9, 1911, Vicar Gustave Cantegril grants the priest two more months for the fulfillment of his commitments7. If the Tribunal is more condescending with regard to the extension of the spiritual exercises, the Bishop is uncompromising towards the expected accounting documentation: the same March 9 Monsignor Beuvin de Beausejour addresses a very hard letter in which he complains that no documentation has yet been produced and lists three fixed points to which Saunière will have to obey: the documents must be submitted by March 16 regardless of the state of health of the priest; in case of illness, these must be sent8.
1. Jacques Rivière, Le fabuleux trésor de Rennes-le-Château, Bélisane, Nizza 1983, p. 199.
2. Transcribed in Rivière 1983, pp. 200-201.
3. Transcribed in Rivière 1983, pp. 201-202.
4. Transcribed in Rivière 1983, pp. 202-203.
5. La Semaine Religieuse de Carcassonne, 3.2.1911, p. 81 reproduced in Pierre Jarnac, Histoire du Trésor de Rennes-le-Château, Bélisane, Nizza 1985, p. 225.
6. Transcribed in Rivière 1983, p. 204.
7. Transcribed in Rivière 1983, pp. 204-205.
8. Transcribed in Rivière 1983, pp. 205-206.