Jean-Luc Chaumeil, prolific author on the mystery of Rennes-le-Château, has written 5 special numbers in the review "Charivari", books: "Le Triangle d'Or", "Le Trésor des Templiers", etc.
Second part of the interview of Jean-Luc Chaumeil where he mentions his discovery of the bewitched hill and the owner of the abbé's estate, Henri Buthion, as well as his tumultuous relations with Pierre Plantard, Gérard de Sède and Mathieu Paoli !

Gazette of Rennes-le-Château : Which were your first impressions arriving to Rennes-le-Château ?

Jean-Luc Chaumeil 17 january 2006 © Jean Brunelin (click to enlarge the pictures)

Jean-Luc Chaumeil : The trip took all night, the train arrived to Carcassonne and Micheline brought us to Couiza. No taxi, no car and nobody gave a lift. We set off by foot with eyes turned to heaven : Rennes-le-Château was over there in the fog of early morning and I gripped my magnetophone very strongly, an old Remco, wiping it time and again as dew was staying on the leather. After an intoxicating ascent, photo after photo was taken of the plateau and I was photographed before the sign: "Digging forbidden". Passing before the castle of Monsieur Fatin, I thought on the maps of Marius the Elder who was fond of the "hieroglyphics" of toponyms, memory of Piri Reiss and Opicinus de Canistris! Our looks were attracted by a D.S. riddled with bullets in the midst of the platform; the son said later he had made a card!. The tower disappointed
me and Bernard needed zoom to make it imposing !

Gazette : The former owner of the abbé's estate, monsieur Henri Buthion, often is described as an enigmatic person fond of wrapping himself in an aura of mystery. How did he appear to you ?
J-L Chaumeil : Monsieur Buthion looked up and down at us; he reminded us of de Funes, a sidelong glance, joining his hands unceasingly. He accommodated us in Villa Bethania on the last floor and offered us coffee. Going for sugar in the kitchen, I saw a hole of many metres before I table like I had, already before, noticed a very big gash under the tower ! I asked to take photoes in the church; he refused as he needed authorization from the bishopric ! Our host was mistrusting and pensive. We benefitted of that, to escape in our chamber leaving a message on the magnetophone recounting both incidents, knowing very well he would come to listen to them. Before leaving for Rennes-les-Bains, I opened a skylight to scratch a tile, recalling a text of marquis Philippe de Cherisey, a friend of marquis B., the dentist Rouelle and monsieur Nauvalerts, three Rose+Croix Princes of the good town of Liège. Second disappointment, the tile had to be from the adjacent quarry and nobody had painted it to hide its golden reflection. Going down toward Rennes-les-Bains on the road of schoolchildren, mad laughter overtook us thinking on the divine marquis. He was known though, stubborn, almost tender and able to send us on paths at the end of which he'd found the door shut already. We were warned and, since it was the sense of the quest, one had to go on. At Rennes-les-bains, «Christ with the hare» of the good doctor left us flabbergasted and a tantinet mocking. Still by foot, for the second time, we resumed the road of Golgotha with this feeling of being elsewhere, in another place, fatigue helping at this end of harrassing day on the physical level. Surprise was waiting for us up there : monsieur Henri Buthion had organized a party and confided us the keys of the church to make our photoes, following us, of course, under the pretext of evening prayer. Under multiple flashes, he opened hands time and again to understand the sense of our photographical strategy. Third disappointment, the description of photographs didn't fit with Gérard de Sède. ! At the table, we were taken for emissaries of the Priory of Sion and we became acquainted with the whole family, moreover very hospitable, and a friend, researcher tried and tested since ages.
The next day, our host accompanied us to Bézu to see the Visigoth ridges, to the menhir of three treasures, to the tomb of Arques, by his car, commenting unendingly the divers places visited.

Gazette : You followed next the traces of the inventors of history. How did you understand them ?

Pierre Plantard

J-L Chaumeil : We alone visited the jet caves where Plantard and de Cherisey had sought. The revelation was at the "Stone of Die" : something fundamental gave us the impression anew the things passed elsewhere, in another setting. In symbolic field, the die is the symbol of seven gates like of the four minor orders and the three major orders. It was no more a disappointment but strange certainty recalling me of the warning of Gérard de Sède : "Any similarity between the facts reported in this book and an imaginary construct is the fruit of pure chance." It is not the least strange as similarity is striking. First conclusions on the first page and intimate conviction that Plantard, de Cherisey, like Gérard de Sède, were researchers little ordinary but quite real. In a certain sense, they were pretending they knew the answer to attract quite real information to themselves. Each after his kind to lord it over, but they had dug like at Gisors a little everywhere before publishing. Like me, I had scraped the tile of Villa Bethania. That's the first error which can bring so many more! Otherwise said, in an imaginary construct, a distinguo must be made between the myth, symbol and reality, i.e. history. One must choose hence after peeling three numbers of this conceptual die. It has been our approach, refined afterward.

Gazette : In your book, you evoke many threesomes. Can you specify them ?
J-L Chaumeil : Well, the first is made of abbé Saunière, Marie Denarnaud and Noël Corbu; the second, of Plantard, de Cherisey and de Sède !

Gazette : You present the second trio as "three musketeers". Tell us about Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair !
J-L Chaumeil : After many phone conversations, I met Athos, namely Pierre Plantard. Questions, he had a thousand of them; as for answers, they were allusive, irritating for more than a reason, often contradictory, sometimes naively disconcerting, always arranged with care, too much care maybe. The character was cheerful though, full of humour, a lunatic tantinet. One would have said Jeanne d'Arc in 1930 clothes, a Matrix "Man in Black" emerging from the present time with pockets full of documents, like ready in advance. But I knew he had been sacristan and sighted person when he officiated at Aulnay, by the name "Chyren". Not only did he believe in his ordonnances but predicted with fondness. I listened and noted down, sometimes knowing what was true like what was false. I made so for twelve years, amused but not fooled. Plantard
had imagination which was lacking in Gérard de Sède and de Cherisey having got fourteen quarters of nobility which Plantard missed. You know the rest: he has become the "lost king". The first interview appeared in number 18 of "Charivari", resumed in "Le Triangle d'or", confirmed in "Le Trésor des Templiers". One day he offered me a bread basket with a wink; it came from the bakery he had just bought at Colombes. Giving me the object, he added without laughing : "One day you'll be Prime Minister !" That's the kind of disconcerting reasoning for more than a reason! I dared not that day ask if it was about "cult", as I knew, for having been in Saint-Sulpice church with him, his regrets of former sacristan were bordering on exasperation. That is the secret of Plantard and him alone. He had become atheist and regretted that. In Saint-Sulpice for example, he spoke loudly when he saw a priest what caused an incident. He added without laughing: "Each time, it's the same thing." He turned the Chapel of the Angels into treasure-map and Saint Peter, with his two keys, into a message pointing to the crypt of Our Lady Beneath with a pagan temple of Artemis moreover. He practised what today is called historic revisionism, centred on Merovingian legitimacy.

Pierre Plantard

Gazettee : Jean-Luc Chaumeil, you are journalist! You've written articles in the review "Charivari" on the "Archives of the Priory of Sion" since 1973, notably ! You have written many books related to the enigma: "Le Trésor du Triangle d'Or", "Le Trésor des Templiers", "L'Alphabet Solaire" alongside Jacques Rivière. How do you react on the attacks and innuendos whose target you have been due to your publications ?
J-L Chaumeil : In 1983, I went to Rennes-le château for the third time and met one of the creators of the files of history; I noticed, then, the famous genealogies, copied with the same misprints, were those of Lobineau and Blancassal, evoked in "La Table d'Isis".
I sent my observations on many postcards. I was answered by anonymous treatises, written at Saint-Malo where a certain Louis Vazart was dwelling ! The affair escalated despite two successive complaints: this made by me and that by Plantard. In fact, by way of response, Plantard produced a copy of a cheque of his first wife, Anne-Léa Hisler, for her so-called works in the review ! Fatal error ! On the cheque, there was a computer code which did not exist in 1960 !. I was hardly astonished; the English were up to date with Jania Mac Galivrey and they had benefit of it to spin things out. But they had warning prior to the appearance of the best-seller. I underwent unfounded attacks regularly since, hereby explained.

Gazette : Let's return to the fellow travellers of Pierre Plantard and notably, Gérard de Sède and his reception of the famous parchments !
J-L Chaumeil : Gérard de Sède, by his true name Gérard de Liéoux after Robert Charroux, by his true name Robert Grugeau, was the first companion of Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Cherisey in the affair of Gisors. I went to see him, better to figure out Plantard (Interview in Charivari n°18), and to show him a certain number of photographs of Visigoth jewels, of which we'll talk again in the context of the affair of Mathieu Paoli and Doru Todericiou.
His wife called him "Teddy Bear" and, despite his grumpy manner and his imperturbable logic, he was like a big child fond of stories and fairytales. I asked him at first when he had learned of the parchments. He answered he had received them by mail! I did not insist but saw, from his lightly oblique eye, the question embarrassed him! By mail or in a pillar, after all, why not? For a while, we were exchanging a certain amount of data, then he wanted to make a book with me.

Gazette : On your side, you investigated too.
J-L Chaumeil : Indeed! Meanwhile I had discovered two things: Sainte Catherine de Gisors chapel had been built in 1522 by the lords of Flavacourt and it was adjacent to Saint-Gervais de Gisors church; on another hand, in an old book from the late nineteenth century, a whole legendary story concerning François II, son of Caterina di Medici, imprisoned at Gisors, a lost king all in all.
Gérard de Sède remained unruffled and, despite the testimonies of Dufour, Delie and many others, went carefully to reprint in "Trésor Mag" while omitting to talk of the notice of Claude-Rouit Berger! It was obvious since, we couldn't understand each other !

Gazette : At this time a person appeared whose role is quite obscure today still !

Philippe de Cherisey at the exit of the jet mine of Serbaïrou

J-L Chaumeil : You hint at Mathieu Paoli who hid from me a certain number of files on Madeleine Blancassal, Henri Lobineau and Serge Roux to publish them in his book which had to be printed at Belfond last to end up in Switzerland.
By his true name, Ludwig Scheswig, Mathieu was a curious person using the ones and the others to reach his own ends, hidden. Friend of Pierre Carnac, by his true name Doru Todericiou, he sought to identify a big pierced platter, of Visigoth origin, seen at an American archaeologist by the name Paterson, big friend of countess de Goguë, in relation with countess de Pierrefeu, expert on Cathars.
After interviewing professor Niel, meeting Déodat Roché who spoke of angels in an extraordianry fashion, I left for Geneva to see the countess and professor Paterson, then I visited a magnificent crypt.
Back at Paris, I found under the door photo-negatives which I had analyzed in Saint-Germain-en-Laye museum! The pierced platter aside, the photoes slipped by Paoli were replicas of the treasure of Petroassa after the curator M. Duval. We learned later, thanks to Doru, that Mathieu Paoli had wanted to play secret agents in Israel, practising double game with the Egyptians. He would have been shot ! Still there will always remain the enigma of the "pierced platter" like of the replicas !

(Translated by Clanders)

First part - Third part

Johan ©, 12 april 2006

Warning of the editors : the remarks of Jean-Luc Chaumeil have been reproduced as such at his request ! The Gazette's editors do not account for hints at some persons and will grant them a right of response, or their family, if such is requested!  The questions and comments are the editors.
Acknowledgements : the editors thank Jean-Luc Chaumeil for the permission to publish the photoes. They also thank the webmasters who sent the illustrations of three numbers of the article !