Alain Châtillon

June 2000

Interview translated from French.

Alain Châtillon one is accustomed of Rennes-le-Chateau. A long time enquiring of "ground", Alain Châtillon reports here some memories to us which do not miss interests. I cordially thank him for his participation in this interview, which will make it possible [for a] good number among us to be plunged in one time that we inevitably did not know

Jean-Patrick Pourtal: Mr Châtillon hello, In addition to the fact that you launched a forum on the site concerning the manuscript of Boudet, you are a researcher of the first hour of the business of Rennes-le-Chateau. Can you say to us how you discovered this history?

Alain Châtillon: In August 1967, in company of some members of famous "the Club of the treasure hunters" whose President was Robert Charroux, we endeavoured to locate an important deposit on the beach of Saint Cyprien ... a small man [I don't know] presents himself to me and says to me "I know where is a fabulous treasure in the mountains from here..." Not intrigued very far, the following day even I made knowledge of Rennes-le-Chateau about which I had never intended to speak front. The small man of Mulhouse which smoked as a fireman called Mr. Soudieu, Charles Soudieu... a name who always seemed to me strange, as if one had sent a messenger to me to be transmitted a secrecy. Thus I was literally grabbed by this high place where I lived during more than 25 years a fantastic adventure which is still not completed, because as you will see it into final I hope to go back well there.... The latest possible.

JPP: The time to which you did begin your research corresponds to the large wave of the researchers of Rennes-le-Chateau, which was the environment of the village at that time? Alain Châtillon: Environment was fantastic especially during the summer months when the researchers met in greater number. Village side, it was very different of course. Certain animosities were felt, especially in the young people of the village who, frustrated, tried to be made respect by the new ones that they regarded as foreigners come all to break. The Mayor, Mr Henry Lembège, a sympathetic nerve character, were between two chairs; he did not live the village and in addition dynamite necessary to us to many borings... then some times sold also was taken to him with party by "refractories" of the village.

JPP: I suppose that you should not be the only researcher on the spot. How were the relationship between researchers?

Alain Châtillon: The teams [coordinate] themselves without any problem. There was the team "Doumergue" which had established their headquarters in a house belonging to him (corner of Main street with the Street of the Church). A strategic place of first importance stuck to the rock garden. This team, during years 66 to 71, was most active in their research and borings of undergrounds. It y avaitl' team Buthion, the team of Toulouse, the Lecousse team and from 69 the team "AC" such as me designates Mr. Descadeillas in his work "the mythology of the treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau". Moreover, many insulated their own research without drawing undertook the attention differently but I must say that the "Large Teams or Companies" were rather noisy and noisy because dynamite and the power picks... as regards discretion. That is not very adequate.

JPP: Did you have between you a collegial spirit or was this every man for himself?

Alain Châtillon: The teams collaborated between themselves. For example my group made up of ten people during August and July joined to the Doumergue team during [the] years 69 to 71 to finish the underground which started from its walls, passed under the rock garden, under the sacristy to lead to the lower part of the church with approximately 1 meter of the Master hotel (there was also another secondary conduit which left under Christ in cross the garden). It was a harassing work, with four legs in a conduit skimped with the noise of the power pick, the dust of the shootings... and alarms perpetual. One drew engraved them with the assistance of a small case out of wooden and of a system of comings and goings to cord... it was folk! One with succeeded in extracting more than 60 m3 from stone with this system which one stored in the back court of the house... an enormous stone heap. the faith animated us and we could have made a hole until Couiza if there had not been no time... bus everyone at the end of August to us set out again with its professional occupations.

JPP: How the inhabitants of the village perceived you it? With your opinion, were you for them, of soft dreamers or dangerous insane dangerous?

Alain Châtillon: As I already underlined higher, a certain sometimes quarrelsome animosity animated some young natives of the village, they were regarded a little as the guards of the place, a place crowned in their eyes which one violated without their asking for their opinion. In the private properties they could not intervene but they narrowly supervised the church, the rock garden, the cemetery and the cavities under rock; places assiduously attended by the researchers. It was not rare to see the come morning, one of our underground conduits battered. They called the Gendarmerie but our "rescue squads" had early made stop before the arrival of the constabulary... It was a small war of skirmishes which left with the ones and with the others of excellent memories... and with time we all are become of very good friends. Friend Delmas do you remember?

JPP: When one forms part of a group, some that it is, one tends to gather in a place, with Rennes-le-Chateau the researchers who you were had they a home port? Claire and

Alain Châtillon: The house of my Doumergue neighbour usually received 10 to 15 people and mine close as much. The meetings were thus animated at one or the others but as of 69 we started to join together us with "the Hotel of the Tower" held by the very new owner Mr. Henry Buthion. This place became the point of meeting impossible to circumvent of the researchers, curious and adventurers about any edge. During and July we August were going there to lunch or dine tous.les.jours. For a reason or the another festivals were constant and the stoppers of blanquette jumped briskly in the foliations of the trees of the park. If time were done gloomy we go down in the room from bottom or let us take the time to comment on the last discovery joined together around walked on. Our friend Henry Buthion was of course of all the parts and we appreciate its services and his kindness. A character out of the commune run. I never missed with the passing of years, to wish him with dignity his birthday by imposing festivals in the park (with the top of the holes) of which many followers will still remember... It was another time.

JPP: You fallen down of the books of Gerard de Sède, did you knew meet it and, if so, that it remained to you of this meeting?

Alain Châtillon: As of the publication of the book of Gerard de Sède, the visitors pressed themselves in mass in Rennes. The "Hotel of the Tower" posted "Complete" and it became difficult to find a place to park its car. I briefly met G of Sède in a coffee of the place of the Stock Exchange in Paris into 69. It did not appear me to appreciate some questions that I intended to him because it is him which usually posed them... and when I spoke to him about the book of Boudet by indicating to him that I held an original... it was the cost of grace. Pretexting its schedule it rose abruptly without another form of courtesy to join its offices located at some steps from there. I crossed it some other times at Rennes but without him to point out our first meeting which it had certainly not appreciated.

JPP: To remain among the authors, did you also meet Henry Lincoln and whom you of his works think?

Alain Châtillon: I know well Henry Lincoln and we saw ourselves on several occasions during its voyages to Rennes where it always came to lunch at the house. Its works were written in a purely Anglo-Saxon spirit and would never have met in France the success which they found in England and in the USA. As for the topics developed by the author. I would abstain from making a comment acting of a friend.

JPP: In time that researcher of ground, it is not any doubt that you choose a treasure of marketable security to Rennes-le-Chateau. For you that it is or are the origins of this treasure?

Alain Châtillon: Before digging a hole dig you to it head; it is not brilliant but it is much surer. I thus took again the history in very an other direction... the good direction. If a treasure existed in this place, a so large treasure that many had been useful about it during time and that it with had still died about it there of the last discoverer, the abbot Bérenger Saunieres deceased in 1917, that wanted to say that the nest egg was to be serious and hidden... alors well I sought which was the source of this enormous deposit which did not have to pass unperceived so much it was to be impressive... and here are what I found. In Toulouse in 105 before Jesus Christ... A Proconsul Romain of the name of Cæpion withdrew from the votive lake dedicated to this place more than 80 tons of gold and money remelted immediately for much in ingots, which disappeared during their transport towards the port from Narbonne where one was to convey them in Rome charged for the galères Empire - Historically recognized by Justin, Ciceron, Strabon, Aurélius Victor and well of other ancient authors. The name of Gallia Aurifera given by César in its comments about this area would not be foreign besides with this enormous known deposit of all under the antiquity and of which I will tell you soon the origin in another account. But let us be allocated to the "highwaymen". The bandits were different makes of them only the owners, I want to say by there that Tectossages de Tolosa had been divided into two clans, the pro-Romans who had made pact with the invader (one could have said collaborationists) and the anti ones (men of the maquis to some extent). With the agreement of the first the avid Proconsul, against fair promisess, had seized the spoils, that the seconds (the men of the maquis Tectossages dissidents) began again to him on the way of Narbonne. All the Northern part of the axis Toulouse Narbonne as well as the plains of the coast were entirely with the hands of the Romans who maintained there many garrisons, farms and villas (fields). To attack the convoy which carted a similar quantity of metal was not to be easy thing. It was to be very protected. The only possible way to bring a sufficient troop without being seen (what conditioned the success of the ambush), to seize the spoils and to be turned over some quickly, protected by the mountainous processions easy to control by a small number; it was the valley of the Aude. Certain authors indicated that the treasure would have been taken again by Cimbres at the time of the famous Orange battle where the Romans wiped a demolished cuisante! Why go to lose itself in Orange whereas Narbonne was so close the more so as the Romans knowing that they were to deliver battle had certainly only one idea; to get rid as fast as possible of this cumbersome transport which made them vulnerable. That Cæpion lost its own share of the spoils (which were to accompany it it is logical) at the time of this defeat, it is still plausible but large nest egg never arrived neither to of course Narbonne neither with Orange nor to Rome... It volitilized on the way.

JPP: Bérenger Saunière is the central character of this extraordinary business, how would you depict him?

Alain Châtillon: Bérenger Saunière does not have anything for me the central character of this business. He is an adventurer who with known to benefit from a context. Thus is made the history. The principal actor is still unknown but much wished to put forward himself like such. It misses many pages of the history of Rennes-le-Chateau so that we can decide today.

JPP: Your will to have launched the Forum n°08, "the manuscript of the Boudet Abbot", shows us the interest which you carry to this priest. With was your opinion, how Boudet implied in the business?

Alain Châtillon: I would say simply that Boudet was the last "holder or agent" and that it was to transmit to his turn the secrecy. The old tracks having been scrambled or having been destroyed it was thus necessary to rebuild a new "set of tracks". It believed one moment in Salt box but very quickly it turned back in front of this more opportunist and expensive character that it had not imagined it. Nowadays it is an open secret which of saying that in Rennes-le-Chateau there is a treasure... it is under the church with more than 25 meters of depth... The questions are several orders: How to reach it, by which legal means and which your will make?

JPP: Did the Abbé Boudet  write his famous book "the true Celtic Language...", what it is your opinion of this book?

Alain Châtillon: It is the manner that it used to draw the attention of the perspicacious reader. It is only the beginning of the play of track. Cromlech.... Thought so that that can agree to say in the mouth of this strange author?... That finished by "CH", abbreviation of "the Chateau", I leave it to to you to find the solution. The cromlech of Rennes the baths is in fact a manner of saying that it is necessary to go to the baths under the cross for R CH. The crowned cross it is the church of course and the bath is with the lower part. Not to forget that Rennes-le-Chateau, piton raised into full in arid rubbles, benefits from an inexhaustible source and a set of flooded underground galleries of which traverses it sinuous must be more interesting.

JPP: Let us return at our modern time; currently "Rennes-le-Chateau" makes fury on the Net. It is remarkable, which in addition to the French sites, the foreign Net surfers impassion for this business. What do you think of this passion on the Internet?

Alain Châtillon: Internet is a mean of communication of a phenomenal power which will support of not to doubt in the next years the development of Rennes-le-Chateau which must return in a new surface because the adventure that I lived there is not compatible any more with our time... Dynamite is completed, in fact the time of the scientists takes over.

JPP: Do you think that treating Internet sites of the business are able to generate a strong advance in the explanation of the business?

Alain Châtillon: Rennes-le-Chateau is popular on Internet is... but the tackled subjects are in the whole extremely wandering around the principal subject and not very Cartesian... Said a large truth on Internet and precisely nobody will take it with serious... If it is true why say it to everyone; It east can be the secrecy there, to say what one has desire for saying without the others believing in it!

JPP: Lastly, a last question: Which are your future projects relative to Rennes-le-Chateau?

Alain Châtillon: The new Mayor Mr Jean-François Lhuilier, must be helped in his projects. In Rennes-le-Chateau that moves much. I always have there a small holding in the form of a concession with the cemetery, just above me I will be able to see stars ravelling in their ceaseless race out of time and supervising closely the constellation of the Centaur. Ton the sky or shines the sun, there I will be. If the village respected my perpetual property and for little that the Mayor me asks it, I will make gift with the Commune of Rennes-le-Chateau of the original of the manuscript of Boudet in my possession (kept well in a trunk in Switzerland). It will have to be exposed in the code of practice and kept well. I am persuaded that it will attract very many visitors.

JPP: I thank you for your collaboration to this set of questions and answers.

Alain Châtillon is responsible for bringing the following to the attention of researchers.

MLL SALUT RENNES d'ARQUES - RAPT Le GOUFFRE EN NID - PLAN-TE-SERT-DANGER LXXV - FTT

it derives from

Apparantly found within Saunière's papers