02 10


The ground on which the churches were built belonged to the Templars who had returned from the Holy Land around 1127. From 1153 till 1169 Betrand de Blanchefort was their Grandmaster. The "Château des Templiers" in Le Bézu looks out on to the mount Cardou. The castle and the Secret Place are situated in one line with the church at Serres.


The abbey of Alet-les-Bains

The Pech Cardou from Le Bézu



  The longest part of the Churches-pattern runs through the church at Cassaignes. The extended part of this axis leads to the "commanderie" of the Templars in Campagne-sur-Aude. These above-mentioned factors gave me the strong notion that the order of the Templars was behind the construction of the 12th century pattern.



De Voisins family.

The Blanchefort-geometry dating from the 14th century had been constructed by the De Voisins family. Pierre de Voisins, Simon de Montfort’s vassal, had been assigned the area around Rennes-le-Château. Either he knew about the Secret of the Churches-pattern, or discovered it later. His descendants later created the Blanchefort-geometry and took on the old pattern as their coat of arms.


Castle of Rennes-le-Château

Coat of arms De Voisins


In the 17th century descendants adopted the title of "Lord of Blanchefort". When the last baron with this title died, he left behind a wife who was still young. Her name was Marie de Negri. On her deathbed in 1781 Marie de Negri d’Ables, Dame d’Hautpoul de Blanchefort, told her parish priest, Antoine Bigou, about a secret.

So, the "Secret of Blanchefort" is the Secret of the De Voisins family, namely the Secret of the Churches-pattern and the Blanchefort-geometry. In other words: the Mystery of Rennes-le-Château is the mystery of the treasure in the "Secret Place"!

The Secret Place.

  In the church at Serres, over a door which has been bricked up there is a stone with an inscription. The inscription is a variant on the Templars’ cross. A key of the castle of Serres has been made in the same shape.



  In Pezens I found a number of graves of descendants of Pierre de Voisins. One of the graves had a decoration which reminded me strongly of the inscription on the stone at Serres. Was this to be a reference to the Secret Place?



  In my research I have found five lines intersecting one single point:

- the line from Cassaignes through Blanchefort
- the bisector of the angle Bl'fort-Peyrolles-Serres
- the 60°-line from Arques
- the "M" through the middle of the Small Line"
- the line of the Churches-pattern



  Thanks to the aerial photographs of the Institut Géographique National, the detailed TOP25 map of the area, my own pictures and the Blanchefort-geometry, I could ascertain the Secret Place to within a metre.



At the location itself I happened upon a stone track at right angles to the mountain. It was a "path", one metre wide, dozens of metres long, which passed over the exact location of the Secret Place. Was this what the stone at Serres and the grave in Pezens refer to?



Thanks to my research I knew the location of the "treasure" and had been able to find out in which way the Secret had been passed on. But what in fact is the Secret?