on the border between history and myth.
Hidden treasures in the Aude region (1800-1966)
archive photo taken at the Château de Pieusse during the 2017 conference
This text is taken from the Château de Termes blog, we invite you to browse this site.
Conference proposed in 2017 by the Association for the Safeguarding, Protection and Heritage of the Château de Pieusse.
by Charles Peytavie, medieval historian, specialist in Catharism. Founder of the cultural and tourism engineering firm Patrimoines d'Avenir. President of the Society for Scientific Studies of Aude,
"In the mid-1950s, the small village of Rennes-le-Château, in the heart of the Aude region, acquired a whole new reputation: it was said to house no less than the fabulous treasure of the Visigoths or that of Queen Blanche of Castile, or even, for some, that of the Templars or the Cathars!
In a few decades, the small town of Razès became the receptacle of many hidden treasures, both material and spiritual. The craze for the "gold of Rennes" became such that in 1965 excavations were banned on the territory of the commune. Faced with this impossibility, the search for this treasure began to extend well beyond its territory and soon the whole of Razès ( as in Pieusse near Limoux where the search was made for the treasure that Mgr Dillon is said to have abandoned at the bottom of the castle well) and then the rest of the Aude and Ariège regions became the field of investigation for all those who were passionate about the treasures of ancient or medieval imaginary history.
Yet long before villages or sites like Rennes or Pieusse attracted all kinds of curiosity, other sites in the Aude, starting with the city of Carcassonne or the mountain of Alaric, were the subject of marvelous beliefs also encouraging the search for possible treasures.
As early as the 17th century, several local scholars were already interested in the existence of treasures dating back to Antiquity or the Visigothic era. This interest grew in the 19th century as a new taste for History and Archaeology developed and as concern finally became expressed for the preservation of ancient monuments. Used at this time to promote tourism in heritage sites or spa resorts in the Aude region, this archaeological imagination has established itself over time as an almost indispensable element in the development of these territories.
Every treasure hunt has its story and those carried out in the Aude region deserve to be told."