Léon Fontan, a believer in the “Templar treasure of Rennes-le-Château”, conducted several excavations during the 1970s. This story was covered by La Dépêche du Midi dated 14, 15 and 16 October 1971. Here is what Jean-Luc Chaumeil recently wrote about him.

Léon Fontan, an engineer from Strasbourg, actually announced that he had discovered the grotto or ‘catinum’, i.e. a hollow in the rock. The announcement of the discovery on a programme hosted by Philippe Bouvard (Samedi Soir) made him into a star for a while, all the more so because he had quite a lot of money at his disposal. First he made a number of test-borings, than he filed with Maître Gastou of Limoux an ‘inventor's right’ in respect of the triangle connecting Rennes-le-Château, Esperaza and Couiza – that was on 20 July 1971. He claimed that the treasure in question was that of the Templars and was located four kilometres from Rennes-le-Château and at a depth of 15 metres.

According to the documents he drew up, which unfortunately no one at Le Charivari has seen, the find-site was a subterranean chamber, excavated in the hillside, which was closed around 1292.

Léon Fontan drew a parallel with one of the steles in Arles-sur-Tech, which is interesting in itself and which is also, of course, impossible to prove or disprove.

Finally he claimed that the discovery of the ‘treasure’ could well rival in importance that of the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls!

Léon Fontan invested a huge amount of money in his researches. His business in Alsace went bust and forty engineers lost their jobs, his wife left him and he finally died leaving holes all over the place.

He mixed up three quite different matters: Blanche of Castile, the Templar treasure and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which in itself is significant as the same confusion has been made many times and people are still making it to this day.

He confused the family of Blanchefort with that of the Templar Grandmaster Blancafort for example, an error which has stubbornly persisted.

On the other hand he was led astray, as was Alfred Weysen also, by confusing the story of the Château de Valcroz with the old name for Rennes-les-Bains, thanks to a misinterpretation of the maps of Marius Fatin discovered by Mathieu Paoli.

Alfred Weysen and Léon Fontan were two researchers who flew too close to the Sun in their searches for the same treasure – the treasure rightly known as the ‘Accursed Gold’.

I will end by stating that these fantasies continue to develop in the most outrageous fashion and that the Devil of Blanchefort continues to have a laugh at our expense. But judge for yourself...