Henry Lincoln got sucked into the research and the writing that he and his two co-writers did which led to the publishing of Holy Blood Holy Grail when he bought a book while on vacation about the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau, a small church in southern France.  That led him to produce 3 documentaries about the Grail bloodline and the Templars for the BBC, which in turn led to the book which inspired Ron Brown’s the DaVinci Code.

The “mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau” revolves around the story of a Catholic priest, Berenger Saunier, who was appointed parishioner of a small church atop a mountain in the south of France in his youth in the later half of the 19th century.  His stipend was only about 7 or 8 pounds a year (in 19th century money), barely enough to survive on (if that), but suddenly late in the century he (allegedly) found parchments hidden in one of the pillars of the alter of the chapel while doing renovations to the run-down church.  He showed these parchments to his superior who sent him to Paris to meet with Emile Hoffet, a young priest knowledgable in cryptography.  Soon Saunier found himself showered with affection, welcomed into the inner circle of Paris esoteric elite, wined and dined, and very likely fell into an affair with the reigning French operatic diva of the time, Emma Calve.  His life was changed forever.

Saunier returned to Rennes-le-Chateau and embarked on massive renovation projects to the church.  He built a tower, the Tour de Magdala, at one of its corners, constructed a villa on the property he named ‘Bethany,’ (the name of the town Mary the Magdalene apparently lived) and built roads and installed waterworks in the town.  Many of the modifications he made to the church are unsettling – he decorated it with bizarre paintings, a statue of Asmodeus (a demon born of the union of King David and the succubus Agrat Bat Mahlat), and had the words “Teribilus Est Locus Iste” (this place is terrible) chiseled into the stone above the entrance. Not only did he suddenly come into enough money to finance all of these projects, he became filthy rich himself, and enjoyed a constant stream of visitors to his hilltop church, notably at least one visit from Joseph von Hapsburg.

Hapsburg??