Collioure

Abbe Bigou in Collioure

Interesting article below linking Collioure into the Rennes Le Chateau mystery.....Abbe Bigou, a character involved in the mystery, turns up at Collioure! The web site ‘Societe Perillos’ is a great source of information for anyone interested in the RLC mystery . DEATH IN COLLIOURE SOCIETE PERILLOS http://www.perillos.com/death_bigou.html The central storyline of “the mystery” goes that Antoine Bigou, priest of Rennes-le-Château, upon the death of Marie de Blanchefort in 1781, was given a secret. What this secret was, remains, of course, a mystery, but it has been traditionally tied to the Church, and specifically a “heresy” to do with Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Whatever its nature, Bigou is said to have “encoded” this secret somehow into the fabric of the village of Rennes-le-Château, either as part of the parish papers, or through other means, and that this was later picked up and unravelled by Saunière. This, it is believed, became the mystery of Saunière’s wealth. In May 2009, French researcher Jean-Claude Debrou discovered the death certificate of Antoine Bigou, which shows that the priest died on March 20, 1794, in Collioure, today a popular tourist attraction near Perpignan, along the Mediterranean coastline, a mere 26 kilometres from the Spanish border. In itself, it is hardly an important find. After all, we know that Bigou died. We also know that he didn’t die in Rennes. And though he might have fled to Sabadell or other parts of Spain, with all the others, no-one ever said he stayed there. The discovery “merely” shows that he died in Collioure, near the Spanish border. Perhaps he never got as far as Spain, perhaps he was constantly shuttling back and forth between towns and countries. A death certificate does not shed any light on this. As with everything to do with Rennes-le-Château, the discovery has nevertheless been used to make various claims. For example, that it destroys the credibility of Patrice Chaplin, who in “City of Secrets”, argued that the priest stayed near Gerona, after quitting Rennes, and was buried somewhere nearby. Things, however, are seldom that straightforward, and let us therefore ponder the facts, and the implications. First of all, it is known that Bigou made a trip to Spain before the Revolution. Second, though his death certificate is in Collioure, it doesn’t exclude that he was in Spain at one point, but decided to return to France, or travelled between both countries. The thesis of “City of Secrets” is this: that the story of Rennes is connected with Gerona, with a secret society that is resident there, as well as in Perpignan, and that Saunière and Bigou were connected to this group. Well, Bigou is found to have died in Collioure, but this does not mean he never went to Spain, or that some of his documents ended up in Spain. If anything, “Spain” is a bit of a misnomer anyway; Collioure and Gerona are all Catalan, a state within two states, and that is the important fact – so far not highlighted by any. Where we see this imaginary border line, in reality, in the hearts of its inhabitants, there is none. The secret society – La Sanch – is known to have moved back and forth between Perpignan and Gerona, and this is a matter of historical fact. Seeing Bigou ends up in Collioure, which is core Sanch country, therefore lends credence to the thesis proposed by Patrice Chaplin… even though one detail – where he was buried – is now apparently at odds with the facts. But that hardly discredits an entire thesis. FILIP COPPENS http://www.perillos.com/death_bigou.html