– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

[Music]

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in. France, a tiny village has attracted

treasure hunters for the last 70 years.

Renal Chatau is one of the most

mysterious places on Earth.

It's got buried treasure. It's got

secret codes. It's got conspiracies.

It's all because at the end of the 19th

century, the priest of Ren Lhateau, Bonj

Sonier, became fabulously

rich and nobody quite knows how.

The big mystery about Sonia is where the

money came from.

Some say the priest discovered buried

treasure,

but others claim Sonier uncovered a

secret so profound it could rock the

foundations of the Catholic Church.

The truth is Sonier was the tree that

hides the forest.

The mystery of where Sonier got his

money is only superficial. There are

other things that go a great deal

deeper. This is the true story of the

treasures of Ren

[Music]

Lhatau. In the odded region in the south

of France in the foothills of the

Pyrenees lies the village of Ren

Lhatau.

[Music]

Here in 1953, an elderly French woman

lay on her

deathbed. Mari Dano was ill and her

health failing

fast. Her friend Noel Kobu hung on her

final words.

She said, "When I know that I am dying,

not a moment

before, then I will tell you a secret

which will make you rich and

famous." It was a secret that could be

worth millions.

[Music]

Noel Koru sits anxiously beside the bed,

hoping that she will recover

sufficiently to tell him what she

promised. It was the secret of the

buried treasure her lover, Bonj Sonier,

was supposed to have discovered 70 years

earlier.

[Music]

It all began when Beron Sonier was

appointed the new priest of Ren Lhatau.

[Music]

When Beron Sonier arrived in Renle

Chateau in

1885, the place he had come to was a

small rather impoverished hilltop

village. It was not a promising place

for an ambitious young priest to further

his career in the church.

It had a population then of about 300.

It was in a very dilapidated state. No

water supply. Just a rough track up to

the

village. The church was pretty well

dilapidated. The roof was leaking. The

birds were flying in and out of the

building through various holes in broken

windows and in other places. And it was

almost unusable.

Sonier's new church was originally a

private chapel to the lords of Reno

Chateau who lived in the castle nearby

which gives the village its name.

The church, like many others in the

region, was dedicated to Mary Magdalene,

which intrigued its new

priest. Sonia had a thing about Mary

Magdalene. But of course, the reason

that the church is dedicated to Mary

Magdalene is because there is such a

sort of cult of of her and to her in

that part of France.

Mary Magdalene's role in Christ's life

has been the subject of debate within

the church for

millennia. The Bible says she was the

only person who witnessed both Christ's

crucifixion and

resurrection. But then Mary Magdalene

suddenly disappeared from the New

Testament.

Some legends say she fled to

France carrying the Holy Grail, the cup

Christ was said to have drunk from at

the last supper.

In this region, we have a centuries old

great tradition that Mary arrived here.

The idea is that Mary Magdalene, like so

many persecuted in Palestine, flees and

finds a refuge

[Music]

in myths about her life in the south of

France flourished here in the Middle

Ages.

[Music]

In the 12th century, a heretic sect

known as the Cathars were said to have

worshiped her and protected and hid a

fabulous treasure that could even have

included the Holy Grail

itself. Many mysteries derive from this

period. the katar, the templar, the

grail. That is why it is very important

for all

meat. The Catholic Church brutally

suppressed the

Cathars, but their hidden treasure was

never found.

The myths of Mary Magdalene and Cathar

treasure were well known to the new

priest of Reno Chateau, Bonj

[Music]

Sonier. In

1885, Sonier's income was low. He had no

money to renovate his crumbling

church. Like a lot of priests at the

time, he longed for more.

And yet somehow he had to get his church

into a workable

[Music]

condition. Despite Sonier's meager

income, he found enough to employ a

housekeeper, Mari Dano.

[Music]

The relationship between Sonier and

Marie Dartnau was something rather more

than that of a priest and his

housekeeper.

She becomes Sonia's housekeeper and

closest confidant for the rest of his

life.

[Music]

In

1886, Sonier said he received a donation

from a sympathetic countess to renovate

his crumbling

church. During the works, something

happened that would transform Sonier's

life as a humble village priest.

During the renovations, the bell ringer

who used to ring the bells every day

comes down to where the work is taking

place and sees a wooden pillar that had

been supporting the pulpit lying on the

floor. It was opened and he sees inside

a little bottle, a small file. He picks

it up and sees a bit of paper inside.

The bell ringer's greatgrandson, Antoine

Captier, still has the pillar that was

said to have contained the file.

He told us that he found a document in a

wooden ballastrate. In this ballastrate,

there was a small piece of parchment.

for me.

However, we don't know what happened to

the document because my greatgrandfather

gave it to Sonier and he just told him

that it was just a bit of a

[Music]

relic. Sonier took the parchment away

for closer inspection.

It appeared to be some sort of map

indicating treasure below the church and

the

graveyard. Sonier ordered the floor of

the old church to be

lifted. His workers then made a

startling discovery.

Shortly afterwards, Sonier found a pot

full of gold coins and shiny objects

which was witnessed by the workers and

therefore fact.

[Music]

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Sonier quickly took the pot of coins

away, dismissing the

find. He wanted to make the workers

believe they were worthless. The workers

were naive, but not to that extent.

After this first discovery, Sonier

became convinced there was more treasure

hidden somewhere in the graveyard in a

crypt known as the Lord's tomb.

[Music]

We know from the records that this crypt

exists, but we don't know where it is. I

think this little parchment contains the

location of where one can find the crypt

of the Lord's tomb.

Many believe something else on the

parchment has made Sonier think the

Lord's tomb could contain the missing

Cathar

treasure, possibly even the Holy Grail

itself.

[Music]

The priest enlisted his housekeeper and

now lover, Mari Dernano, to help him

find the tomb.

[Music]

He searches at night, not in the church,

but in the cemetery

and he starts to excavate the cemetery

to reach the crypt from the

[Music]

outside. The work is quite complicated

because he had to do it at night and

most of all hidden from the villages.

But word soon spread of the nocturnal

activities of the village priest.

The villagers are complaining that he's

basically desecrating the the graveyard.

He's digging up graves. He's moving

headstones. which is taking the old

bones and putting them into an ocery.

[Music]

People talked about how he locked

himself in the cemetery and they didn't

see him until hours later. So, he was

looking for something underground.

[Music]

Sonier's diary then recorded the night

he discovered the Lord's tomb.

He writes everything down in his

ledgers. The ledgers that I have

studied. At a certain point in September

1891, he writes discovery of a tomb.

Evening rain.

[Music]

It was that day that he goes under the

church and finds the tomb of the lords

of rain.

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Some say Sonier discovered a nobleman

buried with jewelry and gold.

But exactly what he found in the lord's

tomb, he never disclosed.

So what did he find? We don't know.

Otherwise, there wouldn't be a secret.

However, we are convinced that he found

an entrance to a tomb which led to a

subterranean space which then led him to

somewhere else.

Soon afterwards, Sonier began to

disappear for long periods of time and

on his return continue to excavate the

graveyard.

It's after the discovery of this tomb

that Sonia starts behaving strangely.

He's definitely up to something.

I think he was looking for money. He

must have been lured by a small

discovery of some buried jewelry

belonging to the lords of Ren.

[Applause]

[Music]

But something else very strange was

going on with

[Music]

Beh. Mari would collect from the local

post office up to 150 letters a day from

all over the world and give them to

Sonier. It was another secret they

shared together.

Whatever Sonier was up to, all of a

sudden he became fabulously rich.

As soon as he starts finding things

underground in the cemetery, he starts

paying for everything up

front. We found he had about 100,000

francs in the bank. He's someone who

suddenly gets into a lot of money.

[Music]

When he first comes into money, he

starts to spend it on the church. The

weird decoration is put in. You know,

the statue of the devil bearing the holy

water stoop. There were about 90

anomalies in the decoration. Things that

are surprising or you wouldn't expect.

somebody wearing a kilt, for example.

What's that doing in a biblical scene?

[Music]

Some believe these strange decorations

are clues as to what Sonier had

[Music]

found. What was the significance of two

baby Jesus's in the church? One in the

arms of

Joseph, one in the arms of his mother

Mary. What was Sonier trying to

say? One particular example is the the

big mural of Christ preaching on the

hill and at the foot of the hill there

lies a money bag. The money bag has a

hole in it and a gold coin is peeping

through the hole. As if symbolically

Sonier is saying in this picture, I have

found treasure. I've used some, not

much, and there's a great deal more to

be used.

Some people regard this as kind of in a

way a treasure map. Directions to

different places in the vicinity of Ren

the Shadow where eventually you're going

to find the

[Music]

treasure. Once his church was fully

restored, Sonier unashamedly began to

spend the money on himself.

He starts to buy up land in the village

to construct his his domain, his estate,

his gardens. He has this um villa

built. He was a man of great appetites

in numerous directions and his building

displayed the luxury that he longed for.

Sonier pays for the construction of an

extravagant new tower, the tour Magdala,

named after Mary

Magdalene. Sonier even had llamas and a

monkey put into his sumptious new

gardens.

His new house, the Villa Betani, was

used for showing off his new wealth,

entertaining distinguished guests with

expensive wines and food.

[Music]

The invoices survive for the food and

the drink that he bought to throw these

parties. It's vast amounts.

I found his bills. He ordered lambustine

a lobster 50 liters of rum straight from

Martineik. So he's really living the

high life in Ren Lhat.

He almost does start to become like the

king of Renhat.

He starts to produce postcards not just

of the village but making sure that he's

in the

pictures almost as if he's suddenly

thinks of himself as a celebrity.

Whatever money he had, he spent and he

lived like a medieval aristocrat would

live. In total, Sonier spent around

200,000 Franks, the equivalent of

several million pounds today.

Sonier's spending was so extraordinary

the villagers of Ren Chatau started to

ask

themselves where did all this money come

from.

Soon others started asking the same

[Music]

question. In 1902, the new bishop of

Kakason, Monscin Bosour, was appointed

overseeing Sonier's

[Music]

parish. asked to explain his

extraordinary spending to him. Sonier

refused.

A new bishop was appointed who started

putting his long pointed nose into what

Sonier was doing and uh asking him to

explain the source of his wealth which

Sonier stoidly refused to do. No. No.

Just pull them off. Just pull them off.

What's illegal? No.

[Music]

Sonier was removed from his post and

banned from giving

services. In defiance, he set up his own

altar in the Villa Betan and continued

to attract

worshippers. He refused to leave his

estate.

[Music]

He says, "My possessions are here in

Ren, so I'm staying here." So, actually,

he chooses his possessions over

spirituality.

Eventually, Sonier was put on an

ecclesiastical trial in the Vatican,

which he never attended.

Instead, he sent expensive lawyers to

fight his

case. The trial lasted 6 years, and

before it could reach a judgment in

1917. After years of high living, Sonier

died of heart failure caused by liver

cerosis.

[Music]

Yet for all his extraordinary spending,

Sonier died penalous and without

property in his

name. It was said that to stop the

church seizing his wealth. Sonier

transferred his entire estate to his

housekeeper and confidor Marie Dano.

The villagers say that she actually

visited Sonier's grave every day and

every night. So she obviously remained

devoted to

[Music]

him. In later life, Marano became a

recluse, but was once seen wearing some

of the jewelry Sonier was alleged to

have found.

She doing it so that the sunlight would

shine on the antique jewelry with which

she had encrusted both her

hands. The neighbor said, "Oh, Marie,

they're beautiful." She ran

indoors, came back without them, and was

never seen wearing them

again. The stories of Sonier's

incredible discovery spread. Had he

found the legendary treasure of the

Cathars or something even more

extraordinary? What was the secret of

the mysterious priest of Ren Lhatau?

[Music]

The first answers to this mystery

started to appear in

1946, almost 30 years after Sonier's

death, when Noel Corbu and his family

arrived in the village.

N Corbu is an interesting uh character

because he's mainly a businessman with

quite a few business ventures but he's

also um had tried his hand at writing

novels. One day there are people family

who live nearby in Bugarash going for a

walk in Rhatau.

They go to the bell tower and see that

someone lives in the estate.

[Music]

The Corbuz discovered the estate was

owned by Marie

Denano. Noel Corbu's daughter Claire

remembers the encounter.

[Music]

The first time we met Marie when we were

children, we thought she was like a real

grandmother, dressed in black, very

small. She loved to laugh, always

smiling.

[Music]

Having lived as a recluse for years,

Mary was delighted with her new

visitors.

My father really liked the place. He

loved hilltop locations, castles, all

these impressive

things. My father really liked Mr.

Narno's property.

[Music]

After several visits, Noel Corbu was so

enamored by Marie's estate in Ren

Lhateau, he offered her a deal.

is that if we adopt you as a family

member, as a sort of adopted

grandmother, we will treat you to the

very best of our

ability. We will be your friends, we

will be your family, we will take care

of you in return for uh us having what

had been Sonia's old estate.

[Music]

Mari allowed the Corbus to run the

estate and little by little took Noel

Corbu into her confidence, sharing with

him the secret of her lover, Behon

Sonier, and their discovery of buried

treasure. But she didn't reveal where

the treasure was hidden. She told Corbu

she would only do that at the moment she

is about to die.

And

then she gets a

[Music]

stroke. She can neither write nor speak.

Noel Corbu sits anxiously beside the

bed, hoping that she will recover

sufficiently to tell him what she

[Music]

promised. Mari died in

1953. Childless, she left her entire

estate to the Coroos.

[Music]

And then the stories of what Mari had

told Noel Corbu about Sonier began to

emerge. In a series of sensational

newspaper articles, Corbu revealed that

Dano and Sonier had discovered a great

horde of treasure.

[Music]

But the treasure wasn't anything to do

with Mary Magdalene, the

Cathars, or the Holy Grail. It was

something quite different. A treasure

that was a king's ransom. A treasure

that had been hidden and seemingly

forgotten by history.

Corbu said that in the 13th century,

Blanch Castile, Queen Regent of France,

had hidden her nation's entire treasury,

some 18 million gold pieces and jewelry

somewhere under the church of Ren

Lhatau.

It was to pay the ransom of her son, the

future Louis the 9th, who had been

captured by the Egyptians during the

Crusades.

[Music]

He loved this story, my father. He loved

telling it to his clients, and he made a

recording so he didn't have to repeat it

all the

time.

According to Noel Corbu, Mari had said

that she and Sonier had found just a

fraction of the Blanch Castile treasure

and much more was still to be

discovered.

She says to him, "My dear Noel, with

what Sonier has left, we can feed Ren

for a 100 years."

She also tells him, "You merely have to

bend over to pick up gold."

Mar told Corbu that Sonier's frequent

disappearances were when he would go

abroad to sell bits of treasure and then

send the money back by

post. But Marie had died before she

could reveal the really vital

information where the horde was buried.

Taking the secret of the Blanch Castile

treasure to her

[Music]

grave. But Corbu was certain it was down

there somewhere.

[Music]

She had convinced him that there was

something of immense value waiting to be

discovered. And he um looked for it

[Music]

everywhere. Soon the entire Corbu family

were treasure hunting.

As a child and a young girl, it was my

principal activity, looking for the

treasure and with my brother, it was our

most important

hobby. Given all the publicity

surrounding Ren Lhatau's buried

treasure, Corbu opened a hotel and

restaurant in Sonier's old estate to

cater for the new flood of treasure

hunters.

His clans were treasure hunters drawn to

the history of Ren as told by my father.

Among them was one of the most famous

treasure hunters in France. In

1958, Robert Shahu arrived in Ren

Lhatau. written several books. He was

very well known for treasure hunting and

in it caused a lot of

publicity. Shahu used metal detectors to

search for the treasur's hiding place in

the

church and the cemetery.

But despite all his experience, Shahu

couldn't find the treasure which quietly

pleased Noel Kobu.

I think Shahu said he was convinced that

my father-in-law knew a lot more than

Ion. Maybe that is why he never

succeeded.

[Music]

Corbu and Shahu's stories spread like

wildfire throughout

France. So much so that in 1961, French

channel OTF made a program about the

mystery. Such was his deep involvement

in the creation of the myth. Corbu

himself played the part of Sonier.

Like many treasure hunter Jean Brunal

was drawn to the stories of Bonj Sonier.

It is treasure that has brought me to

Renless Chatau. We heard stories here

and there. Someone made a hole here.

Others made a hole there. Someone used a

drill to blow air from one side to see

if it came out the other.

[Music]

But after years of treasure hunting and

several official archaeological digs, no

treasure was ever

found. This treasure hunting in and

around Ren became so intense and became

well the whole place was honeycombed

with these tunnels and in

1965 further excavations were banned.

[Music]

But the story was about to take a new

dramatic twist and lead to even more

extraordinary theories about Sonier's

wealth. It was all to do with the

parchment that was supposed to have been

found in the pillar that first set

Sonier off treasure hunting.

Everyone believed it had been lost

[Music]

forever. But in

1967, a book by journalist Gerard Deed

sensationally claimed Sonier had found

not one but two parchments and published

them for the first time.

the step between it becoming kind of a

regional

um sensation to a national one to an

international one. The big step there is

a book called the gold of Ren.

According to Deed Sonier had taken the

parchments to his

bishop who had advised him to take them

to the highest church authorities in

Paris.

De said claimed when Sonier returned

from Paris he was suddenly rich beyond

his wildest dreams. So had he found a

great treasure after

[Music]

all?

Desauthor Pierre Plantar appeared in a

BBC interview to give some clues to

their theory.

Will the treasure of shadow ever be

found? But if Plantar and Desered were

right and Sonier hadn't found a material

treasure, what had he found that had

made him so

rich? What they do, they take the Sonia

story, the Ren Chateau mystery as it

originally was, and use it as the hook

for a whole other story.

Deed and Plantar claimed the parchments

held a secret to prove that the lineage

of the last meravenian king of France,

Daggo bear II hadn't died out but still

existed today and that a shadowy

organization called the Priaryy of Sion

was founded to protect

it. A few years later, it was then a

British author, Henry Lincoln, who said

he had separately decoded Deed's

parchments and took the story even

further.

He claimed that the parchments were a

series of clues that sensationally

proved Mary Magdalene had indeed fled

the Holy Land for France, but did so

when pregnant with Jesus's

child and that Christ's bloodline became

the French Maravvenian kings of whom the

mysterious Pierre Plantar was the only

living survivor.

The Holy Grail was known as the San

Graal, but it wasn't a cup at all, but

that sang Ria, meaning royal blood. And

this was Sonier's great

[Music]

secret. Lincoln appeared on American

television to reveal his discovery. The

mystery which triggered the discovery

which we eventually made, triggered the

whole course of research was concerned

with a small village in France where a

priest had apparently found a treasure.

We looked into the history of that area

and the grail kept surfacing and the

grail in turn leads us into the

bloodline.

The bloodline was the holy grail and

Sonier had discovered it on the

parchments. It was an earthshattering

claim that could shake the Catholic

Church to its

foundations. It was a huge bombshell for

all kinds of of reasons. not only Jesus

fathered children with all the

implications that has for our

understanding of of Christ and

Christianity

um but also that descendants of that

bloodline are still around

today. The

revelations seemed to turn the story of

the Bible on its

head. The bloodline secret was the

source of Sonier's

wealth. It wasn't the blanch of Castile

treasure, but a huge bribe from the

Vatican to keep him

[Music]

quiet.

However, just a year later, it was

announced that the parchments were in

fact

forgeries. It was all a huge hoax. by

plantar and

said Henry Lincoln wasn't part of the

hoax but a victim of it.

This book is like a punch in the face.

It's not possible. In this book he talks

of meovvenians or scion spies. It's not

possible. So we investigated all these

clues from the said, but in fact the

said was tricking us. We were hooked and

he was just reeling us in

what the motivation was. Um, nobody

knows. A lot of people have regarded it

as a bizarre bit of performance

[Music]

art. But the story didn't end

there. 20 years later, the hoax became

the basis for one of the bestselling

books of all

time. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code took De

said and Plantar's invention of the

Priaryy of Scion and Jesus's bloodline

to a whole new level.

The story of Ren Lehatau still generates

an extraordinary frenzy amongst treasure

hunters and writers.

For commercial reasons, this mystery is

much more interesting to claim that

Sonier kept a terrible secret.

[Music]

But if the source of Sonier's wealth

wasn't a huge bribe from the Vatican,

what was it? It certainly wasn't by

finding the Blunge Castile treasure as

told by Noel

Corbu. There is no record of this

treasure in any history

book. While it is true that Louis the

9th had been captured, the ransom was

paid and he was released. So where had

all Sonier's money come from?

[Music]

The answer, it seems, may lie in the 150

letters Sonier was getting

daily. What was shown during the trial

was that the letters weren't the

proceeds of selling treasure, as Mari

had said, but something far more

grubby. By male order, Sonier had been

dishonestly selling prayers to people

around the world known as trafficking in

masses. According to church rules, a

priest was allowed to say three masses a

day. Sonier was getting requests to say

hundreds. And by doing this, Sonier had

accumulated a fortune.

[Music]

So how did he traffic in masses? He was

very good. He invented something we are

still doing today. He put ads in

magazine. Poor priest in a poor village

needs masses to restore the church. He

received a lot of money.

[Music]

This then was Sonier's secret. He was a

highly

enterprising

crook. It's in's temperament. He wants

to make money from everything. From the

moment he finds a new source of income,

he is going to use it.

He had actually made the biggest part of

his fortune by trafficking in masses.

But he was also an agent for booze, an

agent for oil, produced postcards. He

made money out of everything and he made

a lot of money.

[Music]

But if Sonier was just a crook, why had

Marie always claimed that he had found

treasure?

The villagers seem build this nice villa

by land and give money to everyone. They

think it's weird. And afterwards, smart

mar to give people a reason says that he

has found a treasure. This explains

everything.

But the other reason is that after

Sonier died, she was almost

destitute. Marie needed someone to

support her. She had spun a yarn to the

core booze.

[Music]

She is smart. Marie Marie is always

scared. She has nothing. What can I do

if these people throw me out on the

street to keep them interested? She says

at the end of my life, I will tell you

something that will make you powerful.

So, was Corbu just naive, a victim of

Marie's story?

Or perhaps he had reasons to believe.

Corbu was a very successful

businessman. And when he arrived in

Ren, what he needed was to make the

place a universal attraction. And so

whatever the attraction is, whatever the

mystery is, the more you can make of it,

the more tourists you will attract.

[Music]

When Corbu first came to Ren, there were

only on average 200 tourists a year.

Nearly 70 years later, thanks to Mari

and Corbu's stories and more recently

the Da Vinci Code, tens of thousands

visit to learn the strange tale of the

treasures of Ren Lhatau.

[Music]

And even though so much has been

revealed to be a hoax, many continue to

search for the tomb containing

treasure or a

secret. You have the feeling that when

you come to Renahatau, you can solve an

[Music]

enigma. I think that explains his global

success. It is a game in which you can

play a role.

[Music]

In the end, we all need dreams. Who

needs the truth when we can have a

mystery?

[Music]

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
treasure /ˈtreʒər/ B1	noun - valuable possessions or money
mystery /ˈmɪstəri/ B2	noun - something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain
discover /dɪˈskʌvər/ B1	verb - find (something or someone) unexpectedly or while looking for something else
secret /ˈsiːkrət/ A2	noun - something kept hidden or unknown
church /tʃɜːrtʃ/ A2	noun - a building for public religious worship
priest /priːst/ B1	noun - a person ordained for religious service
wealth /welθ/ B2	noun - an abundance of valuable possessions or money
discover /dɪˈskʌvər/ B1	verb - find (something or someone) unexpectedly or while looking for something else
buried /ˈberid/ A2	adjective - covered with earth
ancient /ˈeɪnʃənt/ B2	adjective - belonging to the very distant past
legend /ˈledʒənd/ B1	noun - a traditional story, sometimes regarded as true and sometimes not
hidden /ˈhɪdən/ A2	adjective - kept out of sight
grave /ɡreɪv/ A2	noun - a place of burial
wealthy /ˈwelθi/ B1	adjective - having a great deal of money, resources, or assets
investigate /ɪnˈvestɪɡeɪt/ B2	verb - carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to discover and examine the facts of an incident, allegation, etc.
rumor /ˈruːmər/ B1	noun - a piece of information passed from person to person, often without being verified
reveal /rɪˈviːl/ B1	verb - make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others