Guide to Rennes les Bains

In the footsteps of Léonie and Anatole

Kai Lilliendal

In the footsteps of Léonie and Anatole

A Guide to Rennes les Bains

Kai Lilliendal © 2013 In 2008, the small French village - Rennes les Bains - had a visit by Kate Mosse and her husband Greg.

About 200 listened to her talk about the creation of the Sepulchre. 200 people, that is a lot when we are only 146 inhabitants. But when such a small town is set in the center of a story as Sepulchre, of course everybody meets up, when author and rechercher give their view of the village as the background of their story.

Both my wife and I showed up to hear about the book, and of course we got our auto- graph in our version of the book - the English. Therefore the texts in this booklet is in English, and page numbers refer to the English version.

Why making illustrations for a novel that already describes so vividly. Much can be ima- gined, but with pictures from real life, perhaps the story is even more vivid. Maybe so vivid that you like to experience the atmosphere of a small Southern French village- or perhaps more correctly - an Occitan village.

If you, as my wife and I, live in Rennes les Bains, then a story as Sepulchre comes pretty close, and when there is a bookstore that want illustrated version, then there is not far into action.

That is why I made this small booklet, which I hope will be a joy and to inspiration to many.

Rennes les Bains Sepetmber 2012

Kai Lilliendal

CHAPTER 22 ∞ RENNES-LES BAINS

Couiza, railway-station.

By a quarter past four, having taken in the modest sights of , Léonie and Anatole were standing on the con-

course in front of the station, waiting while the cabman loaded the luggage into the courrier publique. Unlike the conveyances...... Bois de Boulogne, the courrier was an altogether more rustic form of transport. Indeed, it resembled a farmhouse cart, .....

P.118 ...... High on a hill to their left, Léonie glimpsed the outline of a ruined castle. An old wooden sign at the side of the road announced it to be the village of ......

P. 119

Coustaussa ’And that?’ Anatole said. Léonie followed her brother’s pointing finger. High on a rocky outcrop to the right, After a short while, the driver slowed the horses and, well above the road, she could just discern a with a clanking of harness and the clatter of the unlit tiny hillside village, shimmering in the fierce lamps against the side of the carriage, left the main afternoon heat, no more than a collection of road to follow the river valley of the Salz. dwellings clinging to the precipitous side of the mountain. P. 120 ’Rennes-le-Chateau,’ replied Gabignaud...... p.119

Salz Léonie leaned out as far as she dared, delighted by the beauty of the landscape, the extraordinary vista of sky and rocks and woods. Two ruined outposts that turned out to be natural rock formations rather than the shadows of ......

Léonie could hear the river Salz running alongside them, a constant compagnion, somestimes in view, a glint of sunlight on water, sometimes hidden. Like ....

P. 121

The old road to Rennes-les-Bains

Now the road began to curve elegantly, winding back and over itself like a snake, following the cut of the river. It was beau- tiful, an arcadia. Everything ...... tones of fir and oak. Above the tree line, the startling outline of crests and peaks, the ancient silhouettes of men- hirs, dolmens and natural sculptures. The antique ......

P.120 CHAPTER 23 ∞ RENNES-LES BAINS The horses clattered over a low bridge and slowed to a trot. Ahead, on the bend in the road, Léonie had her first glimpse of Rennes-les-Bains. She could see a white tree-storey building Hôtel de la Reine with a sign announcing itself to be the Hôtel de la Reine. Be- side...... and passable. The street was li- ned with bay and laurel trees in wide P. 122 wooden planters, which seemed to bring the wood down into the town. She saw a rotund gentleman in a but- toned frockcoat, two ladies with para- sols, and three nurses, each pushing a chaise roulante. A gaggle of ribboned girls in white frills and petticoats wal- ked with their governess.

P.122

La place du Pérou. The driver turned off the main road and pulled up the horses. ’La place du Pérou. S’il vous plaït. Terminus.’ The small square was bordered by buildings on three sides and shaded by lime trees. The golden sunlight...... P. 122 Pont Vieux

Marieta led them down a shadowed passageway between the houses. They emerged into bright sunlight on an old arched stonebridge. Far far below the water flowed over flat rocks......

P. 124

Rue de Eglise

The maid crossed the river, then turned sharply right and made for a narrow unmade path that ran steeply up into the trees of the wooded hillside......

P. 124 Higher and steeper they went, along a dappled track of stones and fallen leaves, venturing ever deeper into thick forest...... Here, the trees were set futher back from the path and the sun cast its long fading shadow bet- ween each copse and cluster. Léonie turned and looked back in the direction they had come. Now she could see, steeply below them but close still, the red and grey sloping roofs of Rennes-les-Bains......

P. 124 A large stone birdbath stood dry and empty in the centre of a wide gravelled path that led straight from the gates into the grounds.

P.125 At last, Léonie caught her first glimpse of the house itself. ’Oh,’ she grasped in admiration. The house was magnificent. Imposing, yet well proportioned, it was perfectly situated both to catch the best of the sun and to benefit from the views to the south and west afforded by its position out over the valley. There was three storeys, with a ....

P. 126

Leonie frowned. ’Not champagne?’ Isolde smiled. ’He is teasing you. It is a blanquette de , not champagne, but a local wine much like it......

P. 145 CHAPTER 28

RENNES-LES BAINS LE PONT DE FER MONDAY 29TH OCTOBER 2007 ....At Couiza, she took a left towards Arques, then after ten minutes of winding road, Her first impressions of Rennes-les-Bains were turned down to the right...... encouraging. It was much smaller than she’d ex- pected and the main street - although ’main’ was P. 151 pushing it some - was narrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass,..... She drove by an ugly stone building, then pretty gardens set down from the road with a metal sign DR. PAUL COURRENT over the entrance, JARDIN DE PAUL COURRENT, and a sign on the wall LE PONT DE FER.

P. 151 .... Once the car was secure, she walked the couple of steps to the main entrance of .... Suddenly her foot hit the floor. The car slid the Station Thermale et Climatique. to a halt, just in time to avoid slamming into There was a hand-printed notice on the the back of a blue Peugeot stopped in the door saying it was now closed for the win- road ahead...... Ahead was a small group of ter: ...... workmen standing beside a yellow road sign: ROUTE BARRÉE. P. 153 P. 152

A footpath ran down the right of the spa buildings, the Allée des Bains de la Reine. She followed it down to the riverbank, pulling her jacket ......

P. 153 ...... this old brig- de. Could imagine the echo of the adult voices calling for their charges from the opposite bank. What the hell? For a fleeting second, Meredith thought she saw the outline of a face looking up at her. Her eyes narrowed. She was aware the silence seemed to have deepened. The air was empty cold, as if all the life had been sucked out of it. She felt her heart catch and her senses sharpen. Every nerve in her body was alert. Just my own reflection. Telling herself not to be impressionable, she looked again into the choppy mirror of the water. This time, no doubt. A face was staring up at her from beneath the surface of the river. It was not a reflection, although Meredith had the sense of her own features hidden behind the image, but a girl with long flowing hair swaying and shifting in the current, a modern-day Ophelia. Then the eyes beneath the water seemed , slowly, to open and hold Meredith’s own in their clear and direct gaze. Eyes like green glass, containing within them all the shifting colours of the water. Meredith cried out......

P.155 Rather than go back up the Allée des Bains de la Reine, she stayed on the walkway that ran along the backs of the houses at river level. From here she could see the concre- te underside of the swimmingpool, overhanging the path propped up on stilts.

P. 156

A narrow staircase with no handrail led up to a pede- strian bridge of blue painted metal linking the left bank to the right. She remembered the sign from earlier: LE PONT DE FER. It was right ......

P. 157

The river curved round to the right. On the far side Meredith saw an archway in the wall that led down to the river valley from the street high above, right to the path at the water’s edge. ....

P. 156 .... Then back to the main street. Straight ahead was the Mairie, with the tricolore flut- tering blue, white and red in the evening air.

P. 158

She walked past the Jardin Paul Courrent and along the main street towards the lights, then turned right up a very steep road that seemed to run straight into the hillside itself. P. 158

She turned left and found herself in the Place des Deux Rennes. Meredith stood for a while, taking in the atmosphere. There was a charming pizzeria on the right with wooden tables outside...... P. 158 ...... In the far corner of the square, Meredith noticed a cloche-mur with a sigle bell above the rooftops of the buil- dings and realised she’d found the church. P. 159 Meredith turned around. On the opposite wall was a board of names, a roll call of the men of Rennes-les-Bains who’d given their lives in World War I. A Ses Glorieux Morts. P. 159

Something caught her eye. BOUSQUET was ...... an unusual name: SAINT-LOUP. Next to the board were a P. 159 stone plaque in memory of Henri Bou- det, Curé of the parish from 1872 to 1915, ...... P. 159

Beneath the cross were incribed the Emperor Constan- tine’s famous words: ’In hoc signo vinces’.

P. 159

She walked through the porch, past the main door into the church, and out into the graveyard itself. Straight ahead there was another war memorial, .....

P. 160 Meredith walked slowly in the sombre twilight down the gravel- led path that ran alongside the church. Tombs, graves, stone angels and crosses loomed up at her as she passed. Every now and again she paused to read an in- scription. Certain names repeated over, generation after generation ...She pul- of local families, remembered in led out her notebook and started to granite and marble - Fromilhague scribble, recording the same date and Saunière, Denarnaud and of death for different people, three, Gabignaud. four times over. All had died 31st October 1891. P. 160 P. 160

.... The crowd stood back as four men came out of the presbytery carrying a closed casket. Behind ...Suddenly she saw it. them, a young guy dressed in black, ..... P. 161 The photograph of a young soldier, her an- cestor, had been taken here, the precise spot framed by the buildings leading to the Pont Vieux, ..... An exact match. The café signs and the bed and breakfast on the east side of the square were new, but .....

P. 162 Meredith scrolled down the page until she found what she was looking for. She clicked, then started to read: The Bousquet Tarot is a rare deck, not used much outside . ....

P. 168 ”Blanc, rouge, rosé?” They ”Blanc.” paid a visit to the largest shop in the town, the Ma- ”Try the Domaine Begude gasins Bousquet, which sold all manner of items Chardonnay,” said another from thread and ribbon, to copper pots and pans, voice. to snares and nets and hunting guns. Surprised by both the Eng- lish accent and the fact that P.205 someone ...... He pointed with his whip at a dense parcel of P. 172 woodland and a clearing with three or four stone megaliths, sticking out of the ground as if dropped there by some giant hand.”Up there is the Devil’s Armchair. And, not above a morning’s walk, the étang du Diable and the Horned Mountain.”

P. 205

Lac du Baranc The rive droite - the far bank - had a different character. There were fewer buildings and those that did cling to the hillside, dotted amongst the trees that came down almost to the water’s edge, were domestic dwellings, small and modest. Here lived the artisans, the servants, the shopkeepers whose livelihoods depended upon the ailments and the hypochondrias of the urban middle clas- ses from Toulouse, from , from Bor- deaux. P. 206

Léonie could see patients sitting in the steaming, iron-rich water of the bains forts, accessed by means of a private covered alleyway.

P. 206

They returned to the Place du Pérou, past the po- ste restante and the telegraph office.

P.206 Then, suddenly ahead of her she glimpsed, through the trees, the outline of something not made of wood or earth or bark. A smalle stone chapel, ...... Léonie caught her breath. I have found it. The sepulchre was ..... P. 213

With the blood pounding inside her head, she reached forward and grasped the heavy metal ring upon the door, and pushed. P. 214

Photo : knocker at ”Villa Bethanias” Rennes Le Chateau.

Aïci lo tems s’en Va res l’Eternitat

.... main door was the béni- tier, the stoup for holy water. Léonie recoiled. The basin was of red and white marble, but it was surpported upon the back of a grinning, diabolic figure. Blistered red skin, clawed hands and feet, malevolent eyes of piercing blue. P. 215

Photo: Ea Krassel Foto: Lucifer, Jeanne d’Arc - The Veranda, Marie Madelaine church, Villa Bethania RLC Rennes Le Chateau. ...wooden signs beneath each: Saint-Antoine, the Egyptian Hermit; Sainte- Germaine, her apron full of Pyrenean flowers; the lame Saint-Roch with his staff. Saints of local significance, she presumed. The last statue, closest to the altar, was of a slender and petite woman, wearing a kneelength red dress, P. 216 Léonie gasped, discerning suddenly what she was look- ing at. Eight individal tableaux taken from the Tarot, as if each figure had stepped out of its card and up to the wall. Printed beneath each one was a title: Le Mat; Le Pagad; La Prêtresse; Les Amoureux, La Force; La Justice; Le Diable; Le Tarot Maçonnique Tour.

P. 217 Inondation - Rennes-les-Bains Sundag the 25th of october 1891

From Friday morning to Sunday evening, town and coun- tryside alike had been racked by the sequence of storms. Communications were disrupted and in some areas ”Fujhi, poudes; Escapa, non” suspended altogether. The situation around Rennes-les- Bains and was bad, certainly, but no more than one might expect during the autum season og storms. But by Monday evening, news of the catastrophe that had struck reached the Domaine de la Cade...... P. 376

.... Seeking evidence of the black square the author had described, and for the four letters - C, A, D, E - she believed her uncle had marked upon the ground.

P. 217 Rennes-les-Bains

Start your tour in Rennes les Bains at Station Thermale or you can start already at the railway station in Couiza.

Let the book and its three persons guide you along the village.

Kaj Lilliendal 22, Rue des Bains Forts 11190 Rennes les Bains