Rennes-le-Chateau

The most famous treasure mystery in France, and a cautionary tale. In the 1890s a village priest, Berenger Sauniere, suddenly began spending huge sums on his hilltop church and estate, and the story grew that he had found a hoard, Visigothic gold, Templar treasure, or something stranger. Later research showed his money came from mass-stipend fraud, and the more exotic layers, secret bloodlines and hidden parchments, were a 20th-century hoax that later fed a famous novel. The village is real and beautiful; the treasure is not.