"Rennes-le-Château (Rènnas del Castèl in Occitan) is a commune in the Aude department in Languedoc in southern France.
It is known internationally, and receives tens of thousands of visitors per year, for being at the center of various conspiracy theories.
Starting in the 1950s, a local restaurant owner, in order to increase business, claimed that the 19th century priest Bérenger Saunière had discovered the treasure of Blanche of Castile. The story achieved national fame in France, and was then enhanced and expanded by various hoaxsters, who added that the priest, Father Bérenger Saunière had found proof of a secret society known as the Priory of Sion. The story became the origin for hypotheses in documentaries and bestselling books such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and the fiction thriller The Da Vinci Code."
