A tiny French village near Carcassonne has woken up to discover a gaping hole in front of its church, the latest of many dug by seekers of a mythical treasure trove.
Rennes-le-Château has a population of only 70, but the story that a priest buried a trove of gold coins and gems there at the end of the 19th century has spread across France.
The priest at the origin of the story, François-Bérenger Saunière, is also credited with a role in the conspiracy theories raised in Dan Brown’s best-seller, The Da Vinci Code. One of the novel’s main characters, Jacques Saunière, is named after him.