Rennes-les-Bains is known for another reason, however: it is mentioned numerous times in many books about Rennes-le-Chateau, famous now also because of Dan Brown's novel
The Da Vinci Code. Subsequently, the author
Kate Mosse set the larger part of her 2007 novel
Sepulchre in the immediate vicinity. Abbé
Henri Boudet was the parish priest of Rennes-les-Bains at the same time that
Bérenger Saunière was the incumbent of Rennes-le-Château. Boudet's strange book,
La vraie langue celtique et le cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains (1886) argued that all languages were derived from the English tongue whereby the Abbé tried to establish his theory through the use of puns. In 1832 a book by Auguste de Labouïsse-Rochefort entitled
Voyages à Rennes-les-Bains first referred to a treasure located at Mont Blanchefort, whereby a story was told about a wizard who nearly succeeded in taking the purse-strings of the Devil, but failed because the local villagers did not help him at the crucial moment - Auguste de Labouïsse-Rochefort had married a daughter of a millionaire that had lost his fortune. In
Les Amours, A Éléonore, recueil D’élégies divisé en Trois Livres (1817), Auguste de Labouïsse-Rochefort had the motto "Et in Arcadia ego" placed on its title page; this was a reference to the
Academy of Arcadia that was formed in Italy in 1690 - Labouïsse-Rochefort later became a member of the Academy in 1832. Since July 1985 the village has been twinned with the city of
Rennes in
Brittany. ==See also==