★ RENNES-LE-CHÂTEAU | Le MEURTRE de l'ABBÉ GÉLIS • Le CRIME de COUSTAUSSA • Un livre de Roland DUC

The book can be ordered from ARQA editions https://editions-arqa.com/produit/le-... Unpublished documents – COLD CASE - Writing a book about the death of Abbé Gélis, almost one hundred and thirty years after his murder – or assassination? (The author perfectly addresses the semantic distinction in his work) – remains a very difficult challenge, so deeply intertwined do all the threads of this incredible tangle seem, leading to the resolution of the "third enigma of the Razès"... – the first being devoted to the famous "treasure of Bérenger Saunière," the second concerning the curious "coded message" left by our dear Abbé Boudet with his enigmatic "True Celtic Language"... So, who then savagely murdered, at an undetermined hour, during the night of October 31st to November 1st, 1897, the parish priest of Coustaussa, Abbé Antoine Gélis? The death of this poor priest is horrifying, so appalled was the savagery witnessed by the constabulary upon the discovery of the body. Who was this mysterious stranger who came to visit the country priest – so suspicious, after all – in the dead of night? Was he alone or accompanied by an equally unscrupulous accomplice? Some witnesses apparently saw two men that day… For what obscure and consequential reasons did Antoine Gélis open the door…? And to whom…? Why did the Abbé de Coustaussa possess so much money at home…? The gold and silver coins that made up the priest's very substantial stash had become a real lure for any passing marauder aware of such a hoard! 6,000 francs in gold and silver would later be discovered in the sacristy by the investigating magistrate in charge of the case! However, what was the exact motive for such a murder? “Who killed Abbé Gélis…?” “This nagging question that so utterly haunts Roland Duc, the author of this book, is one we have all been asking ourselves for so many years…! Yet, until now, no truly satisfactory answer had ever been found before the publication of this work… And if the echo of this heinous murder still resonates among us, across time and space, it was inevitable that one day, this mind-boggling enigma from another era would be finally solved… And so it has been, thanks to Roland Duc, a master sleuth indeed… It must be acknowledged that the murder of Father Gélis astonishes us with its brutality, but also deeply moves us with its mystery. It is in this dual ontological confrontation that the entirety of Father Gélis’s martyrdom resides.” It was therefore necessary to investigate with the utmost care where others—less qualified—had given up, weary of the darkness that bordered on utter helplessness. Thus, with the rigor of a seasoned investigator and measured tact, meticulously examining every lead, advancing with velvet steps through a minefield, Roland Duc, our author, dismantles each element of this complex investigative file, so difficult to grasp as a whole, piece by piece. And our author certainly knows how to do it, to say the least! Roland Duc, going through, line by line, word by word, the entirety of the archival file prepared at the time by the meticulous and tenacious magistrate in charge of the investigation at the end of the 19th century—Judge Raymond Jean—who did everything in his power to bring the murderer to justice! But his work of analysis, comparative studies, necessary cross-referencing, and relentless interrogations could not, in the end, undoubtedly to his great regret, reach the conclusion he had hoped for. But to what conclusion? It was a long-awaited end that would have seen a priest's murderer mount the scaffold—on the "seesaw," as the guillotine was then called, back in the days of the Cayenne penal colony! It was therefore essential to continue the work begun by Raymond Jean in a truly worthwhile manner! This is precisely what our author does here, with immense patience, skillfully delivering the essence of his work in a book that will be a landmark. All the research presented in this book, for the first time, has been conducted objectively, impartially, and with meticulous care. It is based on the evidence from the original investigation and supports and reinforces the work initially carried out by the investigating judge. Unfortunately, the investigations of this magistrate, whose professional competence is beyond question, were not pursued far enough, as we discover in this book. In reality, the thesis proposed here by our author remains innovative while being perfectly logical. —But who exactly is our author…? And what gives him the absolute authority to speak so definitively about this abominable murder that so scandalized the newspapers of the time…?