La Fontaine des Amours near Rennes-les-Bains

   

A small waterfall and an old ruin

I am not sure if there was a small watermill here at one time but the water has been channeled to flow under this building, so I assume it was done for a reason and to power a waterwheel is an obvious assumption, although I have no idea why.

The Heart Shaped Pool that I assume gives la Fontaine des Amours (Fountain of love or the Lovers Fountain) it's name

It is at this location that Henry Lincoln and his crew stumbled across a heart on a rock with an arrow through it with the name E Calvet 1891 underneath. To some this was evidence that Sauniere knew Emma Calve and was in love with her.

   

This is the rock I believe to be where the heart message was found, in the dip on the top

The image at the top of this page shows the position of this large rock in relation to the Lovers Fountain area

 

The Calvet Heart and the rock with the Heart Removed as it look in 2008

Although the angle is not exact and the shadow angles are different I think there are enough similarities to say this is the rock where the Calvet heart once was.

Emma Calve is spelt without a 't' and there is no evidence that Sauniere had anything to do with this heart detail or that he ever met Emma Calve, who was a successful and fashionable singer at the time.

I think it is obvious that the heart has not been carved into a hard rock but drawn into a layer of wet cement or mud from the nearby river. This seems to be confirmed by the smudged edges of the cement or mud on the rock. It looks as if someone has placed a lump of cement or mud on the rock and after smoothing it out drawn on the heart and name detail.

The story is that when Henry Lincoln and his crew first found it, they filmed or photographed it and then when they returned later it was gone. If this was only a blob of mud or cement, even if it had hardened, it would only take a few minutes for someone to remove it.

I am not implying that Henry had anything to do with the placing the heart detail here, the area has many visitors and anyone of them could have done it for a joke or some other reason.

Lost Tomb of the Knights Templar

by Ben Hammott