Franciois Berenger Saunière, a priest in the French village of Rennes-le-Cháteau from 1885 to 1909, is a central figure in the theories that inspired The DaVinci Code, yet, the artist named in the parchments said to have been discovered by Saunière is not Leonardo.

What can we learn from Nicolas Poussin and his paintings? Using a geometric cipher to decode the bookplate of Father Saunière the word "TRIGONO" comes to light. In this case of hidden riches, coded paintings, and encrypted tombstones, it is the science of triangles - trigonometry - that will solve the mystery.

It all began in the time of Christ and his wife, Mary Magdalene. After the Crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea had taken the pregnant Mary Magdalene south to safety. Some say that Lazarus her brother was with them. Local legend has it that the three Marys--the Virgin Mary her sister Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene-arrived on the shore of southern France with the daughter of Jesus, after spending the child's early years in Egypt.

The port where the Mary arrived on the coast of southern France is still called St. Marie, and the upper Paleolithic culture of southwestern France is referred to as the Magdalenian era. The Romanesque churches in the Languedoc region have Star of David windows, attesting to the Davidic bloodline of the family who lived there. The symbol of the underground river in paintings by such initiates as Nicolas Poussin represents the hidden mystery tradition and the Davidic bloodline preserve and protected by the Knights Templar and the Priory of Sion.

Hidden Mysteries

In 1656 Nicolas Fouquet, France's finance minister under King Louis XIV- sent his younger brother the Abbey Louis to Rome where he met with the painter Nicolas Poussin. In a letter to his brother Fouquet wrote that he and Poussin had:

discussed certain things of which 1 shall be able to inform you fully in a short while which will give you, through M. Poussin benefits, which kings would have great trouble extracting from him, and which after him perhaps no one in the world will rediscover in the centuries to come; and moreover this will be without great expense and could even be turned to profit and that these things are so hard to discover that nothing on earth can have greater value nor be their equal.

Shortly after, Nicolas Fouquet was imprisoned by King Louis, who eventually obtained Poussin's painting The Shepherds of Arcadia II, in which are hidden many mysteries. Oddly, after finally obtaining the painting, King Louis hid it away and only showed it to a select few. The King also had the mountains in the background partially painted over to disguise the location of Rennes-le-Cháteau. Poussin painted two versions of Les Bergers d' Arcadie (The Shepherds of Arcadia). The later version also known as Et in Arcadia Ego, was painted c.1638-1640. (This article will refer to it as The Shepherds of Arcadia II or Arcadia II)

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