run into serious debts (that were settled by Noël Corbu upon purchase). The property comprised the Villa Bethania, the Tour Magdala, an Orangery, and the Belvedere that connects the Tour Magdala to the Orangery. In 1950 Corbu returned to Morocco hoping to set up a sugar refinery, without success. When Marie Dénarnaud died in 1953, Corbu inherited her archives relating to Bérenger Saunière. During Easter 1955 Corbu turned the Villa Bethania into a Hotel (called L'hôtel de la Tour) and opened a restaurant located underneath the belvedere that connects the Tour Magdala to the Orangery (Corbu installed the windows). Later during the 1990s, the Villa Bethania was turned into a hotel again. In January 1956, the local newspaper La Dépêche du Midi serialised an interview with Corbu in who claimed that Father Saunière discovered the treasure of Blanche of Castile, and which 'according to the archives' consisted of 28,500,000 gold pieces. This was the treasure of the French crown assembled by Blanche de Castile to pay the ransom of Saint Louis, a prisoner of the Saracens, the surplus of which she had hidden at Rennes-le-Château. Saunière had only found one part of it, so it was necessary to continue his investigations. Corbu also claimed Saunière had in 1892 discovered "parchments" whilst renovating his church "written in a mixture of French and Latin, which at first glance could be discerned passages from the Gospels". It has been noted by critics however that Saunière began renovating his church in 1886, not 1892, and that "there was no evidence that these parchments had ever existed". Corbu claimed that Marie Dénarnaud would confide a secret to him before she died, saying "Pray do not worry yourself, Monsieur Corbu. You shall have more money than you will be able to spend!" Corbu provided a tape-recording of his story for his guests, a transcript of which was deposited in the Archives de l'Aude, Carcassonne on 14 June 1962 by Maurice Tous of Alet-les-Bains. Corbu's story inspired author Robert Charroux to develop an active interest and in 1958, with his wife Yvette and other members of The Treasure Seekers' Club (that he founded in 1951), scanned the village of Rennes-le-Château and its church dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene for treasure using a metal detector. The Dowsing-by-Pendulum enthusiast and hypnotist Rolland Domergue, with medium Germaine Goyard, joined Corbu in 1958 to look for the treasure, and thus began