TREASURE UNDER PRISON

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1933, Page 5

TREASURE UNDER PRISON

MONKS’ BURIED HOARD. PARIS, July 8. Strange discoveries may be made when the demolition of the famous Paris prison of St. Lazare, now in progress, is completed. This ancient building, the earliest foundations of which date from the twelfth century, belongs to one of the oldest, and, it -is reputed, extremel} 1wealtry religious Orders. There is a tradition that, fabulous treasures are buried beneath it. The question is now being asked: Will any of these supposed treasures be found? St. Vincent de Paul, the former shepherd boy who Avon a high position in the State in the seventeenth century, made St. Lazare the headquarters of the members of his mission in 1632. Beneath the flagstones, unbroken and undisturbed, of the twelfth century Gothic church, the ruins of which were cleared awtiy in 1823 to make room for part of the building now* be■ng destroyed, were buried all the .supporters of'the mission started 1# St. Vincent. Their remains are still there. For more than a century their graves have formed part of one of the prison corridors. The bones of St. Vincent liitnself wore rescued before the revolutionaries took .possession of St. LaZare. Rut it is known that there are deep foundations between the graves. It is one of these deeper cellars that the “Lazaristes,” and possibly their predecessors at St. Lazah? kre believed to have stored their treftStifSM One thing is certain ,and that is?’that St. Lazare was oned a rich foundation possessing broad lands hnd mahy/tib lages. . ..