SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21772, 11 October 1932, Page 16

SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO

ROMANTIC TREASURE HUNT. For more than a year a young engineer named Arnaud has been tunnelling beneath the romantic stronghold of Montsegur, which is perched on an eminence among the foothills of the Pyrenees. He is in search of buried treasure, and believes that he is now ueariug his objective.

A winding gallery which he has opened in a declivity which is almost a precipice is already more than 120 ft long. He hopes to penetrate very soon to an underground chamber which may contain gold and silver, and in which there are almost certainly some old manuscripts. Monfsegur has been almost forgotten since 1244, when the heretics who had made it their refuge, after resisting the armed forces of the Church for 30 years, were betrayed and defeated. More than 200 of them were burned at the stake. When the place fell thex-e were at least 1000 men, women and children inside it, and most of them xvere living in the vast subterranean caves and vaults. It is believed that some of the lower vaults, sealed up with masonry; were never broken open. Diviners have helped M. Arnaud to locate their position.

featured in this talkie version of Zane Grey’s story of the west. The picture was actually made in the country of which Zane Grey wrote and the principal role is taken by George O’Brien.