TREASURE UNDER PRISON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22053, 8 September 1933, Page 10

TREASURE UNDER PRISON

MONKS' BURIED HOARD WHAT MAY BE DISCOVERED. 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, extremely wealthy 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 won a high position in the State in the eeveneenth century, made St. Lazare the headquarters of the members of his mission in 1632. Beneath the flagstone, unbroken and undisturbed, of the twelfth century Gothic church, the ruins of which were cleared away in 1823 to make room for part of the building now being destroyed, were buried all the supporters of the mission started by 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 himself were rescued before the revolutionaries took possession of St. Lazare. But it is known that there are deep foundations between the graves. It is in one of these deeper cellars that the " Lazaristes," and possibly their predecessors at St. Lazare, are believed, to have stored their treasures. One thinj: is certain, and that is that St. Lazare %vas once a rich foundation possessing broad lands and many villages.