BURIED HOARD

Hokitika Guardian, 11 September 1933, Page 5

BURIED HOARD

MONKS' TREASURE UNDER GAQJ.

LONDON, September 2. Strange discoveries may be made when the demolition of the famous Paris prisojn 0 f 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 quest ion is now being asked: W ill any o.f the-se supposed treasures be found? St. Vincent de Paul, the former shepherd boy who won a high position in the State in the seventeenth century, made St. Lazare the headquarters of the membpr s of his mission in 1632,

■Beneai h the flagstones, unbroken and undisturbed, of the twelfth eehtury Gothic church, the. ruins of which were cleared .away in 1823 to make room for part of the building now being destroyed, were buried nil 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 k'nown that there are deep foundations between the graves. It is in one of these deeper ce’lars that the “Lazadstes,” and possibly their predecessors at St. Lazare are believed to . have stored their treasures. One thing is .certain and that is that iSt. Lazare was once a rich foundation possessing broad hands and many villages.