Canon Jean Eugène Huguet (1845-1927)

Curé of Espiens sur Nérac and Avocat Ecclésiastique (religious lawyer). Huguet took up Saunière’s defense when he was accused of mass trafficking, excessive spending and disobeyance. Huguet was recommended to Saunière by his best friend the Abbé Eugène Grassaud. He went to great lengths to defend the Abbé in court in Carcassonne and later, in the Vatican court. Huguet couldn’t prevent that Saunière was sentenced twice and relieved of his sacerdotal duties, because until the very end the Abbé refused to show up at the trials in person, and to tell,  the judges where his money originated from.

Saunière’s case wasn’t the only one Huguet defended before the Vatican. Before he got involved with the priest, he defended the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Pellevoisin, a small village in the French Indre department, about which he had published some works. Huguet acted in the role, of Postulator (the cannon who is placed in charge of the file for canonisation), in front of the Holy Sea., In 1876, the Virgin had appeared 15 times to Estelle Faguet, a member of the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris.

Catherine Labourré, who had witnessed a Mary apparition in de Rue du Bac in Paris 44 years earlier, in 1832, was a member of that same order. Saunière, commemorated this apparition by placing two stained glass windows over the front door of the Villa Bethania.