Page "Et in Arcadia ego" Paragraph 19

Andrews and Schellenberger also claim that the tomb portrayed is one at Les Pontils, near Rennes-le-Château.

However, Franck Marie in 1978 and Pierre Jarnac in 1985 had already concluded that this tomb was begun in 1903 by the owner of the land, Jean Galibert, who buried his wife and grandmother there in a simple grave.

Their bodies were exhumed and reinterred elsewhere after the land was sold to Louis Lawrence, an American from Connecticut who had emigrated to the area.

He buried his mother and grandmother in the grave and built the stone sepulchre.

Marie and Jarnac had both interviewed Adrien Bourrel, Lawrence's son, who witnessed the construction of the sepulchre in 1933 when a young boy.

Pierre Plantard, the creator of the Priory of Sion mythology, tried to argue that the sepulchre at Les Pontils was a " prototype " for Poussin's painting, but it was situated directly opposite a farmhouse ( behind the foliage ) and was not in the " middle of nowhere " in the French countryside, as is commonly assumed.

Plantard also claimed that the phrase " Et In Arcadia Ego " had been the motto on his Family Coat-of-Arms for generations.

The sepulchre was demolished in 1988 by the owner with the permission of the local authorities.