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From: Le Nouvel Observateur
Week of Thursday 9 September 2004 –
N° 2079 – Document Eight million readers worldwide (including 400,000 in France) have already succumbed to the charms of this politico-religious thriller which, using the Opus Dei and Vatican-style conspiracies as its raw material, claims to tell us the true story about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. But the mystery is not confined to the pages of Dan Brown’s best seller: it’s also to be found in the sources used by the American novelist, as the latest investigations of Marie-France Etchegoin reveal… She has done some sleuthing of her own to shed light on some pretty suspicious and in some cases frankly ridiculous characters. The pleasure of reading Dan Brown’s book is not diminished, but even so it’s just as well to know precisely in what ink the author has dipped his pen… Plantard was his name – Pierre Plantard. The son of a manservant, he claimed to be the descendant of the Merovingian kings – the last secret ‘heir’ of a bloodline that officially became extinct with the assassination of Dagobert II in 679! And he claimed to have documents in his possession to prove it. Before the Second World War he worked for several months as a sacristan in Paris. Later he described himself as a psychologist, a ‘doctor of science’, an ‘honorary member of several secret societies’, and, above all, Grandmaster of the Priory of Sion, a ‘powerful and very ancient order’ that was working in secret to establish a ‘popular monarchy run by a Merovingian’ that would espouse ‘true pre-Christian values’. The Priory of Sion, said Plantard, had included among its most distinguished members Leonardo Da Vinci and Jean Cocteau. Plantard, fairly obviously just a clown, would normally have sunk into richly deserved obscurity. And yet, for several months now, his theories have been circling the world. But no one (or hardly anyone) knows that it was actually he who created them. Only the ‘adepts’ know the ‘incredible secret’: the fact that this humble sacristan was actually the person who inspired ‘The Da Vinci Code’, the best seller that’s already sold more than 8 million copies, a book that rides roughshod over the catechism and which has upset the Catholic church. And the central theme of this historico-esoteric thriller, which is set mostly in Paris and, more particularly, in the Louvre? The Priory of Sion of course! An organisation entrusted with the task of guarding and transmitting a secret that, thanks to the Vatican, has been smothered in blood and violence for centuries: the fact that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fathered children by her, children whose secret descendants are the Merovingians! Descendants who are still living in France and who – the book tells us – are called… Plantard! Just like the former sacristan! A reader who didn’t know any better would undoubtedly see the name Plantard, which conjures up images of berets and baguettes, as just another quintessentially French surname thought up by an American novelist. But in fact, by providing this ‘clue’, Dan Brown has ‘incriminated’ himself, and has also handed the reader a key that he does not perhaps particularly want him to turn. For by investigating the life and nauseating caprices of the anonymous Plantard and his various ‘disciples’ – whether crazy, cynical or just pranksters – we can reach an understanding of where Dan Brown got his sources from and of the ‘traditions’ that he refers to in the book without actually naming them. And we can conclude that his work of fiction is not perhaps as innocent as it first appears. But before we set out on the trail of the mysterious Monsieur Plantard, let’s first retell the story (for the benefit of those who have may have missed it). Jesus slept with Mary Magdalene and they had lots of little Merovingians: at first glance the scenario is a grotesque one. Brown’s novel is certainly a page turner: short crisp chapters, with a new twist or turn in the plot every couple of pages. It’s like the Famous Five let loose in the Holy Land. But there’s no doubting the author’s qualifications for his task: 38 years old, a Professor of English in New Hampshire, with a degree in the History of Art – that much is certain. One reason for the success of the book is that he’s mining the inexhaustible seam of conspiracy theory, something that he’s already given a workout to in his previous books, such as ‘Angels and Demons’, in which Brown’s regular hero, Harvard professor Robert Langdon, tells how in times gone by the ‘Illuminati’ sought to dominate the world: ‘They became increasingly powerful in Europe. And then they left to conquer the United States, many of whose leaders have been Freemasons, such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others (…). They have used their secret influence to set up banks and businesses to finance their ultimate goal: the creation of a single global state and a new secular world order (…) based on science’ [unofficial translation]. This bears a remarkable resemblance to the theme of a ‘Masonic conspiracy’. A second major feature of Brown’s work is his penchant for feminist discourse, something that’s enchanted his American female fans. Two thousand years ago, he’s fond of saying in his various interviews (echoing his principal character Professor Langdon), gods and goddesses were regarded as absolutely equal. Today, however, women are deprived of their spiritual power. When he talks about religion, Dan Brown is certainly in tune with the times. Finally, he cashes on the basic human need for the miraculous and the mysterious. He sprinkles his narratives with anagrams and coded messages (for which a telephone often suffices). His admirers say that he’s written a ‘Harry Potter’ for adults. ‘He’s content to recycle all the old clichés of the religious imagination’, underlines Michel Quesnel, a Bible expert and Rector of the Catholic University of Lyons. The Templars, the Cathars, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the secrets buried in the Vatican cellars… Only Jesus’ twin brother is missing! Dan Brown’s heroes may not have much psychological consistency, but they are formidably persuasive. They use comparative religion to guide us through the maze of the Eternal Mysteries, each using his or her own specialist topic as a starting point. Did you know, for example, that the solar disk of the Ancient Egyptian gods became the halo of the saints? That December 25th was also the birthday of Dionysus? That Snow White, who bit into the poisoned apple, is a ‘reference to the fall of Eve in the Garden of Eden’? That the Pyramid at the Louvre was commissioned by François Mitterrand, who was nicknamed the ‘Sphinx’, an event that, according to ‘The Da Vinci Code’, was certainly no accident? Dan Brown’s novel is like a gigantic funfair in which a merry-go-round of erudition dazzles the eye with the unexpected and with things that are not quite what they seem. Very much a novel of the Internet age, it spins a Web that’s as informative as it’s intoxicating. Do a Google search for Jesus, ET and Tom Cruise and you’ll see what I mean! In France, the Episcopal Council has prepared a response to the questions that might just be in the minds of the book’s 400,000 French readers… just in case. In the USA, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ has long been the subject of heated debate. Fans of the book say they are stunned by the book’s ‘revelations’, while theologians and the universities have gone on the counter-attack. A dozen or so ‘books about the book’ have already appeared. Hollywood is also getting involved, of course, with a Ron Howard film already in preparation. And, this summer, tour operators have been organising ‘pilgrimages’ for tourists interested in visiting the places where the mystery is set. Even so, it’s partly or wholly due to the obscure Monsieur Plantard that thousands of Americans or Japanese are wandering through the corridors of the Louvre or the aisles of Saint-Sulpice in search of the ‘hidden truth’, meditating on the ‘message’ of the new bible that you’ll find at the top of the gondolas in all the supermarkets! But Pierre Plantard, the dethroned Merovingian, is no longer around to enjoy all this global approbation. He died in 2000 at the age of 80. Dan Brown has never paid homage to him. No doubt he doesn’t want to make his life any more complicated than it needs to be. Plantard is certainly not the type of person one would wish to identify with. So how exactly did this distinguished American come across this demonic little Frenchman? It’s a long and incredible story, in which one encounters poets, admirers of Surrealism, nostalgic admirers of Pétain, a multimillionaire curé, and even Roger-Patrice Pelat. It’s the story of a mystery dreamed up within a small circle of ‘initiates’ and then turned into millions of dollars by an astute author and the American publishing industry. Right at the beginning there was Pierre Plantard – an unsavoury character if ever there was one. His ‘career’ began in 1940. He’d just turned twenty and was active in occupied Paris. On 16 December 1940 he wrote an agitated letter to Pétain ‘begging him to put a stop to a war started by the Jews’ and informing him that he ‘had a hundred men at his disposal who were devoted to our cause’. According to several reports prepared by the intelligence services of the time and which today are lodged in the archives of the Prefecture of Police in Paris, ‘Plantard seemed to be one of these strange pretentious young people who set up and run more or less fictitious groups in an effort to give themselves a feeling of importance… so as to get the government to take them seriously’. He published an anti-Semitic magazine called ‘Vaincre’ (which, incidentally, he republished in the 1980s) and appointed himself leader of something called Rénovation nationale française, a small group that, according to a note in the police records, was ‘anti-Jewish and anti-Freemason and which aimed to ‘purify France’’. On 21 April 1941 Plantard wrote to the Prefecture to inform them that his organisation had decided, with ‘the support of the German high authorities’, to take possession of unoccupied premises at 22 place Malesherbes, which were let at that time to an English Jew called Shapiro. Some time later, again according to the intelligence services, he founded a second organisation, the Alpha Galates, an ‘order of chivalry’ and ‘mutual assistance’ whose motto was ‘Honneur et Patrie’ (‘Honour and Fatherland’), membership of which was apparently ‘forbidden to Jews’. It was led by ‘His Druidic Majesty’, actually Pierre Plantard, who would henceforward refer to himself as ‘Pierre de France’. The servant’s son began to imagine that he had noble ancestry and to take the first steps towards creating his strange tale of mystification. Dan Brown has obviously not clued himself up on the Plantard of these dark years. He only becomes aware of Plantard during the time of his last and most successful ‘brainwave’, which dates from the years after the Second World War: the creation of the Priory of Sion. Almost from the very first line of his book, in his preface (entitled ‘The facts’!), Brown writes: ‘The secret society of the Priory of Sion was founded in 1099 after the First Crusade. In 1975 parchments were discovered at the Bibliothèque Nationale under the name of ‘Dossiers secrets’, in which appear the names of certain members of the Priory, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo Da Vinci’ [unofficial translation]. This is not true. The Priory of Sion does not go back as far as the Crusades, but actually only to 7 May 1956! That was the day when Pierre Plantard, who was then living at Annemasse, went and filed the order’s articles of association. In a provincial sub-prefecture! At Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, in Haute-Savoie! So where is the ‘chivalric order charged by Godefroi de Bouillon’ (so says Professor Brown) with finding and protecting ‘secret documents buried under the ruins of the Temple of Solomon’ with the help of the Templars, and later the Cathars? The Priory of Sion is nothing more than a club established under the Law of 1901. Though it may refer to itself in terms of the traditions of mutual assistance of ‘ancient chivalry’ (Plantard was still cultivating the same obsessions as he did under the German Occupation) its principal aim was… to ‘defend the rights and freedom of council house tenants’! It survived for a few months by publishing a journal called ‘Circuit’ (an acronym standing for ‘Chevalerie d’Institution et Règle catholique indépendante et traditionaliste’!), which dealt with such problems as ‘water meters and the tarmacadaming of footpaths’ in some of the properties in Annemasse. Gradually, however, Plantard would pad out the legend of his Priory. So much so in fact that, in 1993, he would come face to face with his Grand Inquisitor in the form of Thierry Jean-Pierre. Plantard had inundated him with letters to inform him that the businessman Roger-Patrice Pelat, a friend of President Mitterrand and the man at the centre of a case being investigated by the former magistrate, had been Grandmaster of the Priory. Thierry Jean-Pierre remembers the police search of Plantard’s house and still laughs about it. ‘He was an idiot!’ The incident did however lead to articles being published in ‘Minute’ (‘Une société secrète dans l’ombre de Mitterrand’ -‘A secret society in Mitterrand’s shadow’) (1) and ‘France Soir’ (‘L’étrange piste de la société secrète’ - ‘The strange trail of the secret society’) (2), articles that asked in all seriousness whether the Priory wasn’t being used to launder Pelat’s money! Plantard had therefore succeeded in finding several credulous or malevolent ears to listen to him. And he himself had finished up believing a tale that he had himself created. How? By making himself part of a myth that would ensure him a small place in the annals of esotericism. Since the end of the 1950s all the world’s treasure hunters, occultists, diviners, Rosicrucians, ‘alchemists’, Cabbalists, ‘cryptographers’, worshippers of the Holy Grail, astrologers, ufologists (specialists in flying saucers) or members of ‘secret societies’, with Plantard at the head, would sooner or later undertake a pilgrimage to Rennes-le-Château, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere about 40 kilometres from Carcassonne, not far from some Cathar ruins. They were in search of the secrets of Abbé Saunière (the same name that Brown gives to the curator of the Louvre in ‘The Da Vinci Code’). It’s said that this curé became very rich after undertaking building works in his little church through discovering, in one of the pillars of the altar, some parchments that led him to the Templar treasure or that of the Cathars or that of Blanche of Castile. Or all three at once perhaps – there are different versions of the story (3). Plantard then had a brilliant idea. Together with an erudite aristocrat blessed with a lively imagination, the Marquis de Cherisey, he ‘manufactured’ the parchments which had allegedly been found by the curé. Forged parchments that provided details of the royal ancestry of Plantard (who – noblesse oblige – had added ‘de Saint-Clair’ to his name), the foundation of the Priory of Sion in 1099, and a list of grandmasters (Leonardo Da Vinci et al). In a nutshell: all the ingredients of ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Plantard and Cherisey even lodged their forgeries with the Bibliothèque Nationale in the mid-60s! These were the famous ‘dossiers secrets’ that Dan Brown refers to in his preface as irrefutable proof of the Priory’s existence! Long before him, in 1967, a Frenchman, Gérard de Sède, a friend of both Plantard and Cherisey, used the ‘dossiers secrets’ as the raw material for several books, including ‘L’Or de Rennes’ or ‘La Race fabuleuse: extraterrestres et mythologie mérovingienne’! Gérard de Sède, a former journalist, created a cult based on Surrealism. He liked to use a phrase of André Breton’s which just about sums it up really: ‘L’imaginaire, c’est ce qui tend à devenir réel’ - ‘The imaginary is that which tends to become real’. His books rapidly became something of a cult in themselves and the legend of the Priory of Sion would reach its apogee in the 1970s. It would however be several years before Brown got involved. This was due to three Brits, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln and Michael Baigent, all of whom were steeped in esotericism and fascinated by Plantard. ‘I attended their first interview with him’, says Jean-Luc Chaumeil, the author of several books on the paranormal (5). ‘It was really surrealist. They greeted him with the words ‘Hello Your Majesty’’. In 1982 the Three Stooges published a weighty tome entitled ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ (6). The book dealt with the history of the Priory of Sion and ‘its role in the building of Europe and in international politics and high finance’ (sic), to which the trio brought a new touch: the theory that the Merovingians were in fact the great-great-grandchildren of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Even Pierre Plantard did not go as far as that. In the USA and Great Britain the book topped the best sellers’ lists for months. It’s an example of conspiracy literature which tries to link Nostradamus and Alain Poher, General de Gaulle and Louis XIV, and which tells us that ‘today’s world needs a genuine leader’. In their interpretative fervour the three ‘investigators’ see ‘signs’ everywhere. So a Michelin road map has a hidden meaning. An administrative circular becomes a palimpsest. One thing leads to another and eventually one of the most terrible distortions in history – that of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Sion (the famous forgeries published in 1903 which fostered the myth of an ‘international Jewish conspiracy’) – also creeps into the story. The three authors say that the Protocols are based on authentic texts emanating from the Priory of Sion, texts that had simply been redrafted to distort ‘their original sense’, which had nothing to do with the Jews but rather with secret or Masonic societies! That’s a theory that’s been doing the rounds for years in certain esoteric circles and also among certain extreme right wing movements, as the historian Pierre-André Taguieff points out (7). And it’s a copy of ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ that we find in the library of Dan Brown’s heroes, regarding which he has this to say: ‘The authors have mixed in some dubious elements with their analyses, but the basis of the book is perfectly serious’ [unofficial translation]. This is a reference by Brown to his forerunners – and the only one. As for Plantard, Brown never even mentions them in his interviews. He has, however, adopted all the theories of Baigent et al (while displaying genuine savoir-faire in eliminating some of their more obvious clangers – the ‘dubious elements’ to which he refers). To what extent does Brown himself believe in what he has written? As he explains on his website: ‘In my book I reveal a secret that has been whispered down the centuries. I did not invent it. It’s the first time that this secret has been revealed in a popular thriller. I sincerely hope that ‘The Da Vinci Code’ will serve to open readers’ minds to new lines of speculation. For, since the dawn of time, history has always been written by the ‘victors’’ [unofficial translation]. Is he saying that we have to re-examine and reassess the entire story? Or is Dan Brown adopting this position simply to keep popular interest in best seller alive? He’s already announced a follow-up to the adventures of Professor Robert Langdon in which, apparently, Freemasonry will be mentioned. In the interim, a certain Gino Sandri has taken up the cudgels from Plantard. The new ‘secretary’ of the Priory of Sion explains that the forgeries created by his boss were actually a red herring ‘intended to distract attention, so as to protect certain other documents’ (8) and an even more sensational secret.
Priory of Sion Archives of Paul Smith |