 | This articlehas an unclearcitation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style ofcitation andfootnoting.(October 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
ThePrieuré de Sion (French pronunciation:[pʁijœʁedəsjɔ̃]), translated asPriory of Sion, was afraternal organisation founded inFrance and dissolved in 1956 by hoaxerPierre Plantard in his failed attempt to create a prestigious neo-chivalric order.[2] In the 1960s, Plantard began claiming that hisself-styled order was the latestfront for asecret society founded by crusading knightGodfrey of Bouillon, onMount Zion in theKingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, under the guise of the historical monasticorder of theAbbey of Our Lady of Mount Zion. As a framework for his grandiose assertion of being both theGreat Monarch prophesied byNostradamus and aMerovingianpretender, Plantard further claimed the Priory of Sion was engaged in a centuries-long benevolentconspiracy to install a secretbloodline of theMerovingian dynasty on the thrones of France and the rest ofEurope.[2][3] To Plantard's surprise, all of his claims were fused with the notion of aJesus bloodline and popularised by the authors of the 1982 speculative nonfiction bookThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail,[1] whose conclusions would later be borrowed byDan Brown for his 2003 mystery thriller novelThe Da Vinci Code.[4][5]
After attracting varying degrees of public attention from the late 1960s to the 1980s, themythical history of the Priory of Sion was exposed as aludibrium — an elaboratehoax in the form of anesotericpuzzle — created by Plantard as part of his unsuccessful stratagem to become a respected, influential and wealthy player in Frenchesotericist andmonarchist circles. Pieces of evidence presented in support of the historical existence and activities of the Priory of Sion before 1956, such as the so-calledDossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau, were discovered to have beenforged and then planted in various locations around France by Plantard and his accomplices.[6] However, Pierre Plantard himself disowned theDossiers Secrets when he described it as being the work of Philippe Toscan du Plantier, who had allegedly been arrested for taking LSD, in another attempt to form another version of the Priory of Sion from 1989, also reviving the organ “Vaincre”, that lasted for four issues.[7][8]
Despite the "Priory of Sion mysteries" having been exhaustivelydebunked by journalists and scholars as France's greatest 20th-centuryliterary hoax,[6][9][10] manyconspiracy theorists stillpersist in believing that the Priory of Sion was a millennium-oldcabal concealing a religiouslysubversive secret. A few independent researchers outside ofacademia claim, based on alleged insider information, that the Priory of Sion continues to operate as a conspiratorial secret society to this day.[11][12][13][14][15] Someskeptics express concern that the proliferation and popularity ofpseudohistorical books, websites and films inspired by the Priory of Sion hoax contribute to the problem of unfoundedconspiracy theories becoming mainstream;[16] while others are troubled by how these works romanticize thereactionary ideologies of thefar right.[17]
Thefraternal organisation was founded in the town ofAnnemasse,Haute-Savoie, in eastern France in 1956.[18][19] The 1901French law of Associations required that the Priory of Sion be registered with the government; although the statutes and the registration documents are dated 7 May 1956, the registration took place at thesubprefecture ofSaint-Julien-en-Genevois on 25 June 1956 and recorded in theJournal Officiel de la République Française on 20 July 1956.[20] The headquarters of the Priory of Sion and its journalCircuit were based in the apartment of Plantard, in a social housing block known as Sous-Cassan newly constructed in 1956.[21][22]
The founders and signatories inscribed with their real names and aliases were Pierre Plantard, also known as "Chyren", and André Bonhomme, also known as "Stanis Bellas". Bonhomme was the President while Plantard was the Secretary General. The registration documents also included the names of Jean Deleaval as the Vice-President and Armand Defago as the Treasurer. The choice of the name "Sion" was based on a popular local feature, a hill south of Annemasse in France, known as Mont Sion, where the founders intended to establish aspiritual retreat center.[9] The accompanying title to the name was "Chevalerie d'Institutions et Règles Catholiques d'Union Indépendante et Traditionaliste": this subtitle forms the acronym CIRCUIT and translates in English as "Chivalry of Catholic Rules and Institutions of Independent and Traditionalist Union". The statutes of the Priory of Sion indicate its purpose was to allow and encourage members to engage in studies andmutual aid. The articles of the association expressed the goal of creating aTraditionalist Catholicchivalric order.[23]
Article 7 of the statutes of the Priory of Sion stated that its members were expected "to carry out good deeds, to help the Roman Catholic Church, teach the truth, defend the weak and the oppressed". Towards the end of 1956 the association had planned to forge partnerships with the local Catholic Church of the area which would have involved a school bus service run by both the Priory of Sion and the church of Saint-Joseph in Annemasse.[24] Plantard is described as the President of the Tenants' Association of Annemasse in the issues ofCircuit. The bulk of the activities of the Priory of Sion bore no resemblance to the objectives as outlined in its statutes:Circuit, the official journal of the Priory of Sion, was indicated as a news bulletin of an "organisation for the defence of the rights and the freedom of affordable housing" rather than for the promotion ofchivalry-inspired charitable work. The first issue of the journal is dated 27 May 1956, and, in total, twelve issues appeared. Some of the articles took a political position in the local council elections. Others criticised and even attacked real-estate developers of Annemasse.[23]
According to a letter written by Léon Guersillon the Mayor of Annemasse in 1956, contained in the folder holding the 1956 Statutes of the Priory of Sion in the subprefecture of Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, Plantard was given a six-month sentence in 1953 for fraud.[25] The formally registered association was dissolved some time after October 1956 but intermittently revived for different reasons by Plantard between 1961 and 1993, though in name and on paper only. The Priory of Sion is considered dormant by the subprefecture because it has indicated no activities since 1956. According to French law, subsequent references to the Priory bear no legal relation to that of 1956 and no one, other than the original signatories, is entitled to use its name in an official capacity.[citation needed] André Bonhomme played no part in the association after 1956. He officially resigned in 1973 when he heard that Plantard was linking his name with the association. In light of Plantard's death in 2000, there is no one who is currently alive who has official permission to use the name.[26]
Plantard set out to have the Priory of Sion perceived as a prestigiousesoteric Christian chivalric order, whose members would bepeople of influence in the fields of finance, politics and philosophy, devoted to installing the "Great Monarch", prophesied byNostradamus, on the throne of France. Plantard's choice of the pseudonym "Chyren" was a reference to "Chyren Selin", Nostradamus'sanagram for the name for thiseschatological figure.[27]
Between 1961 and 1984, Plantard contrived amythical pedigree for the Priory of Sion claiming that it was the offshoot of a realCatholic religious order housed in the Abbey of Our Lady of Mount Zion, which had been founded in theKingdom of Jerusalem during theFirst Crusade in 1099 and later absorbed by theJesuits in 1617. The mistake is often made that this Abbey of Sion was a Priory of Sion, but there is a difference between anabbey and apriory.[2] Calling his original 1956 group "Priory of Sion" presumably gave Plantard the later idea to claim that his organisation had been historically founded by crusading knightGodfrey of Bouillon onMount Zion nearJerusalem during theMiddle Ages.[6]
.jpg)
Furthermore, Plantard was inspired by a 1960 magazineLes Cahiers de l'Histoire to center his personal genealogical claims, as found in the "Priory of Sion documents", on theMerovingian kingDagobert II, who had been assassinated in the 7th century.[28] He also adopted"Et in Arcadia ego...", a slightly altered version of aLatin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings byNicolas Poussin, as themotto of both his family and the Priory of Sion,[29] because the tomb which appears in these paintings resembled one in the Les Pontils area nearRennes-le-Château. This tomb would become a symbol for hisdynastic claims as the last legacy of the Merovingians on the territory ofRazès, left to remind the select few who have been initiated into thesemysteries that the "lost king", Dagobert II, would figuratively come back in the form of a hereditarypretender.[30][31]
To lend credibility to the apparently fabricated lineage and pedigree, Plantard and his friend,Philippe de Chérisey, needed to create "independent evidence". So during the 1960s, they created and deposited a series of false documents, the most famous of which was entitledDossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau ("Secret Files of Henri Lobineau"), at theBibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. During the same decade, Plantard commissioned de Chérisey to forge two medievalparchments. These parchments contained encrypted messages that referred to the Priory of Sion.
They adapted, and used to their advantage, the earlier false claims put forward byNoël Corbu that a Catholic priest namedBérenger Saunière had supposedly discovered ancient parchments inside a pillar while renovating his church inRennes-le-Château in 1891. Inspired by the popularity of media reports and books in France about the discovery of theDead Sea Scrolls in theWest Bank, they hoped this same theme would attract attention to their parchments.[32] Their version of the parchments was intended to prove Plantard's claims about the Priory of Sion being a medieval secret society that was the source of the "underground stream" ofesotericism in Europe.[6]
Plantard then enlisted the aid of authorGérard de Sède to write a book based on his unpublished manuscript and forged parchments,[32] alleging that Saunière had discovered a link to a hidden treasure. The 1967 bookL'or de Rennes, ou La vie insolite de Bérenger Saunière, curé de Rennes-le-Château ("The Gold of Rennes, or The Strange Life of Bérenger Saunière, Priest of Rennes-le-Château"), which was later published in paperback under the titleLe Trésor Maudit de Rennes-le-Château ("The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château") in 1968, became a popular read in France. It included copies of the found parchments (the originals were, of course, never produced), though it did not provide the decoded hidden texts contained within them. One of the Latin texts in the parchments was copied from theNovum Testamentum, an attempted restoration of theVulgate byJohn Wordsworth and Henry White.[6]
The other text was copied from theCodex Bezae.[6] Based on the wording used, the versions of the Latin texts found in the parchments can be shown to have been copied from books first published in 1889 and 1895, which is problematic considering that de Sède's book was trying to make a case that these documents were centuries old. In 1969, English scriptwriter, producer and researcherHenry Lincoln became intrigued after readingLe Trésor Maudit. He discovered one of the encrypted messages, which read "À Dagobert II Roi et à Sion est ce trésor, et il est là mort" ("To Dagobert II, King, and to Sion belongs this treasure and he is there dead"). This was possibly an allusion to the tomb andshrine ofSigebert IV, a real or mythical son of Dagobert II which would not only prove that the Merovingian dynasty did not end with the death of the king, but that the Priory of Sion has been entrusted with the duty to protect hisrelics like a treasure.[1]
Lincoln expanded on the conspiracy theories, writing his own books on the subject, and inspiring and presenting threeBBC TwoChronicle documentaries between 1972 and 1979 about the alleged mysteries of the Rennes-le-Château area. In response to a tip from Gérard de Sède, Lincoln claims he was also the one who discovered theDossiers Secrets, a series of planted genealogies which appeared to further confirm the link with the extinct Merovingian bloodline. The documents claimed that the Priory of Sion and theKnights Templar were two fronts of one unified organisation with the same leadership until 1188.[1]
Letters in existence dating from the 1960s written by Plantard, de Chérisey and de Sède to each other confirm that the three were engaging in an out-and-outhoax. The letters describe schemes to combat criticisms of their various allegations and ways they would make up new allegations to try to keep the hoax alive. These letters (totalling over 100) are in the possession of French researcher Jean-Luc Chaumeil, who has also retained the original envelopes. A letter later discovered at the subprefecture of Saint-Julien-en-Genevois also indicated that Plantard had a criminal conviction as acon artist.[33][9]
As theChronicle documentaries on the topic became quite popular and generated thousands of responses, Lincoln then joined forces withMichael Baigent andRichard Leigh for further research. This led them to thepseudohistoricalDossiers Secrets at theBibliothèque nationale de France, which though alleging to portray hundreds of years of medieval history, were actually all written by Plantard and de Chérisey under the pseudonym of "Philippe Toscan du Plantier".
Unaware that the documents had been forged, Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh used them as a major source for their 1982 speculative nonfiction bookThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail,[1] in which they presented the followingmyths as facts to support their hypotheses:[34]
The authors re-interpreted theDossiers Secrets in the light of their own interest in questioning the Catholic Church's institutional reading ofJudeo-Christian history.[35] Contrary to Plantard's initialFranco-Israelist claim that the Merovingians were only descended from theTribe of Benjamin,[36] they asserted that:
The authors therefore concluded that the modern goals of the Priory of Sion are:
The authors incorporated theantisemitic andanti-Masonic tract known asThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion into their story, concluding that it was actually based on the master plan of the Priory of Sion. They presented it as the most persuasive piece of evidence for the existence and activities of the Priory of Sion by arguing that:
In reaction to thismemetic synthesis of investigative journalism with religiousconspiracism, many secular conspiracy theorists added the Priory of Sion to their list ofsecret societies collaborating or competing to manipulate political happenings from behind the scenes in their bid forworld domination.[37] Someoccultists speculated that the emergence of the Priory of Sion and Plantard closely followsThe Prophecies by M. Michel Nostradamus (unaware that Plantard wasintentionally trying to fulfill them).[38] FringeChristian eschatologists countered that it was a fulfilment ofprophecies found in theBook of Revelation and further proof of ananti-Christian conspiracy of epic proportions.[39]
Historians and scholars from related fields do not acceptThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail as a serious dissertation.[40] French authors like Franck Marie (1978),[41] Pierre Jarnac (1985),[42] (1988),[43] Jean-Luc Chaumeil (1994),[44] and more recently Marie-France Etchegoin and Frédéric Lenoir (2004),[45]Massimo Introvigne (2005),[46] Jean-Jacques Bedu (2005),[47] and Bernardo Sanchez Da Motta (2005),[48] have never taken Plantard and the Priory of Sion as seriously as Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh. They eventually concluded that it was all ahoax, outlining in detail the reasons for their verdict, and giving detailed evidence that theHoly Blood authors had not reported comprehensively.[49] They imply that this evidence had been ignored by Lincoln, Baigent, and Leigh to bolster the mythical version of the Priory's history that was developed by Plantard during the early 1960s after meeting authorGérard de Sède.[49]
In 1986, Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh publishedThe Messianic Legacy, a sequel toThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The authors assert that the Priory of Sion is not onlythe archetypalcabal but an ideal repository of the cultural legacy ofJewish messianism that could end the “crisis ofmeaning” within theWestern world by providing a Merovingiansacred king as amessianic figure in which the West and, by extension, humanity can place its trust. However, the authors are led to believe by Plantard that he had resigned asGrand Master of the Priory of Sion in 1984 and that the organisation has since gone underground in reaction to both an internal power struggle between Plantard and an “Anglo-American contingent” as well as a campaign ofcharacter assassination against Plantard in the press and books written by skeptics.[11]
Although Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh remain convinced that the pre-1956 history of the Priory of Sion is true, they confess to the possibility that all of Plantard's claims about a post-1956 Priory of Sion were part of an elaboratehoax to become a respected, influential and wealthy player in Frenchesotericist andmonarchist circles.[11]
In 1989, Plantard tried but failed to salvage his reputation and agenda as amystagogue in esotericist circles by claiming that the Priory of Sion had actually been founded in 1681 atRennes-le-Château, and was focused more on harnessing theparanormal power ofley lines and sunrise lines,[50] and a promontory called "Roc Noir" (Black Rock) in the area,[51] than installing a Merovingianpretender on the restored throne of France. In 1990, Plantard revised himself by claiming he was only descended from acadet branch of the line of Dagobert II, while arguing that the direct descendant was reallyOtto von Habsburg.[52][53]
In September 1993, while investigative judge Thierry Jean-Pierre was investigating the activities of multi-millionaireRoger-Patrice Pelat in the context of thePechiney-Triangle Affair, he was informed that Pelat may have once beenGrand Master of a secret society known as the Priory of Sion. Pelat's name had been on Plantard's list of Grand Masters since 1989. In fact, Pelat had died in 1989, while he was being indicted forinsider trading. Following a long established pattern of using dead people's names, Plantard "recruited" the "initiate" Pelat soon after his death and included him as the most recent Priory of Sion Grand Master.[54] Plantard had first claimed that Pelat had been a Grand Master in a Priory of Sion pamphlet dated 8 March 1989, then claimed it again later in a 1990 issue ofVaincre, the revived publication of Alpha Galates, apseudo-chivalric order created by Plantard inVichy France to support the "National Revolution".[55][56]
Pelat had been a friend ofFrançois Mitterrand, thenPresident of France, and at the centre of a scandal involving French Prime MinisterPierre Bérégovoy. As an investigative judge, Jean-Pierre could not dismiss any information brought to his attention pertaining to the case, especially if it might have led to a scandal similar to the one implicating an illegalMasonic lodge namedPropaganda Due in the 1982Banco Ambrosiano bank failure in Italy, Jean-Pierre ordered a search of Plantard's home. The search turned up a hoard of false documents, including some proclaiming Plantard the trueking of France. Plantard admitted under oath that he had fabricated everything, including Pelat's involvement with the Priory of Sion.[54][57] Plantard was threatened with legal action by the Pelat family and therefore disappeared to his house insouthern France. He was 74 years old at the time. Nothing more was heard of him until he died in Paris on 3 February 2000.[58]
On 27 December 2002, an open letter announced the revival of the Priory of Sion as anintegral traditionalist esoteric society, which stated that: "The Commanderies of Saint-Denis, Millau, Geneva and Barcelona are fully operative. According to the Tradition, the first Commanderie is under the direction of a woman", claiming there were 9,841 members.[59] It was signed byGino Sandri (who claims to be Plantard's former private secretary) under the title of General Secretary,[60] and by "P. Plantard" (Le Nautonnier, G. Chyren). Sandri is a well-versedoccultist who has spent his life infiltrating esoteric societies only to get expelled from them.[60] After interviewing Sandri, independent researcher Laurent Octonovo Buchholtzer wrote:
I’ve personally met this Gino Sandri on one occasion, and I had the opportunity to have a really good talk with him, but I think that he's simply seeking attention. He seemed to me to be something of a mythomaniac, which would certainly be an excellent qualification for being Secretary of the Priory of Sion. During our conversation he said something in passing that I found quite extraordinary. He said, “Ultimately, what is the Priory of Sion? It's nothing more than a well-known brand name, but with goodness knows what behind it?” He gave a good brief account of the phenomenon of the Priory of Sion. Thanks to Dan Brown, hundreds of millions of people now have “brand awareness”, and several million of them seem to take it seriously.[58]
Since 2016, Italianesotericist Marco Rigamonti has claimed to be the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion.[61]
As a result ofDan Brown's best-selling 2003conspiracy fiction novelThe Da Vinci Code[4] and the subsequent 2006film, there was a new level of public interest in the Priory of Sion. Brown's novel promotes the mythical version of the Priory but departs from the ultimate conclusions presented inThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Rather than plotting to create a Federal Europe ruled by aMerovingiansacred king descended from thehistorical Jesus, the Priory of Sion initiates its members into amystery cult seeking to restore thefeminist theology necessary for a complete understanding ofearly Christianity, which was supposedly suppressed by the Catholic Church. The author has presented this speculation as fact in his non-fiction preface, as well as in his public appearances and interviews.
Furthermore, in their 1987 sequelThe Messianic Legacy,[11] Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh suggested that there was a current conflict between the Priory of Sion and theSovereign Military Order of Malta, which they speculated might have originated from an earlier rivalry between theKnights Templar andKnights Hospitaller during theCrusades. However, for the dramatic structure ofThe Da Vinci Code, Brown chose thecontroversial Catholicpersonal prelatureOpus Dei as theAssassini-like nemesis of the Priory of Sion, despite the fact that no author had ever argued that there is a conflict between these two groups.
Further conspiracy theories were reported in the 2006 non-fiction bookThe Sion Revelation: The Truth About the Guardians of Christ's Sacred Bloodline byLynn Picknett and Clive Prince (authors of the 1997 non-fiction bookThe Templar Revelation, the principal source for Dan Brown's claims about hidden messages in the work ofLeonardo da Vinci).[14] They accepted that the pre-1956 history of the Priory of Sion was a hoax created by Plantard, and that his claim that he was a Merovingiandynast was a lie. However, they insist that this was part of a complexred herring intended to distract the public from the hidden agenda of Plantard and his"controllers". They argue that the Priory of Sion was afront organisation for one of the many crypto-political societies which have been plotting to create a "United States of Europe" in line with FrenchoccultistAlexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre'ssynarchist vision of an ideal form of government.
The 2008 documentaryBloodline[62] by 1244 Films and producers Bruce Burgess, a British filmmaker with an interest inparanormal claims and Rene Barnett, a Los Angeles researcher and television and filmmaker, expands on the "Jesus bloodline" hypothesis and other elements ofThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.[63] Accepting as valid the testimony of an amateur archaeologist codenamed "Ben Hammott" relating to his discoveries made in the vicinity ofRennes-le-Château since 1999, the film speculates that Ben has found the treasure ofBérenger Saunière: a mummified corpse, which Hammott claimed to believe isMary Magdalene, in an underground tomb purportedly connected to both the Knights Templar and the Priory of Sion. In the film, Burgess interviews several people with alleged connections to the Priory of Sion, including a Gino Sandri and Nicolas Haywood. A book by one of the documentary's researchers, Rob Howells, entitledInside the Priory of Sion: Revelations from the World's Most Secret Society – Guardians of the Bloodline of Jesus presented the version of the Priory of Sion as given in the 2008 documentary,[64] which contained several erroneous assertions, such as the claim that Plantard believed in the Jesus bloodline hypothesis.[65] On 21 March 2012, ahead of an impending public outing on the internet, Ben Hammott confessed and apologised on NightVision Radio, a podcast hosted by Bloodline Producer Rene Barnett (using his real name Bill Wilkinson) that everything to do with the tomb and related artifacts was a hoax; revealing that the actual tomb was now destroyed, being part of a full sized set located in a warehouse in England.[66]
The notional version of the Priory of Sion first referred to during the 1960s was supposedly led by a "Nautonnier", anOld French word for anavigator, which meansGrand Master in their internal esoteric nomenclature. The following list of Grand Masters is derived from theDossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau compiled by Plantard under thenom de plume of "Philippe Toscan du Plantier" in 1967. All those named on this list had died before that date. All but two are also found on lists of alleged “Imperators” (supreme heads) and “distinguished members” of theAncient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis that circulated in France at the time when Plantard was in touch with thisRosicrucian Order. Most of those named share the common thread of being known for having an interest in theoccult orheresy.[2]
TheDossiers Secrets asserted that the Priory of Sion and theKnights Templar always sharedthe same Grand Master until aschism occurred during the "Cutting of the elm" incident in 1188. Following that event, the Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion are listed inFrench as being:
A later document,Le Cercle d'Ulysse,[30] identifiesFrançois Ducaud-Bourget, a prominentTraditionalist Catholic priest who Plantard had worked for as asexton during World War II,[2] as the Grand Master following Cocteau's death. Plantard himself is later identified as the next Grand Master.
Pierre Plantard rejected theDossiers Secrets from the late 1980s and gave the Priory of Sion a completely different pedigree. For example the link with the Knights Templar was abolished, although the connection with Godfrey of Bouillon remained. Plantard attempted to make a comeback. The second list appeared inVaincre No. 3, September 1989, p. 22[67] which included the names of the deceased Roger-Patrice Pelat, and his own son Thomas Plantard de Saint-Clair:
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Likewise, there's an entire cottage industry devoted to disseminating crazy conspiracy theories about the Knights Templar, from Richard Metzger's Disinfo.com (which seems to be more interested in the believers than the belief) to Dagobert's Revenge, the New Jersey-based conspiracy zine to which industrial musician Boyd Rice is a prominent contributor (it's named for a murdered Merovingian king). I've heard everything from the Templars having hidden the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia to their having built a supposed medieval tower in Connecticut a hundred years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The sad truth is that, while remnants survived in such groups as the Knights of Christ in Portugal, the Templars have about as much effect on the modern world as does the Empire of Trebezonia.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link),National Review Online, 2006. Retrieved on 28 March 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) The April 1989, June 1989, September 1989, April 1990 issues ofVaincre were compiled together (with some of the articles modified) in 1992 and entitledLe Cercle: Rennes-le-Château et le Prieuré de Sion, consisting of 86 pages. This material was published in December 2007 by Pierre Jarnac inPégase, No 5 hors série, Le Prieuré de Sion – Les Archives de Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair – Rennes-le-Chateau – Gisors – Stenay (90 pages)"Archived copy". Archived fromthe original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved25 April 2012.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)