Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair (born Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard, March 18, 1920 – February 3, 2000) was a French technical artist. He is most known for creating a fake group called the Priory of Sion. He claimed, starting in the 1960s, that he was a descendant from the Merovingian royal family through his father’s side and that he was the "Great Monarch" predicted by the famous 16th-century poet Nostradamus. In France today, he is often seen as a person who tricked others for personal gain.
Early life
Pierre Plantard was born in 1920 in Paris, France. His parents were a butler and a concierge, described in police records from the 1940s as a cook for wealthy families. He left school at age 17 and became a sacristan, or church worker, at the church of Saint-Louis d’Antin in the 9th Arrondissement of Paris. In 1937, he began forming groups like The French Union (1937) and French National Renewal (1941) to support a "National Revolution."
After the Grand Orient Freemasonry in Vichy France was dissolved on August 13, 1940, Plantard wrote a letter on December 16, 1940, to Marshal Philippe Pétain, offering his help to the collaborationist government. He claimed there was a "terrible Masonic and Jewish conspiracy." On April 21, 1941, Plantard informed the Paris Police Prefecture that his group, French National Renewal, planned to take over a building at 22 place Malesherbes, 1st floor, currently rented by an English Jew named Mr. Shapiro, who was fighting for the British military. By 1942, Plantard wanted to create another group called Alpha Galates, which banned Jewish members. However, German authorities refused permission.
The Alpha Galates’ rules were recorded on September 21, 1942, describing itself as a group divided into three parts: the Temple, la Cité, and les Arches. The group published a magazine called Vaincre – Pour une jeune chevalerie ("Conquer – for a young knighthood"), which ran for six issues from September 1942 to February 1943. The magazine promoted anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic ideas. Plantard’s refusal to follow German rules about forming Alpha Galates led to a four-month prison sentence in Fresnes Prison. The Alpha Galates’ rules were also written in German.
In 1945, a police report stated the Alpha Galates had at most 50 members, who left the group one by one after realizing its president, Pierre Plantard, was not serious about the organization. After France was liberated, Plantard tried to turn Alpha Galates into a resistance group and formed "The Latin Academy" in 1947.
On July 8, 1951, Plantard joined Freemasonry in the Grand Orient de France through the lodge L’Avenir du Chablais in Ambilly. In 1951, he married Anne-Léa Hisler (1930–1970). They lived in Annemasse, near the Swiss border, until their separation in 1956. At the same time, Plantard worked as a draughtsman for the company établissements Chanovin. In 1972, he married Anne-Marie Cavaille, who came from Montauban, with Philippe de Chérisey as his best man.
In 1953, Robert Amadou (1924–2006) claimed Plantard sold esoteric order degrees for high prices. However, a more reliable source, a 1956 letter from Léon Guersillon, the mayor of Annemasse, stated Plantard was sentenced to six months in prison in December 1953 for abus de confiance (breach of trust) related to other crimes. French researchers question the connection between Amadou and Plantard.
On June 25, 1956, Plantard and André Bonhomme legally registered a new group called the Priory of Sion in Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, near Annemasse. The group aimed to build low-cost housing and criticized local government through its journal Circuit. The name "Sion" referred to a local mountain, Mont-Sion, where the group planned a retreat center. The Priory of Sion dissolved by December 1956.
By 1958, Plantard returned to Paris, supporting General de Gaulle during the Algerian Crisis. He created his own version of a Committee of Public Safety, calling it the "Central Committee," and used the name "Captain Way," claiming it was linked to General Jacques Massu’s official committee in Algeria. De Gaulle opposed all Committees of Public Safety, allowed free elections in Algeria, and supported its independence in 1962.
In 1959, Plantard edited a second series of Circuit, titled Publication Périodique Culturelle de la Fédération des Forces Françaises. The journal did not mention the Priory of Sion and focused on paranormal and mystical topics. At the same time, Plantard offered services as a clairvoyant under the name "Chyren."
In this second series of Circuit, Plantard claimed he received a letter from President Charles de Gaulle dated June 27, 1959. Louis Vazart mentioned a letter from de Gaulle to Plantard dated July 29, 1958, and another dated August 3, 1958, thanking him for his support during the Algerian crisis. However, none of these letters have ever been found.
Priory of Sion hoax
In 1961, author Gérard de Sède wrote an article for the magazine Noir et blanc about the Château de Gisors in Normandy. This article connected the castle to claims made by Roger Lhomoy, who since 1946 had said the site held the treasure of the Knights Templar. After reading the article, Plantard wrote to de Sède and later helped him write the book Les Templiers sont parmi nous, ou, L'Enigme de Gisors ("The Templars Are Among Us, or The Enigma of Gisors"), published in 1962. The book included the name "Priory of Sion."
In 1962, author Robert Charroux published a book called Trésors du monde ("Treasures of the World"), which told the story of Noël Corbu. Corbu claimed that a 19th-century priest named Bérenger Saunière had discovered the treasure of Blanche of Castile in the village of Rennes-le-Château. This story inspired Plantard to write his own book about the topic. However, Plantard could not find a publisher for his manuscript. Gérard de Sède then rewrote the manuscript, and the book L'Or de Rennes was published in 1967. The book changed Corbu’s story to match Plantard’s claims about the survival of the line of Merovingian king Dagobert II. Plantard began saying he was descended from Dagobert II in 1964, when he started placing false documents in the Bibliothèque nationale that described the secret history of the Priory of Sion.
The Priory of Sion documents included false family trees that linked Plantard’s family to a genealogy from an article by Louis Saurel in the French magazine Les Cahiers de l'Histoire (Number 1, 1960). Plantard originally said these genealogies were created by a Doctor Hervé and Abbé Pichon (a real person who lived from 1828 to 1905), at the request of Napoleon Bonaparte. He claimed this information came from Abbé Sieyès. Plantard also said that Abbé Pierre Plantard, a former vicar of the Basilica of St. Clotilde in Paris (falsely claiming they were related), made genealogies about the survival of the line of Dagobert II on 18 March 1939. Later, Plantard’s friend and accomplice, Philippe de Chérisey, said that Abbé Pichon was a pseudonym for François Dron, a different historical person who was a numismatist.
In the 1980s, Jean-Luc Chaumeil revealed that Plantard’s genealogical claims were fictional adaptations of Louis Saurel’s 1960 article. In response, Plantard released a "cheque" dated 14 April 1960, showing that his former wife, Anne-Léa Hisler, had been paid for the article in Les Cahiers de l'Histoire, and he claimed she was the original author.
The Priory Documents from the 1960s described a revised history of the Priory of Sion, saying it was founded by Godfrey of Bouillon during the Crusades and named after Mount Sion in Jerusalem. This mixed the Priory with a real historical group, the Abbey of Our Lady of Mount Zion.
De Sède’s book was most famous for including two "parchments" that were said to have been discovered by Saunière. These parchments hinted at the survival of the line of Dagobert II. However, Plantard and de Sède had a disagreement over book royalties after L'Or de Rennes was published in 1967. Philippe de Chérisey, Plantard’s friend and accomplice, later said he had forged the "parchments." Despite this, de Sède’s book made Pierre Plantard famous as the guardian of the secret of Rennes-le-Château.
By 1978, Plantard claimed his grandfather had met Bérenger Saunière in Rennes-le-Château and that Saunière’s wealth came from the Abbé Henri Boudet, the parish priest of the nearby village of Rennes-les-Bains.
When the "parchments" were first published in de Sède’s book L'Or de Rennes in 1967, it was said that Saunière had discovered four parchments in a hollow pillar of his church. In L'Enigme de Rhedae (1964), Henri Lobineau said Saunière had found documents with the royal seal of Blanche of Castile, showing the line of Dagobert II created by Abbé Pichon between 1805 and 1814. These parchments claimed the Merovingians were descended from the Tribe of Benjamin and that Dagobert II had hidden an "accursed" treasure in Rennes-le-Château.
A 1965 Priory document said that Abbé Antoine Bigou, one of Saunière’s predecessor curés in Rennes-le-Château, had hidden the parchments in 1790 in the hollow pillar supporting the church altar. Bigou had learned about the secret of Rennes-le-Château on 17 January 1781 at the deathbed of Marie de Negri d'Ables, Marquise d'Hautpoul-Blanchefort. There were four parchments total, two of which were reproduced in de Sède’s book (their contents were described in the 1965 document), and the other two contained genealogies made by Abbé Bigou (from 1548 to 1789) and Henri Lobineau (from 1780 to 1915).
In 1967, de Chérisey said the parchments in L'Or de Rennes were fakes. This led to new claims about Saunière’s discovery. Based on a 1966 fake letter in Dossiers Secrets (allegedly written by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers), which adapted material from a 1964 book by René Descadeillas involving François-Pierre d'Hautpoul, a 1977 Priory document by Jean Delaude, Le Cercle d'Ulysse, said Saunière had discovered three documents: 1) a genealogy of the Counts of Rhedae dated 1243 with the royal seal of Blanche of Castile, 2) documents showing the line of Dagobert II created by Abbé Pichon between 1805 and 1814, and
Death
No one heard from Plantard again until he died in Paris on February 3, 2000. His remains were cremated.