Holy Blood, Holy Grail

by Baigent, Michael

  31 Iremonger, William Temple, p. 490.

  32 A short biography of Hoffet is given in Descadeillas, Mythologie, p. 85ff. Hoffet was born at Schiltigheim, Alsace, on May 11, 1873. In 1884, he began his studies in Paris at the Maitrise de Montmartre, later continuing them at the Petit Séminaire de Notre-Dame de Sion, where he prepared to enter the Church. He began his novitiate at Saint-Gerlach in Holland and entered the religious order of Oblats de Marie in 1892. At Liege he was ordained as a priest in 1898. He worked then as a missionary, first in Corsica, then back in France. In 1903-04 he was in Rome. He returned to Paris to live in 1914 and died there in March 1946. He wrote prolifically, particularly for specialist magazines on religious history. He was a linguist, fluent in Greek, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. De Sède, Le Vrai Dossier, p. 33ff, reports that Descadeillas, while publicly disparaging any idea of a "mystery" at Rennes, nevertheless in 1966 wrote to the authorities of the Oblats de Marie to ask whether there was any proof that Hoffet ever preached in Rennes-le-Chateau. De Sède reports that the archivist of Hoffet’s order wrote, "Hoffet is the author of some very interesting studies on Freemasonry, of which he had made a particular study, and 1 have unearthed a number of his manuscripts . . . I have ordered that the particularly interesting documents be placed in security." See also Chaumeil, Triangle d’Or, p. 106ff.

  33 Papus was born in Spain on July 13, 1865. In 1887 he joined the Theosophist Association but in 1888 left to found his own group—on Martinist principles. In the same year he was one of the founding members of the Ordre Kabbalistic de la Rose-Croix, along with Péladan and Stanislas de Guaïta. In 1889 together with these two and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, he founded the review L’Initiation. In 1891 a "supreme council’’ of the Martinist order was formed in Paris with Papus as grand master. At about this time Papus helped Doinel found the Gnostic Catholic Church. In 1895 Doinel withdrew, leaving the church in the care of Papus and two others, under the jurisdiction of a patriarch. Doinel then went to Carcassonne. This same year Papus became a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn in the Paris lodge Ahathoor. During the 1890s Papus was a friend of Emma Calve. In 1899 one of his close friends, Philippe de Lyon, went to Russia and established a Martinist lodge at the imperial court. In 1900 Papus himself went to St. Petersburg, where he became a confidant of the czar and czarina. He visited Russia on at least three occasions, the last in 1906. During this time he made the acquaintance of Rasputin. Papus later became grand master in France of the Ordis Temple Orientis and lodge of Memphis and Misraim. He died on October 25, 1916.

  34 Nilus, Protocols. This work had, by the 1960s, been through some eighty-three editions, which would tend to suggest that anti-Semitism is rife in Great Britain. The publishing company, Britons Publishing (now part of Augustine Publishing, a Catholic traditionalist press) also had such titles as Jews’ Ritual Slaughter (price 3d), Jews and the White Slave Traffic (price 2d), and so on.

  35 For the history of the Protocols see Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, and Bernstein, Truth about "The Protocols," which reproduces in full translations of the various suggested sources for the Protocols. The standard anti-Semitic history is detailed in Fry, Waters Flowing Eastward. This is a controversial document by any standards. It gives, among other things, a photograph "proving" that Czar Nicolas II was killed in ritual murder by a Jewish Cabalist! To see this type of illiterature still being published in 1965 is somewhat disconcerting.

  36 Nilus, Protocols, no. 13.

  37 Lodge of Memphis and Misraim. See n. 34.

  38 Nilus, Protocols, no. 24. This statement does not appear in some earlier editions of the Protocols.

  39 Nilus, Protocols, no. 24.

  40 Blancasall, Les Descendents, p. 6.

  41 See the preface by Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair in the 1978 Belfond reprint of Boudet, La Vraie Langue celtique.

  42 Chaumeil, Triangle d’Or, p. 136.

  43 See Rosnay, Le Hiéron du Val d’Or.

  44 Chaumeil, Triangle d’Or, p. 139ff.

  8 The Secret Society Today

  1 Philippe de Chérisey, an associate of Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair, has written an allegorical "novel" called Circuit. The subject matter ranges from Atlantis to Napoleon. It has twenty-two chapters, each taking its title from one of the tarot major trumps. It exists in a single example at the Versailles annex of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Part involves the story of two symbolic personages, Charlot and Madeleine, who find a treasure at Rennes-le-Château. See Chaumeil, Triangle d’or, p. 141ff. for this extract.

  2 Prieuré de Sion: Statutes, Articles XI and XII. Received by the Sous-Prefecture, Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, May 7, 1956. File Number KM 94550.

  3 Midi Libre (Feb. 13, 1973), p. 5.

  4 Myriam, "Les Bergers d’Arcadie," Le Charivari, no. 18, p. 49ff.

  5 Contained in Henri Lobineau, Dossiers secrets, p. 1.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Ibid.

  8 Roux, S., L’Affaire de Rennes-le-Château. In another part of the Dossiers secrets, a page written by one Edmond Albe, S. Roux is identified as the Abbé Georges de Nantes. In his book (Les Dessous, p. 82) Mathieu Paoli claims the same identification. Georges de Nantes is the head of the "Catholic Counter Reformation in the XX Century" and author of the sustained attack on Pope Paul VI, Liber Accusationis in Paulum Sextum. In this he accuses Pope Paul of being a heretic. He would seem in fact to be in much the same camp as M. Lefebvre. Intrigued that this identification appeared to be uncontested, we wrote to Abbé Georges de Nantes, giving him the quote from Paoli’s book, requesting comments, and asking whether he would confirm or deny M. Paoli’s assertion. The Abbe de Nantes wrote back, saying that he gets asked from time to time for explanations concerning this text and he could only repeat that he has nothing to do with S. Roux. Moreover, he added, "Such a text is a true tissue of absurdities. How could you take it seriously?’’

  9 Roux, L’Affaire de Rennes-le-Château, p. 1.

  10 Ibid., p. 2.

  11 Ibid., p. 2.

  12 Delaude, Cercle d’Ulysse, p. 6 (v).

  13 The Guardian (London, Sept. 11, 1976), p. 13.

  14 Monsignor Brunon, who replaced Lefebvre as bishop of Tulle, said that in his opinion Lefebvre was being manipulated by others. See The Guardian (London, Sept. 1, 1976), p. 4. Gianfranco Svidercoschi, described by The Times as being "an experienced and usually well informed Vatican correspondent," declared the Pope to be aware that "Msr. Lefebvre was being conditioned surreptitiously by other people." See The Times (London, Aug. 31, 1976), p. 12.

  15 The Guardian (Aug. 30, 1976), p. 16. Intrigued by this, we wrote to Father Peter Morgan, asking him if he would clarify this matter. Father Morgan did not reply.

  16 We have a copy only of the article, with no source acknowledged, so there is no way of determining which magazine.

  17 Our latest information is that they are now back in France.

  18 Le Charivari, no. 18, p. 56ff.

  19 The old statutes were registered with the subprefecture on May 7, 1956. According to the second issue of Circuit, dated June 3, 1956, a meeting was held that week to discuss statutes. The statutes bearing Cocteau’s signature are dated June 5, 1956.

  20 Bonne Soirée, no. 3053 (August 14, 1980), p. 14.

  21 We have, during the writing of this book, consulted a large number of works dealing with the genealogies of noble families, both ancient and contemporary. We have never found a single reference to the title Plantard de Saint-Clair. However, this failure to find his name doesn’t invalidate the claim, especially since he admits it to have been clandestine for centuries.

  22 Le Charivari, no. 18, p. 60, Gisors et son secret.

  23 During the making of the film The Priest, the Painter and the Devil for the BBC, we received from de Sède’s publishers a mass of visual material that had been used in the books. All the photographs were stamped "Plantard" on the reverse.

  24 Le Charivari, no. 18, p. 55.

  25 Ibid.

  26 Ibid., p. 53.


  27 We received from M. Plantard a photocopy of a legally certified deposition by a named member of the Legion d’Honneur and officer in the French Resistance during the Second World War. It states that Pierre Plantard clandestinely produced the Resistance journal Vaincre from 1941. It furthermore states that M. Plantard was imprisoned by the Gestapo at Fresnes from October 1943 until February 1944. This deposition is stamped and dated May 11, 1953.

  Checking this did not prove to be a straightforward task. First, there were many journals named Vaincre published by various Resistance groups during the war. However, the magazine involved would seem to be the Vaincre issued by the Comité Local du Front National de Lutte pour l’Independence de la France, a copy of which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, dated April 1943. It was produced in Saint-Cloud, Paris.

  We wrote to the historical service of the French army asking for details on the Resistance activities of M. Plantard. We received a letter from the French ministry of defense informing us that this information was personal and confidential.

  28 See Vazart, Abrégé de l’histoire des Francs, pp. 271, 272, nn. 1 and 2. The latter note contains the text of the letter from General de Gaulle.

  29 This information came from Jean-Luc Chaumeil, in conversation with him. We sought to check on M. Paoli, beginning with Swiss television, as we knew he had worked for them at the time he wrote his book. The administrative chief of Radio-Television Suisse Romande told us that M. Paoli had left in 1971. He was said to have gone to Israel and worked for Israeli television at Tel Aviv. The trail unfortunately ended here.

  30 Paoli, Les Dessous, p. 86.

  31 The copies of Circuit, some of which are available at the Versailles Annex, are a prime example of the obscure manner in which the story has been made available.

  The first series of Circuit begins on May 27, 1956, and runs weekly until a special edition that follows issue number 11 and is dated September 2, 1956. The magazines are mimeographed and generally consist of two to four pages. They issue from Sous-Cassan, Annemasse, and each has an introduction by Pierre Plantard. Many contain the minutes of the meetings held to discuss the drawing up and registration of the statutes of the Prieuré de Sion with the subprefecture at Annemasse, though the name of the Prieuré is not mentioned once. In fact, the ostensible concern of all the issues of the magazine is low-cost housing. The organization behind the magazine is not called the Prieuré de Sion, but the Organization for the Defense of the Rights and the Liberty of Low-cost Homes! (A certain sense of humor pervades many of the Prieuré documents.) At the same time, however, names that appear in Sion’s statutes appear in these issues of Circuit. There was one issue, however (no. 8, July 22, 1956) that contained an article by a certain M. Defagot (who appears on Sion’s Statutes as treasurer) about astrology, explaining a system using thirteen astrological signs rather than twelve. The thirteenth sign is one called Ophiuchus and is placed between Scorpio and Sagittarius.

  The second issues of Circuit appeared in 1959 and are called the Cultural Periodical of the Federation of French Forces. Many of them have disappeared. We found numbers 2 (August 1959), 3 (September 1959), 5 (November 1959), and 6 (December 1959). Mathieu Paoli records the existence of a number 1 (July 1959) and a number 4. In addition there is mention of a number 8 in Le Charivari. It thus appears that someone has removed the missing issues.

  The magazines contain articles on subjects ranging from Atlantis to astrology. Some contain political predictions for the years ahead computed astrologically by Pierre Plantard. On the reverse, all the magazines are stamped with the symbol of the organization and the stamp of "Plantard."

  32 Vazart, Abrégé de l’histoire des Francs, p. 271.

  33 Paoli, Les dessous, p. 94.

  34 Ibid.

  35 Ibid., p. 94ff.

  36 Ibid., p. 102.

  37 Ibid., p. 103.

  38 Ibid., p. 112.

  9 The Long-haired Monarchs

  1 Cochet, Le Tombeau de Childeric Ier; Dumas, Le Tombeau de Childeric.

  2 According to Cochet, Le Tombeau de Childeric Ier, p. 25, Leopold Wilhelm (who was also grand master of the Teutonic Knights) kept twenty-seven of the bees for himself while giving up the rest. We may be speculating too far but it is interesting to note that the Prieuré de Sion at the time had twenty-seven commanderies.

  3 Our first inkling that Napoleon was connected with this story came with the numerous references in the Dossiers genealogies, which noted among their sources the work of an Abbé Pichon. Between 1805 and 1814 Pichon completed a study of the Merovingian descent from Dagobert II until November 20, 1809, when Jean XXII des Plantard was born in Sémélay (Nièvre). His sources were stated to be documents discovered following the French Revolution. Additional information was contained in the Alpina publication of Madeleine Blancasall, which stated (p. 1) that Abbé Pichon was commissioned by Sieyès (Official of the Directory, 1795-99) and Napoleon. A comprehensive body of material is contained in L’Or de Rennes pour un Napoléon by Philippe de Chérisey, which is now on microfiche at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Briefly, Chérisey says that the Abbé Sieyès, via Pichon’s researches on the captured royal archives, knew of the survival of the Merovingians. He told the story to Napoleon, whom he then urged to marry Josephine, the ex-wife of a Merovingian descendant, Alexandre de Beauharnais. Napoleon later adopted her two children, who carried the "blood royal."

  Later Napoleon commissioned Abbé Pichon (whose real name is said to be François Dron) to complete a definitive genealogy. Napoleon was interested, among other things, in the indications that the Bourbon dynasty was in fact illegitimate. And his coronation as Emperor of the French (not of France), in a ceremony with significant Merovingian resonances, is said to be a result of Sieyès’ and Pichon’s studies. If this is so, Napoleon was setting up the foundation for a renewed Merovingian empire. Being childless by Josephine, he then married Marie Louise, the daughter of the Hapsburg Austrian Emperor, of Merovingian descent. She bore his son, Napoleon II, who carried the "blood royal" of the Merovingians. The latter, however, died childless. But the future Napoleon III, son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnais (daughter of Josephine by her first marriage) also carried the "blood royal.’’

  Chérisey also implies coyly that Archduke Karl (brother of Napoleon’s wife) was bribed to lose the battle of Wagram in 1809 in exchange for part of the Merovingian treasure, which Napoleon had found in the Razes. This treasure was later discovered at Petroassa in 1837, then a Hapsburg domain. Given the Merovingian descent of the Hapsburgs, it is clear why they would value it.

  4 Carpenter, Folktale, Fiction and Saga, p. 112ff.

  5 The Roman name for Artemis was Diana, and another name for the Arduina cult was "Diana of the Ardennes." A huge statue to her existed until it was destroyed by Saint Vulfilau in the sixth century. Her cult was a moon cult, with images of her carrying the crescent moon. She was also considered to be the deity of fountains and springs. The foundation of the Abbey of Orval, which legend intertwines with a mystic spring, may well suggest some vestige of a Diana/Arduina cult. See Calmet, "Des Divinités," p. 25ff.

  6 For example, see Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, Book v, Ch. 44.

  7 Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings, p. 203ff.

  8 Ibid., p. 158.

  9 Dill, Roman Society in Gaul, p. 88.

  10 Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings, p. 171.

  11 The major sources for the life of Dagobert II are Digot, Histoire du Royaume d’Austrasie, Vol. 3, p. 220ff. and p. 249ff., (ch. XV) and p. 364ff.; Folz, Tradition hagiographique, and Vincent, Histoire fidelle de St. Sigisbert.

  12 Lanigan, An Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 3, p. 101.

  13 Henri Lobineau, Dossiers secrets, planche no. 1, 600-900; Blancasall, Les Descendants, p. 8 and tableau no. 1.

  14 De Sède’s statement receives some support from the known facts about Saint Amatus’ life. He incurred the enmity of the same Ebroin, mayor of the palace to King Thierry
III, who was behind the assassination of Dagobert II. He was displaced from his bishopric at about the same time that Dagobert returned to his rightful heritage. The coincidence of dates could well reflect his involvement in Dagobert’s return. Dagobert would have been most likely to travel back to his kingdom via Saint Amatus’ bishopric. To travel directly up from the Razes would involve traveling through the territory of Thierry III.

  15 Henri Lobineau, Dossiers secrets, planche no. 2, 1500-1650. Blancassal, Les Descendants, p. 8. This treasure joins the list of the other treasures either once or still in the Rennes-le-Château area.

  16 Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings, p. 238.

  17 Called Satanicum in the Latin charters, a name derived from a temple to Saturn once situated here.

  18 Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings, p. 238.

  19 For an exploration of the cult see Folz, Tradition hagiographique.

  20 Digot, A., Histoire du Royaume d’Austrasie, Vol. 3, p. 370ff.

  21 Interestingly Jules Doinel, creator of the Gnostic Catholic Church and librarian at Carcassonne, published in 1899 a short work deploring the displacement of the Merovingians by the Carolingians. See Doinel, Note sur le Roi Hildérik III.

  22 Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings, p. 246.

  23 Ibid., p. 248.

  24 Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, p. 81.

  25 Paoli, Les Dessous, p. 111.

  26 Dagobert II was "rediscovered" in 1646 by Adrien de Valois. He was fully restored to the genealogies of the Merovingians by the Jesuit Bollandiste Henschenius in Diatriba de tribus Dagobertus in 1655. See Folz, Tradition hagiographique, p. 33. It is interesting, given this lack of knowledge of Dagobert II at the time, that Robert Denyau mentions him in the Calendarium Martyrology appended to his Histoire ... de Gisors, dated 1629.

  27 Delaude, Cercle d’Ulysse, p. 4. This charter supposedly originates from Villas Capitanarias later called Trapas and relates to the foundation of the monastery Saint Martin d’Albières. We tried to locate the charter without success. The archives of Capitanarias are held in the Archives de l’Aude, Series H. But the charter does not appear. Thus it was with interest that we noted a letter to M. Jean Delaude, asking for his source of information on the document. The writer of this letter was a member of the University of Lille. Jean Delaude replied that the charter existed in the French National Archives, that it was uncatalogued, and that even with the help of an archivist it had taken him two months to trace it. Although all such archival collections contain vast amounts of uncatalogued material, he gave no information on how this charter could be traced by anyone else. See Chérisey, L’Enigme de Rennes, letters number 4 and 5 (1977).