The Priory of Sion Part 2: The First Gauls

 

A previous incarnation

The creation of an association is no big deal. Still, it should be noted that the Priory wasn’t Plantard’s first such creation. That honour goes to the “Ordre Alpha Galates”. The statutes of the Alpha Galates are dated December 27, 1937, but if they were truly from that period, we note that they were only registered in 1942. The official publication in the Journal came in September 1944, after the war had ended.
The official purpose of the association is to provide aid for young people who had suffered under the German occupation, but equally describes itself as being led by knightly and patriotic ideals through mutual support and group activities. This wording is of course identical to the 1956 statutes, as is the inner organisation: nine grades, though this time lead not by a helmsman, but by “His Druidic Majesty”. The statutes also say that the organisation is divided into two groups, the Legion and the Phalanx, and is organised into Arches and provinces, like the Priory, suggesting that the statutes of the Priory were partially reused from the organisation of the Alpha Galates. Also, we find that the order is registered at Plantard’s home address – he was living in Paris at the time.

A lot has been made about the inclusion that “the Order is rigorously closed to Jews” – as well as Masons. For 1942, this would have been a logical social exclusion. Freemasonry had just been officially disbanded by the Nazi regime, which was equally not known for its Jewish admiration. Anyone creating an organisation during the Second World War would thus have thought it would protect the members and the officers by underlining the “Nazi desires” in the statutes and make it explicit that the association was not going against the Nazi line. Even if the Alpha Galates were trying to save Jews from the concentration camps, it would still have been a clever and good tactic to include the “no Jews or Masons please” statement in the statutes.

Like the Priory, the Order had a magazine, Vaincre (Conquer), of which Plantard was editor; he was also “His Druidic Majesty” and claimed to be writing “for a young knighthood”. He wrote that he was trying to revive the chivalric ideal amongst the French youth and Vaincre was its mechanism. This time, he did not use “Chyren” as his alias, but signed as Pierre de France or Pierre de France-Plantard, underlining his ambition to lead the French into a new era.
Like the Priory, Vaincre did not last long: only six issues were produced between September 1942 and February 1943. The magazine was published monthly, on the 21st, was four pages long and its circulation mounted from 1400 to 4500 copies. Like CIRCUIT, it was given away free. An important question is who financed the printing costs, as Plantard was still a teenager, with no identified source of income. We will answer this question later.

Mis-sion

The name “Alpha Galates” was taken from the Bible – again a clear parallel with the Priory. Alpha Galates literally translates as the “First Gauls”, and it was St Paul who preached to the Galatians. Was Plantard “de France” preaching to his flock? The “Gauls”? Did Plantard see his mission in the same light as St Paul’s, namely to convert the French?
It is known that Plantard was preaching, frequently referring to France’s mythical ancient past. Unlike CIRCUIT, Vaincre did discuss mystical subjects, such as ancient wisdom, the Celts [the Gauls] and Atlantis. Many have noted that in the 1960s and 1970s, Plantard had a specific fascination with Henri Boudet and that he was instrumental in bringing the latter’s The True Celtic Language to the attention of the Rennes-le-Château community. Few seem to have observed that this may have been a direct consequence from his earlier fascination with the Celts and the Gauls, an interest that went back to the days of Vaincre – three decades before he wrote the foreword to a reprint of Boudet’s work.
One of the articles in Vaincre, written by Lecomte-Moncharville, reads: “When Christianity removed the Druids, the Atlantean tradition was preserved by monks who used it to create the Order of Galates, the brother order of the Cistercians.” We note that the Knights Templar were the brother order of the Cistercians. In the 1960s, Plantard would argue that the Priory of Sion separated from the Knights and that they were therefore a brother order of the Knights Templar too. But, once again, the fascination for a “Templar brother order”, whether known as Sion or Galates, was present with Plantard – and company – decades before Lincoln made the Priory of Sion and Plantard notorious.

Was what was written in the statutes its true purpose, or was there another purpose? Just like Picknett & Prince believe that CIRCUIT reads like a Resistance journal, was Vaincre – published during the war – a Resistance Journal? Plantard claimed it was. We will return to the subject, but it may be that Plantard was indeed preaching to the Resistance… The Resistance was all about throwing out the German oppressor and reclaiming France to its rightful people. Propaganda tactics often involve mythical imagery and legendary content: from Braveheart to King Arthur, the story is there to inspire and spur people to action.
Still, if both Vaincre and CIRCUIT were Resistance journals, it is clear that the former was propaganda to unite the French – and mainly the youth, whereas the latter was a ciphered document, providing key information to his “cell members”.

Emblem

There is a further parallel between the emblem of the Order and the Priory. That of the Order is a knight on horseback, carrying a flag bearing a symbol that would later become the seal of the Priory. The emblem contains “Etats-Unis d’Occident”, United States of the West, reflecting its mission statement that it hoped that the organisation would appeal to the young knighthood, that it would have counterparts throughout Europe, and that it would lead to the foundation of the “United States of the West”. The knight is depicted as riding towards a rising sun that encircles the sign for Aquarius – popular until the late 1960s as the sign of a New Age to come. Here, the road – or should we read path or even “circuit”? – is accompanied by dates and places: it begins with the date 1937 and ends with 1946; the path goes from Brittany to Bavaria. We must note that the statutes were dated December 27, 1937 and the emblem does seem to suggest 1937 was the “real” start of the mission of the Order.

A Masonic order

The Priory states that it is independent, but the Order was not. The Alpha Galates was part of the Grand Loge du Rite Rectifié and was therefore a Masonic order. It is therefore quite intriguing to read that the Order was officially not open to Masons – and it underlines that the statutes were more than likely paying lip service to the Nazi regime. The reference to “mutual support” in the statutes thus also takes on a Freemasonic cachet. Furthermore, December 27 has Saint John the Evangelist asa patron saint, who is, together with John the Baptist, the main protector of Freemasonry.
How did Plantard accomplish this Masonic alliance? The consensus is that two co-operators were instrumental in this: Robert Amadou and Camille Savoire. Much later – in 1989 – Plantard would claim that another person, George Monti, was the real inspiration for the Order, and that its foundation occurred on February 6, 1934. This predates 1937 by three years and it therefore seems to unlikely to be true. Still, it seems that it is what Plantard either saw as the “cause” that gave rise to the Order, or what he wanted the Order to be originating from. February 6, 1934 was an auspicious day, as it was remembered as a outbreak of violence on the streets of Paris, with right wing demonstrations of up to 40,000 people. During the demonstrations, the police opened fire, killing 16, injuring 650 – with 1600 policemen injured. The event caused the resignation of Prime Minister Dedouard Daladier.

The puppet masters

Reading Vaincre, we know that Vaincre was not a one man show – though some have argued that it is, thus arguing that Plantard wrote all of the articles himself, using real – and famous – people’s names. Even if he did, he still needed a sponsor. Thus, the authors include Maurice Lecomte-Moncharville, Robert Amadou, Plantard himself, Camille Savoire, Jacques Brosse and Gabriel Trarieux d’Egmont, as well as a professor of law, Louis le Fur. Some of these articles seem to have been written specifically for Vaincre, some others were definitely taken from existing publications. Robert Amadou later stated he did purposefully write articles for Vaincre. Questioned as to what its purpose was, he suggested that its focus was political. Amadou refused to further discuss Alpha Galates, saying: “For my part, I have never been involved in political activity, before or since.”
Le Fur would later state that at the time Vaincre was created (1937), Moncharville was its “Druidic Majesty”, but that in September 1942, Moncharville resigned in favour of Pierre Plantard, then 22 years old – and thus no longer a legal minor.
But most importantly, the end of Vaincre coincided with the death of Maurice Lecomte-Moncharville in February 1943, which suggests that he paid for the publication. It also suggests that Moncharville was indeed the true mastermind behind the Order, which thus coincides with the statutes. He may have given Plantard the reign in the months leading up to his death, though the organisation in retrospect could not survive without his financial backing, which covered the printing costs.

The other instrumental person was Savoire. When Plantard would later state that Georges Monti was his mentor, he also said that he was introduced to Monti in 1934 (when Plantard was only fourteen years old) by his family doctor, Camille Savoire. Though the Monti connection cannot be proven, we do know that he spoke about it in 1942. Even if not true, it is true that Savoire did know Plantard.
If true, we note that Monti died in 1936, so Plantard cannot have known him for long. Perhaps the Order – if we accept the 1937 date as its birth – may have been seen as the incorporation of the ideas of Monti, which Plantard tried to realise. As an aside, Monti died quite young (aged 56). He was believed to have been poisoned, in October 1936 – a few days after the bulletin of the Grand Lodge of France denounced him as an impostor and Jesuit spy. (He was raised by Jesuits.) Monti is best described as a “serial esoteric society joiner”, who also wanted to rise to the highest ranks in each of them. This may have been the reason why he was considered to be an infiltrator. Though most likely done for purely personal reasons, there may, of course, have been more to this incessant infiltration on his part – i.e. perhaps he was indeed a spy or perhaps he was charged by someone with a mission. And if the latter, did he impart Plantard with a mission of his own? Or was Plantard indeed just a man trying to make a name for himself and satisfying a personal desire, like Monti?
To conclude regarding Monti, we should note that he did mingle with the great: he became secretary to Josephin Peladan, but was also closely associated with Gerard Encausse, better known as Papus, who dispatched him on a secret mission to Egypt in 1908. Monti also worked inside the OTO, and thus became exposed to Aleister Crowley, the self-styled Beast (666) of the Bible. Monti has been called Crowley’s French representative, who himself spent considerable time in France and in the Pyrenees in 1908.

Even further back in history

Pierre Plantard. The photograph appeared in Vaincre.

Even if the Order was founded in 1942, not 1937, Plantard definitely was founding – or trying to found – associations as early as 1937, at the tender age of 17 – and hence a legal minor, which in itself was sufficient reason to withhold permission. Plantard tried to found the Renovation Nationale Francaise (the French National Revival), as well as Groupement Catholique de la Jeunesse, (the Catholic Youth Group). A police report into the Alpha Galates dating from 1945, states that Plantard asked M. Daladier, who was then Président du Conseil, to grant permission for the publication of “La Rénovation Française”, but was refused. But as this permission was refused, he then published it in the form of tracts, until 1939. In 1940, he submitted a request to the Occupation authorities for permission to resume publication of this journal, but this request was not granted either. The police classified the Catholic Youth Group as “an informal body that organised leisure activities for young people in various parishes of Paris”. Each year, this group arranged a camping holiday at Plestin-les-Grèves (Côtes-du-Nord), which in 1939 attracted some 75 young people. The police report also says that in May 1941, Plantard founded an association called “Rénovation Nationale Française” (French National Renewal), which did not undertake any activities, as permission for this organisation was refused by the German authorities on September 3, 1941.
The 1942 Order and 1956 Priory thus all have a common theme that definitely preoccupied Plantard since 1937. Like Vaincre and Circuit, the Renovation had a free weekly bulletin, known as The French Renewal (La Renovation Francaise). Official documents state it had a circulation of 10,000 copies.
The important question is whether the 1942 and 1956 organisations were expressions of a genuine devotion to a cause, or whether they were mere fronts for something else. If genuine, we should note that the older Plantard became, the less successful he was in pushing his ideas – none of the latter initiatives lasted longer than a few months and definitely never lived up to their statutes. It seems bizarre that time and again, Plantard would fail to capture the imagination of some, yet from the 1960s onwards, would be able to hold the attention of the entire world and sell the Priory of Sion as one of the biggest myths in history!

Dates

Can we settle the 1934-1937-1942 origin debate? Camille Savoire formed, in March 1935, the “Grand Priory of the Gauls”, a name that is a mixture of both the Order and the Priory, though preceding both by respectively one and two decades. Plantard noted that Savoire was one of the key influences in his life. Savoire remained the organisation’s “Grand Prior” till his death, in 1951. Savoire was also a member of the Rectified Scottish Rite and the Grand Priory of the Gauls, like the Order, was part of the RER. Should we imply that Plantard himself was a member of the RER, seeing his organisation adhered to it?
Whereas the Priory did stress its independent status, the Order belonged to the larger Masonic framework, even though it said it was “officially” not open to Masons. The latter, as Savoire and company have now proven, was definitely a lie.

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