The Priory of Sion Part 3: The Quest for Answers

 

Creating the Priory’s prehistory

From the 1960s onwards, Plantard stated that the Priory had existed since medieval times and that the 1956 registration was not the start of the organisation, but in essence the end of the organisation as a secret organisation: the end of the beginning, the beginning of the next phase. Like the Order became older (1942, then 1937 then 1934) as time progressed, so aged the Priory, but more dramatically, eventually born in the 12th century, though later only claimed to date from the 18th century.
As to Plantard himself: in 1984, Plantard claimed to have been inducted into Priory on July 10, 1943 – a few months after Vaincre ended. Plantard named Abbé Francois Ducaud-Bourget as his mentor and the person who recommended him for initiation. Ducaud-Bourget was the conventual chaplain of the Order of Malta – one of the most respected orders there are, and a man who was awarded the Resistance Medal for his work in World War II. Later, Ducaud-Bourget was labelled as the Nautonier of the Priory in the 1960s.

Interludium

Within a year of Vaincre’s end, Plantard was sent to prison for four months, the reasons why officially unknown. He himself was not secretive about this confinement, saying he spent time in Fresnes prison, near Paris, between October 1943 and February 1944. He claimed he was sentenced for involvement in Resistance activities. After the war, it was confirmed that Plantard did not have a criminal record at that time, so we can assume it was not French law that he had broken. His mother confirmed that her son was arrested by the Gestapo, not French police. With no specific cause for the arrest known, other than “Resistance activities”, it is unclear whether his arrest had anything to do with the Order he had created, or with other activities.
In one of the police reports of that era, we do read: “Plantard seems to be an odd young man who has gone off the rails, as he seems to believe that he and he alone is capable of providing French youth with effective leadership. He has not otherwise attracted the attention of the authorities either from the point of view of his private life or from a political perspective, and the Criminal Records Office returned to us an enquiry form drawn up in his name with the remark ‘unknown to us’.”

Switzerland

For someone intent on changing France, Plantard moved to Switzerland in 1947, settling near Lake Leman, but he returned to the French side of the border in 1951, when he settled in Annemasse. It is believed that he worked as a draughtsman – though he said he was a journalist on the statutes of the Priory, in 1956. The latter may have been an attempt to use some of the journalistic privileges that at the time came with the job and which he may have intended to use for CIRCUIT.

In the 1980s, an anonymous source claimed that in 1952, Plantard “illicitly carried out transfers of gold ingots from France to Switzerland”, specifying it was the Union des Banques Suisses, and that the amount was for more than 100 million francs, and that he had to appear in front of a criminal court for fraud. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln confronted Plantard with this allegation and he admitted the transfers, but said that it had not been against the law at the time – which was true. He stated that though he went to jail, it was for another offence. This statement is confirmed in a letter from the Saint-Julien sub-prefecture, involving the Annemasse mayor, dated June 8, 1956 and thus related to the foundation of the Priory. The letter states that in December 1953, Plantard was sentenced for six months in jail for “abus de confiance” – abuse of trust, which is normally understood to be embezzlement. French privacy laws prevent outsiders from receiving further information as to who the victim was, etc. It seems obvious that in the early 1950s, Plantard was working – or “adding to his income” – by performing financial transfers. That he was involved with financial transfers between France and Switzerland can be inferred from the fact that he lived first in Switzerland and then settled just across the border, the 1980 rumour and confirmation of gold transfers and his 1953 conviction for what seems to be related to money matters.

Was Plantard just one of several people trying to make money by shipping it from one country to another? He himself argued that there was more to it than that. He stated that the gold transfer was to fund a network of groups that were planning de Gaulle’s return to power. This is a tall claim, but researchers have found that the transfer coincided with the dissolution of the RPF (SAC), de Gaulle’s “private army”. That event itself marked the beginning of a campaign to return de Gaulle to power. Some researchers have also wondered whether Plantard was therefore working for the SAC.

1958

Released from prison, in 1956, Plantard and co. created the Priory. What purpose did it fit? We know that in 1958, he worked together with Gaston Fould, a well-known Jewish banker, on the Manifesto for the French (Manifesto aux Francais), yet another call for “French renewal”. This document was in line with his Order and Priory statutes vision, but it is equally clear that Plantard at the time was not as “independent” as the Priory statutes argued. What was the true purpose of the Priory? Was it indeed a “Resistance Journal”, as Picknett and Prince argue? And who was it preaching to?

De Gaulle

Sources claim that in 1958, Plantard was secretariat of the Committees of Public Safety. This may appear to be a government function, but it is anything but. The “Comité de Salut Public” were the cells that were trying to bring de Gaulle to power. If Plantard was indeed involved with these “terrorist cells”, then CIRCUIT can indeed be seen as “Resistance Journal”, calling upon fellow de Gaullists to provide information for their cause. This would mean that the Priory of Sion was a front for such a Committee.
Furthermore, the claim that Plantard worked for de Gaulle and SAC may date back to the Second World War. I note that “Alpha Galates” means “the “First Gauls”. The French – and Plantard – always like to play with words, and there is an obvious correspondence between “the Gauls” and “de Gaulle”. The “First Gauls”, the “Alpha Galates”, could thus be the “First adherents – the inner circle – of de Gaulle”. It is just a pun, but it could betray the entire enterprise in a manner that no-one has noticed before.

De Gaulle was an important player in the Second World War and the Resistance. Ever since 1952, there was a serious effort to bring de Gaulle to power as the head of France, who would lead the nation – renew it. The gold transfer by Plantard may be part of this – he claimed it was – and would thus reveal his involvement with the cause.
In 1958, there was a concerted effort to stage a coup d’état, to get de Gaulle in power and this involved the Committees. The Committees took power in Algiers on May 13, 1958. Predictably for those days, it meant that Prime Minister Felix Gaillard resigned. In the uproar, the Army rose up against the government and de Gaulle arrived on the scene as a potential saviour. Of course, these events and his rise were carefully orchestrated by his supporters.
But Algiers was a long way from Paris, and like the uprising of 1934, there was a need to perceive danger on the streets of Paris before France would become truly shaken – and ready to take. On May 18, 1958, there was a rumour that one CSP was working in the Paris area. The committee obviously created a public profile that soon, the CSP could take control of Paris – and France – like they had done in Algiers a few days earlier. Intriguingly, the stories – later – said that it was none other than Plantard who was in control of this publicity campaign. We will return to this soon.

The uprisings meant that on June 1, de Gaulle became Prime Minister; on December 21, 1958, he was elected the first president of the Fifth Republic. In 1964, Anne-Lea Hisler (Plantard’s wife) stated that the CSP was run by Marshal Alphonse Juin, Michel Debré, André Malraux and Pierre Plantard. Debré and Malraux were both ministers in de Gaulle’s government as per June 1, 1958: Debré was in charge of Justice, Malraux of “Information”. It means that, if true, Plantard was indeed one of de Gaulle’s inner circle – an “Alpha Galates” and that the 1956 editions of CIRCUIT were indeed likely to rally his supporters in the Annemasse area, in the run-up to Committees of 1958; in short, the intended audience of CIRCUIT were the Committees.

Michel Debré

Hisler added that Plantard had used the pseudonym “Way”. It is a fact that in 1958, the CSP had a man who sent out a communiqué, using the pseudonym “Captain Way”. Furthermore, in June 1958, the French newspaper Le Monde did indeed say that Way was none other than Plantard. It added that he was an “accountant for a Paris business” – suggesting that Plantard from 1952 had indeed been and was still working in the financial sector – hence his 1953 conviction.

This contemporary evidence indicates that Plantard was indeed heavily – and importantly – involved with de Gaulle’s push for power. There is also secondary evidence, derived from the name “Way” itself. We note that Circuit – path – and Way are similar and once again reveal his preference for puns; they all tie back to the path that was also so prominent on the emblem of the Order as early as 1942. But the mission, it seems, had not been accomplished by 1946, as originally envisioned, but was completed in 1958, when de Gaulle became “the First Gaul”.

Confirmation

Seven weeks after its first story on “Captain Way”, Le Monde stated that the Central Committee of the CSP had stopped all operations, reproducing once again a communiqué from Way, who was the figurehead for the CSP. In 1964, Hisler quoted from de Gaulle disbanding the committees, and asking Way – Plantard – to do this. She then lists other people in this group: Achille Fould, with whom we know Plantard worked that year (1958) on the “French Renewal”; Paritsch, Maurice Du Par and Dr Paul Baron.
Furthermore, it was found that the addresses listed in CIRCUIT were indeed locations from where the CSP was operating from, confirming that CIRCUIT was indeed part of the de Gaullist movement. It suggests that Plantard, since at least the early 1950s, has been involved with the financing of the various Gaullist cells, himself involved or in charge with the Annemasse cell in 1956, before moving to Paris and become involved with the final stage of the execution of the programme that would and did bring de Gaulle to power? The available evidence, plus Plantard’s own statement, are all in agreement that this was exactly what was happening.

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