Les Dossiers Secrets Part 1: The Priory – take two

 

Bizarrely, the Priory would only become truly notorious from ca. 1970 onwards, two decades after its creation – and demise. Many have thus tried to align the 1942-1958 with the second incarnation of the Priory, which would propel it to Dan Brown infamy. But as we will soon find out, both episodes adhere to different eras and different rules and have little if anything in common with each other.

Les Dossiers Secrets

“Stage two” of the life of Priory started in January 1964. The delivery method was vastly different: the new method was the deposition of documents in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris, which would only be read and discussed over the next five to ten years. The aim of the exercise was therefore longer term, and different from the previous stage; Vaincre and Circuit were freely distributed in mass publications; Les Dossiers Secrets, the name given to the series of documents deposited in the library, were single copies, with no immediate reader in mind. Its purpose, therefore, was not a quick turnaround or an immediate result.

The first document was deposited in January 1964, but was dated “Geneva, 1956”. The (fake) date is of course the year the Priory was officially registered; Geneva is in Switzerland, just across the border from Annemasse, Plantard’s home at the time. The document was titled “Généalogie des rois mérovingiens et origine de diverses familles francaises et étrangères de souche mérovingienne” and discussed the Merovingian kings and how their blood continued to be present in certain French families.
For French researcher René Descadeillas, the documents were written by someone who was both fluent in French and German, but the style suggested he was German. Descadeillas believed the author to be Swiss. The author was listed as “Henri Lobineau” and claimed to live in Geneva. Though no such person existed and the Geneva address was fake, it does suggest we are looking for a German-Swiss person as the author of this document. If so, this excludes the two usual suspects that are often identified as behind the Priory “hoax”: Plantard himself, and his sidekick Philippe de Chérisey, who was a French Belgian.

The Swiss connection will reappear time and again: the dossiers make several references to Switzerland and on occasion, copies of the documents were posted to researchers from Geneva. Thus, though speaking about France, the true base of “Les Dossiers Secrets” – the Priory of Sion? – seemed to be Switzerland, most likely Geneva or surrounding area. For the moment, we will merely note that a French-Swiss connection existed since 1952, created by Plantard, who lived in both countries and seemed to finance de Gaulle’s French campaign with Swiss money – i.e. French money exported to Switzerland.

The second file

The second deposition occurred in August 1965, titled "Les descendants mérovingiens ou l’énigme du Razès Wisigoth", written by Madeleine Blancasall. The author’s name is once again a pseudonym, the surname taken from the rivers Blanques and Sals, which flow through Rennes-les-Bains. As the title suggests, the subject is once again Merovingian descendents, this time linking it with “a” mystery in the Razès – the region of Rennes-les-Bains, and of course neighbouring Rennes-le-Château.
The document states that it is translated from the German by one Walter Celse-Nazaire, another pseudonym, this time taken from the patron saints of the church of Rennes-les-Bains. Once again, we note the German-language angle is present. Intriguingly, the document states – pretends – that its intended use is exclusively for the “Association Suisse Alpina”, which is the Grand Lodge Alpina, the Swiss Freemasonic regulatory group. In short, the document pretends to be for the use of Swiss freemasons. Of two deposited documents, both are primarily Swiss in focus.

The story

The two documents weave the mystery of Bérenger Saunière into a Merovingian framework. By 1964, the mystery of Rennes-le-Château was known in France – though nowhere near the scale it is known at present. At the time, there was no mention of Merovingians. That dimension was original to and came about through the Dossiers Secrets. The second document for example claims that the secret of the Merovingian survival was known to and guarded by the Hautpoul family of Rennes-le-Château, which had entrusted this secret to Bigou, priest of the village in 1781.
Still, the return of the Merovingian kings to rule France was not original to the Dossiers Secrets. Researchers have discovered that Simone de Beauvoir wrote of an event that happened in 1934 and that involved Lionel de Roulet: “While Sartre was away I gave philosophy lessons to Lionel de Roulet, who was now living in Paris. He and a few friends had founded a so-called Merovingian Party, which advocated, by means of posters and pamphlets, the return of Chilperic’s descendants to the throne.”
Many people could thus have known about de Roulet’s interest. Exactly three decades had passed since his creation of 1934 and the deposition of the first document in 1964. We add that both groups used the same methods (pamphlets).

Step three

The third document was deposited in May 1966, signed by Antoine l’Ermite – an obvious pseudonym, taken from a popular saint. This is a nine page pamphlet, a facsimile of chapters of a book by Robert Charroux, France’s answer to von Däniken – though he preceded the Swiss author by more than a decade. The texts from the book and the copies matched, save for two minor changes.
Charroux had been one of the first people to write about the mystery of Rennes-le-Château and the document itself focuses in on the will of the Hautpoul family, which a year before were identified as the protectors of the Merovingian secret. The author writes: “In 1961, they [the testaments] were given to Alpina by Abbé Joseph Courtaly of Villarzel-du-Razès”.
We note that the Alpina are the Swiss Freemasons, the pretended target of the second document. The key date seems to be 1961, postdating the Priory of 1956, but predating the first deposition. The key figure is Courtaly, who was a known friend of Saunière, who helped him paint the bas-relief of the altar of the church of Rennes-le-Château, featuring Mary Magdalene praying in a cave.

A new dimension

Courtaly is a largely unknown dimension in the mystery of Rennes-le-Château. Though he is a known ingredient, he has received little to no attention – except in the Dossiers Secrets. He outlived Saunière by half a century (Saunière died in 1917) and Marie Dénarnaud, Saunière’s maid, by a decade. He is a player in the original mystery of Saunière, but, as mentioned, is often left out of the equation.
Most intriguingly, we know that Courtaly met Plantard, as Courtauly took the waters at Rennes-les-Bains following his retirement in 1961. He came to the spa town between 1961 and 1964 and is known to have met Plantard there, who visited the spa frequently in that era. Courtaly died in November 1964, between the moment when the first and second file was deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale.

The Fourth Instalment

The fourth document dates from November 1966 and is an addendum to the first file. The author being one “S. Roux”, the document lists statements made by one Lionel Burrus. The document is clearly crafted to “leak” the “true identity” of Lobineau, the pseudonymous author of the first document. We note that researchers believe this man to be Swiss, and German-speaking.
Copies of this document were not merely deposited, but were sent to some researchers, including Descadeillas, postmarked Geneva, where Burrus’ family was prominent. But… Burrus had died in a car crash at the age of 20, in September 1966 – two months before the document appeared. Either the truth could now be told, or someone made sure that the story could never be verified – and that means the story was a lie.
Burrus claimed to represent the Swiss Christian Youth and reveals that Lobineau is Leo R. Schidlof, who had recently died in Vienna, on October 17, 1966, 19 days before the document was placed in the Bibliothèque. Schidlof was an expert on miniatures and thus an authority in his field. He lived in London between 1948 and 1966 and died on a trip to Vienna – aged 80. So, in short, the document is written by a person about two recently deceased people, which the document claims, were at the centre of the entire mystery.

Again, there is specific reference to the Hautpoul genealogies, but this time with a different scenario. “Roux” states that one Marius Fatin gave the genealogy of the Hautpouls to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. We note that in the previous file, it was claimed that Courtaly possessed the documents and gave them to the Swiss freemasons. Who was Fatin? He was the owner of the castle of Rennes-le-Château since 1946. Rennes enthusiasts note that Fatin seemed not to be involved in any of the craziness that went on, though others have stated that Fatin was a friend of de Gaulle, apparently receiving yearly a postcard from him (but then men like de Gaulle sent thousands of these out), and have also described him as an archaeologist and a high-ranking freemason. Let us merely note that a second scenario about the Hautpoul genealogy was put forward.

Number 5 – and 6

The fifth document is the infamous poem Serpent Rouge, with a stamp of March 20, 1967, but dated February 15, 1967. This predating is important, for the three authors are listed as Pierre Feugère, Louis Saint-Maxent and Gaston de Koker. All three are real people, but all died between February 15 and March 20. The real author makes it appear as if these three authors were murdered or committed suicide after they had written this poem. In truth, the author probably searched the obituaries for suicides, and came upon these three people, using their names as the “authors”.

The sixth and final document in the series is called "Les Dossiers secrets de Henri Lobineau” and would not only give its name to the series, but returns to the original author, Lobineau. It was deposited in the library in April 1967. This means that six documents were deposited over a period of 39 months, between January 1964 and April 1967.

The document includes a letter, dated July 2, 1966, to Marius Fatin, from the alleged people he sold the will of Francois Pierre d’Hautpoul to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers – and thus returns to the crux of document 4. Nevertheless, it now provides a third possibility as to what happened to the genealogy, claiming that the parchments had been pillaged from Hoffet’s library after his death in 1946 and passed by fraud in 1948 to the League, to end up in the secret archives of Order of Malta.
The author of the document is now listed as Philippe Toscan du Plantier, a real person who was alive at the time – and who was making the news headlines. He had been arrested for LSD possession on April 11, 1967, 16 days before the file’s deposition in the national library – once again, the real author had lifted names from newspaper accounts, to create a false framework against which the documents were painted. For the first time – and for the final document – the “claimed author” was still alive, though completely unrelated to what was going on.

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