The 1989 Plantard Comeback


Paul Smith

Pierre Plantard made an attempted comeback in 1989 following his resignation from the Priory of Sion in 1984, the details of which were outlined in three 1989 issues of Vaincre - dated April, June and September of that year.

The comeback involved revising the whole structure of the myth of the Priory of Sion - creating a whole new system of belief with a brand new agenda - the old material as contained in the previous Priory Documents was discarded and rejected with Philippe Toscan, the author of the Dossiers Secrets being lampooned as a sad individual who had written his works under the influence of LSD and was arrested on 11 April 1967 for that! Indeed, the works of Mathieu Paoli, Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh were criticised as products of "the imagination and the novel". The parchments were no longer genuine - again - but the fabrications of Philippe de Chérisey. Genuine parchments "did exist", but they were inaccessible.

So, Plantard came storming back to a completely disinterested French Public having regained his position as the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion at the "Convent of Avignon" on 9 March 1989 following the death of the previous Grand Master, Patrice Pelat.

Pierre Plantard lifted the claim made by Gérard de Sède in his 1988 book, Rennes-le-Chateau - Le Dossier, Les Impostures, Les Phantasmes, Les Hypotheses about Georges Monti having been the "founder" of the Alpha Galates in 1934. Plantard also used the claim made by Philippe de Cherisey in his letter dated 17 January 1985 that his sentence at Fresnes Prison in 1942 was due to his "obtaining false papers for the Jews". Plantard repeated that he had "worked for the French Resistance" and this time had even provided the name that he had used in this capacity: 'Capitaine Double Mètre'. He also repeated his previous claim that he was introduced to the Priory of Sion by the Abbé François Ducaud-Bourget in 1943 - this Priory Dogma was NOT altered.

Brand New Fantasies had supplanted the old fantasies - and the whole structure of the myth involving the foundation of the Priory of Sion had to be altered as well. According to this new version, the foundation of the Priory of Sion was only inspired by the spirit of Godfrey de Bouillon (but also linked to the Compagnie du Saint Sacrament and to the Enfants de Saint Vincent), and the preferred belief of the membership was that it was founded on 17 January 1681 at Rennes-le-Château. There was no proof to substantiate this belief however, and the earliest date that could be produced with "proof" of the Priory's foundation was 19 September 1738 (19 September being the Feast date of St JANVIER) - through the actions of François d'Hautpoul and Jean de Nègre - the evidence coming from the archives of Monsieur de Saint-Hillier (who came from the Château du Lys), the great uncle of Philippe de Chérisey. The September 1989 issue of Vaincre was to provide the conclusive evidence to settle this issue – the archives of the Priory of Sion were discovered in Barcelona – the Priory of Sion had indeed been founded on 17 January 1681 in Rennes-le-Château, confirmed by the documents of the Enfants de Saint Vincent as found beneath a commanderie (but the Priory was not connected with the Knights Templar) - its founder was Jean-Timoleon Negri d'Ables, with the later participation of Blaise d'Hautpoul (1694 onwards), and the Abbé André-Hercule de Fleury (1743 onwards). These archives were to be reproduced onto microfilm and intended to be published in later issues of Vaincre.

But this was not all - a certain Angélique Lenoir (who had married Jean-Marie-Alexanre d'Hautpoul in 1781) had also possessed important archives relating to the Priory of Sion: where were they?

And what was the secret of the new revised Priory of Sion? It was ‘Rocco Negro ’ – the Black Rock situated close to the summit of the Château de Blanchefort that contained an "immense energy" – referred to by a past member of the Priory of Sion, Auguste de Labouisse-Rochefort, who was a close friend of Victor Hugo (who had drafted the Constitutions of the Priory of Sion on July 14th, 1870).

As if all of this was not enough, it was also claimed that Pierre Plantard was co-author, with René Descadeillas, of the book Rennes et ses derniers Seigneurs, having 65% of the rights to that work.




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