When Colette Ladsous wrote this essay about Philippe de Chérisey, she seemed to take care not to write anything about the Priory of Sion or about Rennes-le-Château. The essay was about Philippe de Chérisey’s creative genius within the context of his professional interests.

The text and map that are contained in Abbé Henri Boudet's book “La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains” (Imprimerie Francois Pomiès, Carcassonne, 1886), is quite useless. It is only of interest to those who have committed themselves into believing in the “mysteries” and “secrets” of Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains. Each individual believer has got their own angle and interpretation of these “mysteries” and by extension their own subjective ideas as to what the “solution” is. Because there was no “mystery” to begin with – the explanations and interpretations of the “mystery” remain open-ended – devoid of any predetermined limit or boundary – and so it always and forever is without any conclusion. This produces the “Thrill of the Chase” to committed believers, something that is often repeated by sober commentators with basic common sense.

There is little doubt that the claims of the Abbé Henri Boudet are every bit as shaky as those of Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Chérisey, with Abbé Boudet's claims of a “Universal Language” being every bit as daft as the Priory of Sion.

Plantard and de Chérisey embarked on a plan – the minute anybody was sceptical of what de Chérisey and Plantard were up to, Plantard would fire off a letter to de Chérisey with instructions and suggestions on how they could improve their argument, etc. De Chérisey would then incorporate these points in further documents that they'd both publish or deposit in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.

Originally, Plantard wrote a manuscript on the Rennes-le-Château story and during an 18 month period approached countless publishers to buy it. Nobody was interested. De Sède then re-wrote the book, made it more comprehensible and less cluttered with detail – the result was the book, “L'Or de Rennes” which was published in 1967 by Julliard.

For the mystery of Rennes-le-Château and the Abbé Saunière, Plantard and de Chèrisey took their inspiration from the Dead Sea Scroll Mystery that was emerging in the early 1960s – they basically transposed that mystery onto Rennes-le-Château.

Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Chérisey planted booklets, the famous “Dossiers Secrets”, in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, in order to safeguard their role in the creation of the story in case de Sède tried to con them out of more profits.

Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Chérisey embarked on this deception because they wanted to make money. Prior to this Plantard was an “odd-jobs” sort of guy whilst de Chérisey, having been disinherited by his family, was a “resting”, dissolute actor. The pair hoped they'd make a living from this story and subsequent books, publications that would naturally follow.

Correspndence exists showing that neither Pierre Plantard, Philippe de Chérisey, or Gérard de Sède were honest. This correspondence, belonging initially to Philippe de Chérisey, had subsequently been in the possession of Colette Ladsous, whom de Chérisey had lived with in Belgium following the separation from his wife in Paris. These letters also contain their original envelopes, all of which were stamped and dated. It was therefore able to compare the handwriting on the envelopes with the writing on the letters.

By the early '60s de Sède was known for not honouring his financial arrangements with people (the ultimate schism that resulted between Plantard, de Chérisey, and de Sède: due to the fact that de Sède didn't honour his financial agreements with Plantard and de Chérisey).

During a financial scandal involving Roger-Patrice Pelat, an associate of the late President Mitterand, Plantard offered himself as a witness. He told the investigating magistrate that Pelat had been a former Grand Master of the Priory of Sion and that he was also a member of that organisation. The investigating magistrate ordered the Police to search Plantard's house and examine his files. The Police concluded that the Priory of Sion was little more than a fantasy created by Plantard, who was then called before the magistrate and warned that he would be charged with wasting Police and Court time if he persisted in his allegations. Plantard subsequently withdrew them, and rapidly moved house – he lived for a while in Barcelona – before returning to France.

The “scientific and technical” approach assigned to the Priory of Sion Documents is really hilarious. They were all originally a prank only giving the impression they were something special. As for the “logic” of Edmond Boudet's map – that follows the same exact jumble of nonsense that Abbé Boudet's “Universal Language” represented. Joining Abbé Boudet’s fantasies with the Priory of Sion fantasies is just the very kind of typical nonsense we expect from The Rennies (for only one other such example, see here).

Not much of a story.