Louis Vazart referred to a letter dated 29 July 1958, also referring to another letter from de Gaulle dated 3 August 1958 where he thanked Plantard for his support during the Algerian crisis.

Plantard also appropriated the false titles of " Comte de Saint-Clair " and " Comte de Rhédæ " to himself.

In 1990, Plantard revised himself by claiming he was only descended from a cadet branch of the line of Dagobert II, while arguing that the direct descendant was really Otto von Habsburg, actually descended from Sigebert I ( nicknamed " Plant-Ard "), different to Sigebert IV, who was the son of Bera II and the grandson of Wamba, the founding father of the House of Habsburg and also the builder of Habsburg Castle, drawing on content found in a 1979 book by Jean-Luc Chaumeil.

De Chérisey also chose to copy material from Vigouroux because he was a priest connected with the Church of St Sulpice, a location that had been exploited as part of the Priory of Sion myths as created by Plantard and de Chérisey, so de Chérisey's utilisation of this priest fitted in nicely into these myths.

* Pierre Plantard, the mastermind behind the Priory of Sion hoax who claimed to be Merovingian, a pretender to the throne of France.

Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard ( 18 March 1920 – 3 February 2000 ) was a French draughtsman, best known for being the principal perpetrator of the Priory of Sion hoax, by which he claimed from the 1960s onwards that he was a Merovingian descendant of Dagobert II and the " Great Monarch " prophesied by Nostradamus.

It was in this second series of Circuit that Plantard claimed he received a letter from de Gaulle dated 27 June 1959.

Plantard originally claimed these genealogies had been compiled by a Doctor Hervé and Abbé Pichon ( 1828 – 1905 ), originally at the request of Napoleon Bonaparte, who found out about the Merovingian survival from Abbé Sieyrès.

The book L ' Or de Rennes by Gérard de Sède ( with the collaboration of Pierre Plantard ) contained elements relating to the fictitious secret society the Priory of Sion, reproducing " parchments " that alluded to the survival of the Merovingian line of Frankish kings from Dagobert II, and Pierre Plantard claimed to be descended from that monarch.

The parchments hinted at the survival of the line of the Frankish king Dagobert II, that Plantard claimed to be descended from, as well as attempting to verify the existence of the 1000-year-old secret society, the Priory of Sion.

Philippe de Chérisey, a friend and associate of Pierre Plantard, later claimed in 1978 that the subterranean chapel contained " 30 iron coffers of the archives of the Priory of Sion.

Pierre Plantard claimed to be descended from Dagobert II.

He claimed the " Merovingian romance " was a parody where Dagobert II replaced Louis XVI, his son Sigebert IV replaced Louis XVII and Pierre Plantard replaced Charles-Guillaume Naundorff.

When Jean-Luc Chaumeil revealed during the 1980s that Plantard's genealogical claims were fictional adaptations of Louis Saurel's article published in 1960, Plantard released a " cheque " dated 14 April 1960 showing his former wife Anne-Léa Hisler had been paid for the article contained in Les Cahiers de l ' Histoire, and therefore claiming she was the original author.

However, Plantard and de Sède fell out over book royalties following the publication of L ' Or de Rennes in 1967 and Philippe de Chérisey, Plantard's friend and accomplice, announced he had forged the " parchments ".

By 1978 Plantard began claiming that his grandfather had met Bérenger Saunière in Rennes-le-Château, and that the real source of Saunière's wealth was the Abbé Henri Boudet, parish priest of the nearby village of Rennes-les-Bains.

This initiative by Plantard had an unexpected consequence ; in October 1993, the judge investigating the Pelat scandal had Pierre Plantard's house searched.

Plantard admitted under oath he had fabricated everything, including Pelat's involvement with the Priory of Sion.

Pierre Plantard and Gérard de Sède fell out over book royalties when L ' Or de Rennes was published in 1967, at the same time Philippe de Chérisey announced that he had forged the " parchments ".

According to Henry Lincoln, one of the co-authors of Holy Blood Holy Grail, Plantard admitted to him in person that the various documents had been forged, and identified de Chérisey as their creator.

In a 2005 TV documentary, de Sede's son Arnaud stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the existence of the Priory of Sion — to quote Arnaud de Sède in the programme, " it is absolute piffle ".

The event has been used in the history proposed by Pierre Plantard and other pseudo-historical theories.

The book was later revealed to be based on a hoax originating with Pierre Plantard in the mid-20th century.

Following the dissolution of Grand Orient Freemasonry in Vichy France on 13 August 1940, Plantard wrote a letter dated 16 December 1940 to Marshal Philippe Pétain offering his services to the collaborationist government, referring to a ' terrible Masonic and Jewish conspiracy '.

According to a police report on the Alpha Galates dated 13 February 1945 the organisation was only composed of at most 50 members, who resigned one after the other as soon as they sized up the president of the association ( Pierre Plantard ) and figured out that it was not a serious enterprise.

Plantard read the article and wrote to de Sède, later collaborating with him on the book Les Templiers sont parmi nous, ou, L ' Enigme de Gisors (" The Templars are Amongst Us, or The Enigma of Gisors "), that was published in 1962.

This inspired Plantard to write his own book on the subject matter but, failing to find a publisher his manuscript was extensively rewritten by Gérard de Sède resulting in the 1967 book, L ' Or de Rennes.

Plantard added that his past relative, Abbé Pierre Plantard, former vicar of the Basilica of St. Clotilde, Paris, drew up genealogies giving the survival of the line of Dagobert II on 18 March 1939.

The " Saint-Clair " part of his surname was added to his real surname on the basis that this was the family name associated with the area of Gisors associated with his hoax-according to the mythology of the Priory of Sion " Jean VI des Plantard " married a member of the House of Gisors during the 12th century.

In February 1982 Plantard dismissed The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail as fiction on a French radio interview, and later even dismissed the Priory of Sion documents of the 1960s and 1970s as false and irrelevant.

Plantard revised his Priory of Sion story, claiming the order was founded on 17 January 1681 in Rennes-le-Château, based upon documents discovered in Barcelona, relating to a secret involving the mystical power of ley lines and sunrise lines, and Rocco Negro ( Black Rock ), a promontory near Rennes-le-Château where he owned substantial property.

In a letter dated 4 April 1989, Plantard wrote that Victor Hugo " drew up the constitutions of the Priory of Sion on 14 July 1870, on the same day that he planted the oak-tree of the United States of Europe ".

A schism developed between Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Chérisey in 1983, when de Chérisey began collaborating with Paul Rouelle ( his dentist ) on a book which would have incorporated the Priory of Sion concepts.

De Sède and Plantard collaborated next on the subject of Rennes-le-Château, resulting in the publication of L ' Or de Rennes in 1967.

Pierre Plantard, the creator of the Priory of Sion mythology, tried to argue that the sepulchre at Les Pontils was a " prototype " for Poussin's painting, but it was situated directly opposite a farmhouse ( behind the foliage ) and was not in the " middle of nowhere " in the French countryside, as is commonly assumed.

The precursor to these Rosslyn theories is the 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln that introduced the theory of the Jesus bloodline in relation to the Priory of Sion hoax-the main protagonist of which was Pierre Plantard, who for a time adopted the name Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair.

Pierre Plantard was born in 1920, in Paris, the son of a butler and a concierge ( described as a cook for wealthy families in police reports of the 1940s ).

At the same time Plantard worked as a draughtsman for the company établissements Chanovin.

According to the late Robert Amadou ( 1924 – 2006 ), Pierre Plantard in 1953 was accused of selling degrees of esoteric orders for exorbitant sums.

According to a more reliable source, given in a letter written by Léon Guersillon the Mayor of Annemasse in 1956, contained in the folder holding the 1956 Statutes of the Priory of Sion in the subprefecture of Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, Plantard was given a six-month sentence in December 1953 for abus de confiance ( breach of trust ), relating to other crimes.

Noël Corbu's account of the discovery of the parchments by Father Saunière was later quoted in the document Un Trésor Mérovingien à Rennes-le-Château ( 1966 ) attributed to " Antoine L ' Ermite ", that for " stylistic reasons suggest that this was written by Pierre Plantard and / or Philippe de Chérisey ".

In a letter dated 2 April 1965 to his girlfriend, de Chérisey wrote: " Don't tell anyone, but I'll be setting out again for four days in the Pyrenees with Plantard to see if we can get any closer to Mary Magdalene.

De Sède and Plantard fell out over book royalties relating to L ' Or de Rennes and never worked together again, at the same time Philippe de Chérisey announced the " parchments " were his creations that he later elaborated upon in his 1978 unpublished document entitled L ' Énigme de Rennes, claiming they were originally made for his friend Francis Blanche, as material for a French radio serial entitled Signé Furax.