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.

Lhomoy said it was the treasure of the Knights Templar These allegations inspired Gérard de Sède to write a magazine article about Gisors, that caught the attention of Pierre Plantard, who wrote to de Sède.

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 '.

On 21 April 1941 Plantard wrote to the Paris Prefect of Police that his group the French National Renewal was to take possession of the unoccupied premises located at 22 place Malesherbes, 1st floor " which are currently let to an English Jew, Mr. Shapiro, who is presently fighting alongside his fellows in the British armed forces.

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 ".

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.

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.

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.

By 1958, Plantard was back living in Paris where he was actively supporting General de Gaulle, establishing a Committee of Public Safety ( based in Paris ) during the Algerian Crisis using the name " Captain Way ".

In 1959, Plantard edited a second series of the journal Circuit, subtitled Publication Périodique Culturelle de la Fédération des Forces Françaises.

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

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.

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.

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 ".

But it was due to the success of de Sède's book L ' Or de Rennes that Pierre Plantard became famous, as the guardian of the secret of Rennes-le-Château.

When in 1967 Plantard and de Chèrisey announced that the parchments published in L ' Or de Rennes were fakes, different claims were introduced about the exact nature of Sauniere's discovery.

In 1989, when Plantard revised his claims about the Priory of Sion, it was stated in a 1989 issue of Vaincre: " The parchments of Blanche of Castile were in Etienne Plantard's safe-deposit box in London since November 1955 and they did not ' mention ' Dagobert, or a Dagobert II and Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair was never ' a Merovingian pretender ' to the throne of France: His lineage results from the Counts de Rhédae and by the female line of Saint Clair-sur-Epte, which has no relationship with ' Sinclair '.

From 1975 Pierre Plantard used the surname Plantard de Saint-Clair, described as an epithet by Jean-Luc Chaumeil, following his interview with Plantard in the magazine l ’ Ère d ’ Aquarius.

* Chaumeil-Plantard, second part of an interview of Jean-Luc Chaumeil where he mentions his discovery of the bewitched hill and the owner of the abbé's estate, Henri Buthion, as well as his tumultuous relations with Pierre Plantard, Gérard de Sède and Mathieu Paoli

Corbu's story attracted custom and later achieved national fame through articles in the press, eventually catching the attention of Pierre Plantard and inspiring the 1967 book L ' Or de Rennes by Gérard de Sède.

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.

Pierre Plantard and Gérard de Sède fell out over book royalties when L ' Or de Rennes was published in 1967 and Plantard's friend Philippe de Chérisey revealed that he fabricated the parchments.

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 ".

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

Originally a Pierre Plantard manuscript that failed to find a publisher, and extensively rewritten by Gérard de Sède, L ' Or de Rennes presented as fact various claims about Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château that were the authors ' inventions, in order to embellish a story about the discovery of a hidden secret.

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.

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

Another " notarised document " that was later reproduced in Vaincre Number 1 ( 1990 ), gave the caption " after a photograph taken by Etienne Plantard in London in 1958 ", naming only Captain R. S.

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 was later threatened with legal action by the Pelat family and therefore disappeared to his house in southern France.

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 ".

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.

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.

The book adapted Corbu's story to fit-in with Plantard's claims about the survival of the line of Merovingian king Dagobert II, and Plantard began claiming to be descended from Dagobert II since 1964 when he began depositing false documents in the Bibliothèque nationale giving the secret history of the Priory of Sion.

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.

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

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.

French author Pierre Jarnac reproduced part of a letter he received dated 22 May 1985 from Pierre Plantard: " You need to know only that I have no involvement whatsoever with the ' deathless prose ' of Monsieur Philippe de Chérisey, who was the co-author with Monsieur Paul Rouelle of the book COURT-CIRCUIT, lodged with the BN in December 1984 or January 1985, which dragged my name through the mud.

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.

Plantard also claimed that the phrase " Et In Arcadia Ego " had been the motto on his Family Coat-of-Arms for generations.

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 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.

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 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.