Holy Blood, Holy Grail Read online

  Narrated in the first person, the thirteen prose poems are a type of symbolic or allegorical pilgrimage, commencing with Aquarius and ending with Capricorn—which, as the text explicitly states, presides over January 17. In the otherwise cryptic text there are familiar references—to the Blanchefort family, to the decorations in the church as Rennes-le-Château, to some of Saunière’s inscriptions there, to Poussin and the painting of "Les Bergers d’Arcadie," to the motto on the tomb. "Et in Arcadia Ego." At one point there is mention of a red snake, "cited in the parchments," uncoiling across the centuries—an explicit allusion, it would seem, to a bloodline or a lineage. And for the astrological sign of Leo there is an enigmatic paragraph worth quoting in its entirety:

  From she whom I desire to liberate, there wafts towards me the fragrance of the perfume which impregnates the Sepulchre. Formerly, some named her: ISIS, queen of all sources benevolent. COME UNTO ME ALL YE WHO SUFFER AND ARE AFFLICTED, AND I SHALL GIVE YE REST. To others, she is MAGDALENE, of the celebrated vase filled with healing balm. The initiated know her true name: NOTRE DAME DES CROSS.5

  The implications of this paragraph are extremely interesting. Isis, of course, is the Egyptian mother goddess, patroness of mysteries— the "White Queen" in her benevolent aspects, the "Black Queen" in her malevolent ones. Numerous writers on mythology, anthropology, psychology, and theology have traced the cult of the mother goddess from pagan times to the Christian epoch. And according to these writers she is said to have survived under Christianity in the guise of the Virgin Mary—the Queen of Heaven, as Saint Bernard called her, a designation applied in the Old Testament to the mother goddess Astarte, the Phoenician equivalent of Isis. But according to the text in Le Serpent rouge the mother goddess of Christianity would not appear to be the Virgin. On the contrary, she would appear to be the Magdalen—to whom the church at Rennes-le-Château is dedicated and to whom Saunière consecrated his tower. Moreover, the text would seem to imply that "Notre Dame" does not apply to the Virgin either. That resonant title—conferred on all the great cathedrals of France—would also seem to refer to the Magdalen. But why should the Magdalen be revered as "Our Lady" —and still more, as a mother goddess? Maternity is the last thing generally associated with the Magdalen. In popular Christian tradition she is a prostitute who finds redemption by apprenticing herself to Jesus. And she figures most noticeably in the Fourth Gospel, where she is the first person to behold Jesus after the Resurrection. In consequence she is extolled as a saint, especially in France— where, according to medieval legends, she is said to have brought the Holy Grail. And indeed the "vase filled with healing balm" might well be intended to suggest the Grail. But to enshrine the Magdalen in the place usually reserved for the Virgin would seem, at very least, to be heretical.

  Whatever their point, the authors of Le Serpent rouge—or, rather, the alleged authors—met with a fate as gruesome as that of Fakhar ul Islam. On March 6, 1967, Louis Saint-Maxent and Gaston de Koker were found hanged. And the following day, March 7, Pierre Feugère was found hanged as well.

  One might immediately assume, of course, that these deaths were in some way connected with the composition and public release of Le Serpent rouge. As in the case of Fakhar ul Islam, however, we could not discount an alternative explanation. If one wished to engender an aura of sinister mystery, it would be easy enough to do. One need only comb the newspapers until one found a suspicious death—or, in this instance, three suspicious deaths. After the fact one might then append the names of the deceased to a pamphlet of one’s own concoction and deposit that pamphlet in the Bibliothèque Nationale—with an earlier date (January 17) on the title page. It would be virtually impossible to expose such a hoax, which would certainly produce the desired intimation of foul play. But why perpetrate such a hoax at all? Why should someone want to invoke an aura of violence, murder, and intrigue? Such a ploy would hardly deter investigators. On the contrary, it would only further attract them.

  If, on the other hand, we were not dealing with a hoax, there were still a number of baffling questions. Were we to believe, for example, that the three hanged men were suicides or victims of murder? Suicide, in the circumstances, would seem to make little sense. And murder would not seem to make much more. One could understand three people being dispatched lest they divulge certain explosive information. But in this case the information had already been divulged, already deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Could the murders—if that was what they were—have been a form of punishment, of retribution? Or perhaps a means of precluding any subsequent indiscretions? Neither of these explanations is satisfactory. If one is angered by the disclosure of certain information or if one wishes to forestall additional disclosures, one does not attract attention to the matter by committing a trio of lurid and sensational murders—unless one is reasonably confident that there will be no very assiduous inquiry.

  Our own adventures in the course of our investigation were mercifully less dramatic but equally mystifying. In our research, for example, we had encountered repeated references to a work by one Antoine l’Ermite entitled Un Trésor merovingien a Rennes-le-Château (A Merovingian Treasure at Rennes-le-Château). We tried to locate this work and quickly found it listed in the Bibliothèque Nationale catalogue; but it proved inordinately difficult to obtain. Every day for a week we went to the library and filled out the requisite fiche requesting the work. On each occasion the fiche was returned marked "communiqué"—indicating that the work was being used by someone else. In itself this was not necessarily unusual. After a fortnight, however, it began to become so—and exasperating as well, for we could not remain in Paris much longer. We sought the assistance of a librarian. He told us the book would be "communiqué" for three months—an extremely unusual situation—and that we could not order it in advance of its return.

  In England not long afterward a friend of ours announced that she was going to Paris for a holiday. We asked her to try to obtain the elusive work by Antoine l’Ermite and at least make a note of what it contained. At the Bibliothèque Nationale she requested the book. Her fiche was not even returned. The next day she tried again, and with the same result.

  When we were next in Paris, some four months later, we made another attempt. Our fiche was again returned marked "communiqué." At this point we began to feel the game had been somewhat overplayed and began to play one of our own. We made our way down to the catalogue room, adjacent to the stacks—which are, of course, inaccessible to the public. Finding an elderly and kindly-looking library assistant, we assumed the role of bumbling English tourists with Neanderthal command of French. Asking his help, we explained that we were seeking a particular work but were unable to obtain it, no doubt because of our imperfect understanding of the library’s procedures.

  The genial old gentleman agreed to help. We gave him the work’s catalogue number and he disappeared into the stacks. When he emerged, he apologized, saying there was nothing he could do—the book had been stolen. What was more, he added, a compatriot of ours was apparently responsible for the theft—an Englishwoman. After some badgering he consented to give us her name. It was that of our friend!

  On returning to England again, we sought the assistance of the library service in London. They agreed to look into the bizarre affair. On our behalf the National Central Library wrote to the Bibliothèque Nationale requesting an explanation for what appeared to be deliberate obstruction of legitimate research. No explanation was forthcoming. Shortly thereafter, however, a Xerox copy of Antoine l’Ermite’s work was at last dispatched to us—along with emphatic instructions that it be returned immediately. This in itself was extremely singular, for libraries do not generally request return of Xerox copies. Such copies are usually deemed mere waste paper and disposed of accordingly.

  The work, when it was finally in our hands, proved distinctly disappointing—hardly worth the complicated business of obtaining it. Like Madeleine Blancassal’s work, it bore the imprint of the Swiss Grand Loge Alpina. Bu
t it said nothing in any way new. Very briefly, it recapitulated the history of the county Razes, of Rennes-le-Château, and Bérenger Saunière. In short, it rehashed all the details with which we had long been familiar. There seemed to be no imaginable reason why anyone should have been using it and keeping it "communiqué" for a solid week. Nor did there seem any imaginable reason for withholding it from us. But most puzzling of all, the work itself was not original. With the exception of a few words altered here and there, it was a verbatim text, reset and reprinted, of a chapter in a popular paperback—a facile best seller, available at newsstands for a few francs, on lost treasures throughout the world. Either Antoine l’Ermite had shamelessly plagiarized the published book, or the published book had plagiarized Antoine l’ Ermite.

  Such occurrences are typical of the mystification attending the material that since 1956 has been appearing fragment by fragment in France. Other researchers have encountered similar enigmas. Ostensibly plausible names have proved to be pseudonyms. Addresses, including addresses of publishing houses and organizations, have proved not to exist. References have been cited to books that no one, to our knowledge, has ever seen. Documents have disappeared, been altered, or inexplicably miscatalogued in the Bibliothèque Nationale. At times one is tempted to suspect a practical joke. If so, however, it is a practical joke on an enormous scale, involving an impressive array of resources—financial and otherwise. And whoever might be perpetrating such a joke would seem to be taking it very seriously indeed.

  In the meantime new material has continued to appear, with the familiar themes recurring like leitmotifs—Saunière, Rennes-le-Château, Poussin, "Les Bergers d’Arcadie," the Knights Templar, Dagobert II, and the Merovingian dynasty. Allusions to viticulture—the grafting of vines—figure prominently, presumably in some allegorical sense. At the same time more and more information has been added. The identification of Henri Lobineau as the count of Lénoncourt is one example. Another is an increasing but unexplained insistence on the significance of the Magdalen. And two other locations have been stressed repeatedly, assuming a status now apparently commensurate with Rennes-le-Château. One of these is Gisors, a fortress in Normandy that was of vital strategic and political importance at the peak of the crusades. The other is Stenay, once called Satanicum, on the fringe of the Ardennes—the old capital of the Merovingian dynasty, near which Dagobert II was assassinated in 679.

  The corpus of material now available cannot be adequately reviewed or discussed in these pages. It is too dense, too confusing, too disconnected, most of all too copious. But from this ever-proliferating welter of information certain key points emerge that constitute a foundation for further research. They are presented as indisputable historical fact and can be summarized as follows.

  1. There was a secret order behind the Knights Templar, which created the Templars as its military and administrative arm. This order, which has functioned under a variety of names, is most frequently known as the Prieuré de Sion (Priory of Sion).

  2. The Prieuré de Sion has been directed by a sequence of grand masters whose names are among the most illustrious in Western history and culture.

  3. Although the Knights Templar were destroyed and dissolved between 1307 and 1314, the Prieuré de Sion remained unscathed. Although itself periodically torn by internecine and factional strife, it has continued to function through the centuries. Acting in the shadows, behind the scenes, it has orchestrated certain of the critical events in Western history.

  4. The Prieuré de Sion exists today and is still operative. It is influential and plays a role in high-level international affairs as well as in the domestic affairs of certain European countries. To some significant extent it is responsible for the body of information disseminated since 1956.

  5. The avowed and declared objective of the Prieuré de Sion is the restoration of the Merovingian dynasty and bloodline—not only to the throne of France, but to the thrones of other European nations as well.

  6. The restoration of the Merovingian dynasty is sanctioned and justifiable, both legally and morally. Although it was deposed in the eighth century, the Merovingian bloodline did not become extinct. On the contrary, it perpetuated itself in a direct line from Dagobert II and his son, Sigisbert IV. By dint of dynastic alliances and intermarriages this line came to include Godfroi de Bouillon, who captured Jerusalem in 1099, and various other noble and royal families, past and present—Blanchefort, Gisors, Saint-Clair (Sinclair in England), Montesquiou, Montpézat, Poher, Luisignan, Plantard, and Hapsburg- Lorraine. At present the Merovingian bloodline enjoys a legitimate claim to its rightful heritage.

  Here in the so-called Prieuré de Sion was a possible explanation for the reference to "Sion" in the parchments found by Bérenger Saunière. Here, too, was an explanation for the curious signature, "P.S.," which appeared on one of those parchments and on the tombstone of Marie de Blanchefort.

  Nevertheless, we were extremely skeptical, like most people, about "conspiracy theories of history"; and most of the assertions struck us as irrelevant, improbable, and/or absurd. But the fact remained that certain people were promulgating them, and doing so quite seriously—quite seriously and, there was reason to believe, from positions of considerable power. And whatever the truth of the assertions, they were clearly connected in some way with the mystery surrounding Saunière and Rennes-le-Château.

  We therefore set out on a systematic examination of what we had begun to call, ironically, the "Prieuré documents" and of the assertions they contained. We tried to subject these assertions to careful critical scrutiny and determine whether they could be in any way substantiated. We did so with a cynical, almost derisory skepticism, fully convinced the outlandish claims would wither under even cursory investigation. Although we could not know it at the time, we were to be greatly surprised.

  Part Two

  THE SECRET SOCIETY

  5

  The Order Behind the Scenes

  We had already suspected the existence of a group of individuals, if not a coherent "order," behind the Knights Templar. The claim that the Temple was created by the Prieuré de Sion thus seemed slightly more plausible than the other assertions in the "Prieuré documents." It was with this claim, therefore, that we started our examination.

  As early as 1962 the Prieuré de Sion had been mentioned, briefly, cryptically, and in passing, in a work by Gérard de Sède. The first detailed reference to it that we found, however, was a single page in the Dossiers secrets. At the top of this page there is a quotation from René Grousset, one of the foremost twentieth-century authorities on the crusades, whose monumental opus on the subject, published during the 1930s, is regarded as a seminal work by such modern historians as Sir Steven Runciman. The quotation refers to Baudouin I, younger brother of Godfroi de Bouillon, duke of Lorraine and conqueror of the Holy Land. On Godfroi’s death Baudouin accepted the crown offered him and thereby became the first official king of Jerusalem. According to René Grousset there existed, through Baudouin I, a "royal tradition." And because it was "founded on the rock of Sion,"1 this tradition was "equal" to the reigning dynasties in Europe — the Capetian dynasty of France, the Anglo-Norman (Plantagenet) dynasty of England, the Hohenstauffen and Hapsburg dynasties that presided over Germany and the old Holy Roman Empire. But Baudouin and his descendants were elected kings, not kings by blood. Why, then, should Grousset speak of a "royal tradition" that "existed through" him? Grousset himself does not explain. Nor does he explain why this tradition, because it was "founded on the rock of Sion," should be "equal" to the foremost dynasties of Europe.

  On the page in the Dossiers secrets Grousset’s quotation is followed by an allusion to the mysterious Prieuré de Sion—or Ordre de Sion as it was apparently called at the time. According to the text the Ordre de Sion was founded by Godfroi de Bouillon in 1090, nine years before the conquest of Jerusalem—although there are other "Prieuré documents" that give the founding date as 1099. According to the text Baudouin, Godfroi’s yo
unger brother, "owed his throne" to the order. And according to the text the order’s official seat or "headquarters" was a specific abbey—the Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de Sion in Jerusalem, or perhaps just outside Jerusalem—on Mount Sion, the famous "high hill" just south of the city.

  On consulting all standard twentieth-century works on the Crusades, we found no mention whatever of any Ordre de Sion. We therefore undertook to establish whether or not such an order ever existed—and whether it could have had the power to confer thrones. To do that we were obliged to rummage through sheaves of antiquated documents and charters. We did not just seek explicit references to the order. We also sought some trace of its possible influence and activities. And we tried to confirm whether or not there was an abbey called Notre Dame du Mont de Sion.

  To the south of Jerusalem looms the high hill of Mount Sion. In 1099, when Jerusalem fell to Godfroi de Bouillon’s crusaders, there stood on this hill the ruins of an old Byzantine basilica, dating supposedly from the fourth century and called the Mother of all Churches—a most resonant title. According to numerous extant charters, chronicles, and contemporary accounts, an abbey was built on the site of these ruins. It was built at the express command of Godfroi de Bouillon. It must have been an imposing edifice, a self-contained community. According to one chronicler, writing in 1172, it was extremely well fortified, with its own walls, towers, and battlements. And this structure was called the Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de Sion.