Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (14 page)

To this point Corbu, who never denied being the author, remained reasonably close to confirmable facts. When he began to explain the source of Saunière's fortune, however, fiction trampled fact into obscurity.

According to Corbu, files in Carcassonne confirmed that Saunière had stumbled upon a fortune buried beneath his church in 1249 by Blanche de Castille, mother of Louis ix, the last great Crusader and the only French king declared a saint. A mini-revolt led by power-seeking barons and oppressed vassals began soon after the king departed for Palestine. His mother, sensing that Paris was not the safest place for the royal treasury, secretly shipped the monarch's gold and jewels to Rennes-le-Chateau. When Louis returned from the east he subdued the revolts and left Paris again several years later, this time to lead the Eighth Crusade. He never returned, dying in Tunis and leaving his son Philippe le Hardi as his successor. Philippe, deciding that the country's treasury was safer in this remote village than in the capital, improved the town's defenses. Perhaps he forgot to tell
his
son, Philippe le Bel, destroyer of the
Templars, about the country's mobile riches, because from that point forward, according to Corbu, the treasure was forgotten.

Forgotten? How does even a French king from the Middle Ages forget 180 tons of gold plus jewels and art objects worth, according to Corbu's 1956 estimate, “4000 billion francs”? Even more basic, how did the king's servants transport 180-plus tons of gold and other goodies more than 650 kilometers (400 miles) in the first place? And why, of all places, to Rennes-le-Chateau, one of the furthest locations from Paris, on the border with one of France's enemies?

No one appears to have questioned this feat, distracted perhaps by Corbu's next revelation:

The treasure was found twice. In 1645 a shepherd named Ignace Paris fell in a hole and brought back golden coins. He then claimed he saw a room filled with gold. He finally went mad, trying to protect his gold. The owner of the castle searched for it but could not find [the gold]. Later came Saunière, who found the gold….

It is in this small village with a superb landscape and a prestigious history that one of the most fabulous treasures in the world is hidden!

This kind of fable was probably more effective than a rave review in
Paris Match
at drawing patrons to Corbu's hotel and restaurant. Corbu knew it, and he took advantage of contacts in the media to spread his tale among newspapers and magazines. Rennes-le-Chateau did not become a new Monaco overnight, but it seems to have drawn its share of intrigued visitors, and among them was Pierre Plantard, perhaps in search of a scam. The meeting between Corbu and Plantard is not speculation; photographs confirm that the two men met around 1960, shortly before Plantard wrote his first draft of the book eventually published as
L'Or de Rennes
.

The most notable absence in Corbu's fable is any mention of the lovely Giselle, whose marriage to Dagobert joined the
power of the Visigoths with the bloodline of Christ. How could Corbu overlook such a vital episode in the historical legend? The answer is startlingly simple and revealing:
Giselle de Razes never existed
. She is as fictional as Snow White. She did not exist in either flesh or spirit in the seventh century, and exists in the twenty-first century only in the minds of deluded followers, conspiracy buffs and gullible readers of a recent best-selling novel. Despite claimed records tracing a family lineage before and after Giselle, in the opinion of Aviad Kleinberg, noted medieval scholar and professor of history at Tel Aviv University, the beautiful, intelligent and charming Giselle remains “an invention of the 20th century.”

Without the existence of Giselle, Plantard's entire fabrication collapsed beneath him like a paper porch, so he simply created her as the Visigoth connection with the Merovingian bloodline. Plantard admitted as much from time to time—consistency was not one of the Frenchman's notable virtues—and launched a new version of the Priory tale in 1989. At that time, he claimed a man named Roger-Patrice Pelat, an acquaintance of then Prime Minister Mitterrand, was the current Priory Grand Master of the Priory of Sion and not Plantard himself, as he had been claiming for thirty years. Pelat's status was never confirmed, but he had at least one thing in common with Plantard: both had been convicted of fraud and embezzlement, Plantard's trial taking place soon after his apparent elevation to Grand Master status.

In September 1993, during an official investigation into Pelat's activities Plantard, who never encountered a media moment he didn't like, came forward in his friend's defense. It was a move he regretted after the presiding judge ordered a search of Plantard's dwelling. The search uncovered reams of documents, many proclaiming Plantard as king of France, which was enough for the judge to order Plantard to answer questions under oath. Whatever Inquisition techniques might have been used, Plantard quickly admitted that the entire undertaking was a hoax, that he had made up all the details regarding the
bloodline, including the marriage of Giselle and Dagobert, the discovery by Saunière of either a treasure or a corpse beneath or near his church, and his own identity as a Priory of Sion Grand Master. The judge, lenient perhaps due to Plantard's age and broken spirit, called Plantard a harmless crank and released him with a warning not to play games with the French judicial system. Plantard left the courtroom and wandered into relative obscurity until his death in February 2000.

These events—the investigation of Pelat, the claims of Plantard about Pelat's Grand Master position in the Priory of Sion, the phony documents and Plantard's admission of fraud—were widely reported in the French media at the time. No one has disputed them; they are as authentic and confirmable as the fable of Giselle is imaginary.

Of course, there is just enough truth to the story of Saunière and the supposed holy bloodline to suggest that Plantard lied not when he told his often-altered tale but when he claimed the Priory was a fabrication. Perhaps his original tale was true after all. Perhaps his claim under oath that it had all been a fabrication was a brave man's effort at concealing a sacred truth. How, for example, could this somewhat simple-minded man create such a complex structure as the Merovingian bloodline, supported by documents from the past?

⁸
For more on the
Protocols
, see Chapter 11 herein.

The answer lies in the maelstrom of political upheaval that swept Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, when Plantard was first building his reputation as an imaginative sycophant of fascist principles. During those years, an Italian fanatic named Julius Evola attracted the interest of far-right proponents, including Heinrich Himmler and Oswald Mosley, when he published an Italian version of the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
⁸
claiming that Jewish leaders had met in the nineteenth century to frame their strategy for ruling the world. Evola supported a philosophy similar to the Divine Right of Kings, promoting the old system of power based on the acceptance of a true monarch
as a sacred being from whom divine virtues and powers flow to his subjects. He especially admired Godfrey de Bouillon, the first European ruler of Palestine and, supposedly, the founder of the Priory of Sion.

Around the same time, a German scholar named Walter Johannes Stein published
The Ninth Century: World History in the Light of the Holy Grail,
a doctoral dissertation that included a genealogical chart Stein labeled “The Grail Bloodline.” Although the bloodline was a symbolic representation of historical figures who had demonstrated a high spiritual nature and paranormal capacities, someone skimming the surface of Stein's premise could easily mistake the symbols for real people—especially when Stein's lineage chart included Godfrey de Bouillon and the French royal family.

These and other esoteric documents accessible in libraries across France could easily have stimulated Plantard's imagination. Spiced with his confirmed penchant for fraud and his hunger for public recognition, Plantard shaped a core of history, with a cover of esoterica wrapped around a substantial amount of fiction, into a ball of a fairy tale that he rolled down a mountain, the ball growing in weight and stature until it swept up three British writers, who molded it into a best-seller titled
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
⁹

One mystery remained. Where did Father Saunière find the money for his extravagant construction and lifestyle? Unlike other aspects of the tale, this was no myth; Saunière's Magdalena Tower, extravagant church interior and Villa Bethania mansion exist to this day. How could he amass so much money without finding Louis ix's treasure or blackmailing the Church with Christ's bones? The confirmed answer is common and familiar: simple fraud.

⁹
For more on this book and its shaky premise, see Chapter 11 herein.

Until the practice was outlawed by Vatican ii, Catholic priests could claim a stipend for celebrating a Mass to heal an illness suffered by a living person, or to hasten the passage
through purgatory to heaven for a departed soul. Income from these Masses was an acceptable and even encouraged form of financial support for the priest and his parish.

In time, however, unscrupulous priests saw these commissioned Masses as a source of substantial income from Catholics beyond their community, and even beyond their country. Soon Masses were being marketed like any mail order item, advertised in newspapers and Catholic journals. The faithful could have a Mass said on behalf of whomever they desired by forwarding money and details to the priest whose name appeared in the advertisement.

No one, except God and the priest himself, could confirm that the Mass actually occurred. A priest might receive literally thousands of mailed requests, each accompanied by a few francs in cash, to celebrate Masses in the same week or even on the same day. The practice was called “trafficking in Masses,” and it appears that Saunière mastered the process. Advertisements appearing in various publications throughout Europe were traced back to the priest in the Pyrenees, and an examination of his books, recording the responses to his marketing campaign, revealed that Saunière could not possibly celebrate all the Masses that he had been paid to conduct, even if he were employed at the task twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The volume of Mass requests and the money enclosed over the years between 1895 and 1904 easily exceeded the 200,000 francs needed to achieve all the construction Saunière directed, as well as goodies such as the rum shipments from the Caribbean.

Correspondence seized from Saunière's church when he was defrocked revealed the enormous extent of his industry. One family sent 250 francs to pay for 125 Masses celebrated for each of their two departed sisters. A widow forwarded 45 francs to pay for 30 Masses for her dead soldier husband, and members of a convent paid 16 francs for Masses for their recently deceased abbess, who herself had paid Saunière for several Masses.

Saunière may have had a silent mentor for his Mass marketing scheme. Investigations revealed that Monsignor Billard,
Bishop of Carcassonne, had been under investigation at the time of his death for acting in a similar manner, which may explain Billard's tolerance for Saunière's own indiscretions.

They are all long dead now—Berenger Saunière, Marie Denarnaud, Pierre Plantard, Gerard de Sède, Philippe de Chérisy and Noel Corbu who, having built his La Tour hotel and restaurant into a thriving little business thanks to the myth of the buried treasure, sold it for a pretty price in 1964 and retired. But not for long; he was killed in a motor accident in 1968.

The myth lives on because people want it to survive and even grow, if only to satisfy their love of deep mystery and colorful intrigue. Someone will doubtless claim to see the ghost of Giselle de Razes, beautiful and radiant, strolling the grounds near the Magdalena Tower in her wedding finery, sighing for her lost Dagobert and searching for the buried treasure. If so, only the tower will be real.

FOUR

DRUIDS AND GNOSTICS

KNOWLEDGE AND THE ETERNAL SOUL

IT IS DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE TWO GROUPS WHOSE ORIGINS
and interests are in sharper contrast with each other than Druids and Gnostics. One was born in Celtic mysticism, the other in Judeo-Christian theology. One is rooted in naturalism, the other in spiritualism. One sought perfection in this world to match the perfection of the next world, the other saw this world as hopelessly lost and evil.

They are united by misunderstanding and oppression, two qualities that drive individuals and organizations alike into secrecy. They are also, need it be said, shadowy in their origins and activities, and when the shadows are deep enough and the passage of time is long enough, even the most benign groups acquire a veil of suspicion. Especially if they tend to dance in the woods, or are viewed askance by organized religion. Indulging in a little magic, as both Druids and Gnostics tended to do, doesn't help their reputation either.