This page has been deleted and it is not listed in any Internet Search Engine. I have been meaning to create a record of Wikipedia's underhand tactics on the http://www.priory-of-sion.com website for some time - "Educational and Objective" Wikipedia is not and it is populated by Administrators of a Romantic nature who run the show to their criterias and demands.

Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard (born March 18, 1920, died February 3, 2000) was the principal figure associated with the known history of the Priory of Sion, and is widely believed to have been the main creator of many of the claims about the Priory's supposed past history that later inspired the books Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code among others.

He used the surname Plantard de Saint-Clair from 1975 onwards, a constellation he made up himself following a published interview with Jean-Luc Chaumeil in the magazine l'Ère d'Aquarius. The surname Saint-Clair was adapted to his own surname on the basis that this was the family name associated with the area of Gisors, and Plantard began his mythmaking activities of the 1960s with Gerard de Sede in relation to the Gisors story as previously begun by Roger Lhomoy (see below).

Pierre Plantard from 1937 onwards began forming phantom associations with the aim of "purifying and renewing France" showing his anti-semitic and anti-masonic inclinations. On 16 December 1940 Plantard wrote a letter to Marshal Pétain expressing his belief in a "terrible ‘Masonic and Jewish’ conspiracy" against France and warned that Pétain should act quickly to counter this threat – with Plantard offering "a hundred reliable men … who are devoted to the cause."

Plantard's phantom associations included the French Union (1937), the French National Renewal (1941) and the Alpha Galates (1942 and 1946). The German authorities had refused permission for Plantard to form the French National Renewal, and when Plantard disregarded another prohibition in the case of the Alpha Galates it earned him a four-month sentence in Fresnes Prison. Police Reports (entitled File Ga P7) relating to Plantard's pre-war and wartime activities are contained in the Paris Prefecture of Police, and from this early stage on in Plantard's life it was observed about him that: "Plantard, who boasts of having links with numerous politicians, seems to be one of those dotty, pretentious young men who run more or less fictitious groups in an effort to look important and who are taking advantage of the present trend towards taking a greater interest in young people in order to attract the Government's attention" (Police Report on Plantard's French National Renewal dated 9 May 1941).

Plantard founded the Priory in 1956 with Andre Bonhomme, both of them being signatories to the 7 May 1956 Priory of Sion Statutes and Registration Documents that had to be deposited at the Sub-Prefecture of Saint Julien-en-Genevois to conform with the 1901 French Law of Associations (all French associations, groups and clubs must register with the authorities). Pierre Plantard at the time was working as a draughtsman for a company in the town of Annemasse, in the Haute-Savoie region of south-east France. Devoted to the "Defence and Liberty of Low-Cost Housing", the association attacked the property developers of Annemasse through its journal Circuit.

During the early 1960s, Plantard put himself forward as a Merovingian claimant to the throne of France, descended from King Dagobert II. This position was apparently influenced by an article that he had read by Louis Saurel in the French magazine Les Cahiers de l'Histoire Number 1 (1960). Louis Saurel's article had argued that Dagobert II was the last effective independent Merovingian King before the "Mayors of the Palace" began taking control. There is no prior evidence that Plantard or his family claimed descent from the Merovingian dynasty, and the format of Louis Saurel's 1960 article in Les Cahiers de l'Histoire was later copied in a 1964 Priory Document ascribed to "Anne Lea Hisler" entitled "Rois et Gouvernants de la France". Plantard in reality was the son of a butler and a cook, who had no recorded links to the Merovingians.

This period of Plantard's activities coincided with his meeting French author Gerard de Sede, who with the collaboration of Plantard published in 1962 the book Les Templiers sont parmi nous, which related to the Gisors story that was begun by Roger Lhomoy (Lhomoy was de Sede's pig-farmer during this time). The book seems to have been the genesis of what was soon to become the popular version of the Priory of Sion, with the well-known ingredients – Godfrey de Bouillon, the Knights Templar, and so on: all of which can be easily proved to be historical fiction because the various claims as found in the Priory Documents never existed before the early 1960s in any shape or form, and cannot be substantiated from the known historical records. Furthermore, letters in existence dating from the 1960s written by Pierre Plantard, Philippe de Cherisey and Gerard de Sede to each other confirm that the three were engaging in an out-and-out confidence trick, describing schemes on how to combat criticisms of their various allegations and how they would make-up new allegations to try and keep the whole thing going - these letters (totalling over 100) are in the possession of French researcher Jean-Luc Chaumeil, who has also retained the original envelopes. Jean-Luc Chaumeil during the 1970s was part of the Priory of Sion cabal and wrote books and articles about Plantard and the Priory of Sion before splitting from it during the late 1970s and exposing Pierre Plantard's past in French books. The Priory, Plantard claimed during the mid-1960s (but not before, and certainly not in 1956), was a secret inner circle of the Templars, which had survived the extinction of the original order, and had been manipulating events in Europe over centuries to keep alive the "rightful" Merovingian royalty.

Influenced by the hotelier Noel Corbu who claimed that a treasure had been discovered by the previous occupant of his hotel, Father Bérenger Saunière, Plantard claimed that this treasure included parchments that substantiated his descent from Dagobert. Plantard began writing manuscripts, and produced "parchments" (created by his friend, Philippe de Cherisey) that Saunière had supposedly discovered whilst renovating his church. These documents purportedly showed the survival of the Merovingian line of Frankish kings. Plantard manipulated Saunière's activities at Rennes-le-Château in order to "prove" his claims relating to the Priory of Sion. He, or an associate, also planted "arcane" home-made documents produced by a cheap stencil kit in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. These documents purported to corroborate the Priory's version of history.

Plantard later rejected these claims during the late 1980s when he revised the mythological pedigree of the Priory of Sion, claiming it had nothing to do with the Knights Templar, that the "Dossiers Secrets" was written under the influence of LSD, and that the Priory of Sion had in fact been founded in 1681 at Rennes-le-Château by the grandfather of Marie de Negri d'Ables. This revised version of the Priory of Sion had been influenced by the opening of the "Sauniere Museum" in Rennes-le-Chateau in May 1989.

In September, 1993, Plantard claimed that Roger-Patrice Pelat had once been grandmaster of the Priory of Sion. Pelat was a friend of the then-President of France François Mitterrand and center of a scandal involving French Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy. A French court ordered a search of Plantard's home, turning up many documents, including some proclaiming Plantard the true king of France. Under oath, Plantard admitted that he had fabricated everything, including Pelat's involvement with the Priory of Sion.[1] Plantard lived in obscurity until his death on 3 February 2000 in Paris.

• Paul Smith. Priory of Sion: The Pierre Plantard Archives 1937–1993 The most extensive resource for an exposure of Pierre Plantard as a hoaxer.

• Massimo Introvigne. Beyond The Da Vinci Code: History and Myth of the Priory of Sion