Holy Blood, Holy Grail (34 page)

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author’s exhaustive attempts to investigate the Prieure de Sion. Like us, M. Paoli eventually established contact with a representative of the Order whom he does not identify by name. But M. Paoli did not have the prestige of the BBC behind him, and the representative he met if we can gauge by his account would seem to have been of lesser status than M. Plantard. Nor was this representative as communicative as M.

Plantard was with us. At the same time, M. Paoli, being based on the continent and enjoying a greater mobility than we do, was able to pursue certain leads and undertake “on the spot’ research in a way that we could not. As a result his book was extremely valuable and contains much new information so much, in fact, that it appeared to warrant a sequel, and we wondered why M. Paoli had not written one. When we inquired about him, we were told that in 1977 or 1978 he had been shot as a spy by the

Israeli government for attempting to sell certain secrets to the Arabs.

29

M. Paoli’s approach, as he describes it in his book, was in many respects similar to our own. He too contacted the daughter of Leo Schidlof in

London; and he too was told by Miss Schidlof that her father, to her knowledge, had no connection whatever with secret societies, Freemasonry or

Merovingian genealogies. Like our BBC researcher, M. Paoli also contacted

Grande Loge Alpine and met with the Loge’s Chancellor, and each received an ambiguous reply. According to M. Paoli, the Chancellor denied all knowledge of anyone named “Lobineau’ or “Schidlof’. As for the various works bearing the Alpina imprint, the Chancellor asserted quite categorically that they did not exist. And yet a personal friend of M. Paoli’s who was also a member of Alpina, claimed to have seen the works in the Loge’s library. M. Paoli’s conclusion is as follows:

There is one of two possibilities. Given the specific character of the works of Henri Lobineau, Grande Loge Alpine which forbids all political activity both within Switzerland and without does not want known its involvement in the affair. Or another movement has availed itself of the name of the

Grande Loge in order to camouflage its own activities.3

In the Versailles Annexe of the Bibliotheque Nationale, M. Paoli

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discovered four issues of Circuit,3’ the magazine Fig. 2 The Cover Design of the Novel, Circuit

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ci 11 %\/ j \/ n ~~ “ /1/ i l .n 11 / l \

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r ~ ; 1 / -------------239 mentioned in the Prieure de Sion’s statutes. The first one was dated July 1st, 1959, and its director was listed as Pierre Plantard. But the magazine itself did not purport to be connected with. the Prieure de Sion. On the contrary it declared itself the official organ of something called the

Federation of French Forces. There was even a seal, which M. Paoli reproduces in his book, and the following data:

Publication periodique culturelle de la Federation des Forces Franpaises 116 Rue Pierre Jouhet, 116 Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-et-Oise)

Te1: 929-72-49

M. Paoli checked the above address. No magazine had ever been published there. The telephone number, too, proved to be false. And all M. Paoli’s attempts to track the Federation of French Forces proved futile. To this day no information on any such organisation has been forthcoming. But it would hardly seem coincidental that the French headquarters of the

Committees of Public Safety were also Aulnay-sous-Bois.3z The Federation of

French Forces would thus appear to have been in some way connected with the committees. There would seem to be considerable basis for this assumption.

M. Paoli reports that Volume 2 of Circuit alludes to a letter from de Gaulle to Pierre Plantard, thanking the latter for his service. The service in question would seem to have been the work of the Committees of Public

Safety.

According to M. Paoli, most of the articles in Circuit dealt with esoteric matters. They were signed by Pierre Plantard under both his own name and the pseudonym “Chyren’ Anne Lea Hisler and others with whom we were already familiar. At the same time, however, there were other articles of a very different kind. Some of them, for example, spoke of a secret science of vines and viticulture the grafting of vines which, apparently, had some crucial bearing on politics. This seemed to make no sense unless we assumed that vines and viticulture were to be understood allegorically a metaphor perhaps for genealogies, for family trees and dynastic alliances.

When the articles in Circuit were not arcane or obscure, they were,

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according to M. Paoli, fervently nationalistic. In one of them, for instance, signed Adrian Sevrette, the author asserts that no solution for existing problems will be forthcoming except through new methods and new men, for politics are dead. The curious fact remains that men do not wish to recognise this. There exists only one question: economic organisation. But do there still exist men who are capable of thinking France, as during the Occupation, when patriots and resistance fighters did not bother themselves about the political tendencies of their comrades in the fight ?33

And from Volume 4 of Circuit, M. Paoli quotes the following passage: We desire that the 1500 copies of Circuit be a contact which kindles a light, we desire that the voice of patriots be able to transcend obstacles as in 1940, when they left invaded France to come and knock on the office door of the leader of Free France. Today, it is the same, before all we are

French, we are that force which fights in one way or another to construct a France cleansed and new. This must be done in the same patriotic spirit, with the same will and solidarity of action. Thus we cite here what we declare to be an old philosophy .34

There then follows a detailed plan of government to restore to France a lost lustre. It insists, for example, on the dismantling of departments and the restoration of provinces: The department is but an arbitrary system, created at the time of the Revolution, dictated and determined by the era in accordance with the demands of locomotion (the horse). Today, it no longer represents anything.

In contrast, the province is a living portion of France; it is a whole vestige of our past, the same basis as that which formed the existence of our nation; it has its own folklore, its customs, its monuments, often its local dialects, which we wish to reclaim and promulgate. The province must have its own specific apparatus for defence and administration, adapted to its specific needs, with the national unit

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.35 M. Paoli then quotes eight pages that follow. The material they contain is organised under the following subheadings:

Council of the Provinces Council of State Parliamentary Council Taxes Work and Production Medical National Education Age of Majority Housing and Schools

The plan of government proposed under these subheadings is not inordinately controversial, and could probably be instituted with a minimum of upheaval.

Nor can the plan be labelled politically. It cannot be called

‘left-wing’ or ‘right-wing’, liberal or conservative, radical or reactionary. On the whole, it seems fairly innocuous; and one is at a loss to see how it would necessarily restore any particular lost lustre to France. As M. Paoli says, “The propositions .. . are not revolutionary. However, they rest on a realistic analysis of the actual structures of the French state, and are impregnated with a solid good sense. ‘36 But then the plan of government outlined in Circuit makes no explicit mention of the real basis on which, if implemented, it would presumably ultimately rest the restoration of a popular monarchy ruled by the Merovingian bloodline. In Circuit there would be no need to state this, for it would constitute an underlying ‘given’, a premise on which everything published in the magazine pivoted. For the magazine’s intended readers the restoration of the Merovingian bloodline was clearly too obvious and accepted an objective to need be labouring

At this point irt his book M. Paoli poses a crucial question a question that had haunted us as well:

We have, on the one hand, a concealed descent from the Merovingians and, on the other, a secret movement, the Prieure de Sion, whose goal is to facilitate the restoration of a popular monarchy of the Merovingian line . But it is necessary to know if this movement contents itself with esoterico-political speculations (whose unavowed

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end is to make much money by exploiting the world’s gullibility and naivete) or whether this movement is genuinely active.3’

M. Paoli then considers this question, reviewing the evidence at his disposal. His conclusion is as follows:

Unquestionably, the Prieure de Sion seems to possess powerful connections.

In actuality, any creation of an association is submitted to a preliminary inquiry by the Minister of the Interior. This obtains as well for a magazine, a publishing house. And yet these people are able to publish, under pseudonyms, at false addresses, through non-existent publishing houses, works which cannot be found in circulation either in Switzerland or in France. There are two possibilities. Either government authorities are not doing their jobs. Or else .. .3e M. Paoli does not spell out the alternative. At the same time it is apparent that he personally regards the unstated alternative as the more probable of the two. M. Paoli’s conclusion, in short, is that government officials, and a great many other powerful people as well are either members of Sion or obedient to it. If this is so, Sion must be a very influential organisation indeed.

Having conducted extensive research of his own, M. Paoli is satisfied with the Merovingian claim to legitimacy. To that extent, he admits, he can make sense of Sion’s objectives. Beyond this point, however, he confesses himself to be profoundly puzzled.

What is the point, he wonders, of restoring the Merovingian bloodline today, 1300 years after it was deposed? Would a modern-day Merovingian regime be different from any other modern day regime?

If so, how and why? What is so special about the Merovingians? Even if their claim is legitimate, it would seem to be irrelevant. Why should so many powerful and intelligent people, both today and in the past, accord it not only their attention, but their allegiance as well?

We, of course, were posing precisely the same questions. Like M.

Paoli, we were prepared to acknowledge the Merovingian claim to legitimacy. But what possible significance could such a claim enjoy today? Could the technical legitimacy of a monarchy really be so persuasive and convincing an argument? Why, in the late twentieth

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century, should any monarchy, legitimate or not, command the kind of allegiance the

Merovingians seemed to command?

If we were dealing only with a group of idiosyncratic cranks, we could dismiss the matter out of hand. But we were not. On the contrary, we seemed to be dealing with an extremely influential organisation which included in its ranks some of the most important, most distinguished, most acclaimed and most responsible men of our age. And these men, in many cases, seemed to regard the restoration of the Merovingian dynasty as a sufficiently valid goal to transcend their personal political, social and religious differences.

It seemed to make no sense that the restoration of a 1300-year-old bloodline should constitute so vital a cause celebre for so many public and highly esteemed people.

Unless, of course, we were overlooking something.

Unless legitimacy was not the only Merovingian claim. Unless there was something else of immense consequence that differentiated the Merovingians from other dynasties. Unless, in short, there was

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something very special indeed about the Merovingian blood royal. 9

The Long-haired Monarchs

By this time, of course, we had already researched the Merovingian dynasty.

As far as we could we had groped our way through a mist of fantasy and obscurity even more opaque than that surrounding the Cathars and the Knights

Templar. We had spent some months endeavouring to disentangle complex strands of intertwined history and fable. Despite our efforts, however, the

Merovingians remained for the most part shrouded in mystery.

The Merovingian dynasty issued from the Sicambrians, a tribe of the Germanic people collectively known as the Franks. Between the fifth and seventh centuries the Merovingians ruled large parts of what are now France and Germany. The period of their ascendancy coincides with the period of

King Arthur a period which constitutes the setting for the romances of the Holy Grail. It is probably the most impenetrable period of what are now called the Dark Ages. But the Dark Ages, we discovered, had not been truly dark. On the contrary it quickly became apparent to us that someone had deliberately obscured them. To the extent that the Roman Church exercised a veritable monopoly on learning, and especially on writing, the records that survived represent certain vested interests. Almost everything else has been lost or censored. But here and there something from time to time slipped through the curtain drawn across the past, seeped out to us despite the official silence. From these shadowy vestiges, a reality could be reconstructed a reality of a most interesting kind, and one very discordant with the tenets of orthodoxy.

Legend and the Merovingians

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We encountered a number of enigmas surrounding the origins of the Merovingian dynasty. One usually thinks of a dynasty, for example, as a ruling family or house which not merely succeeds another ruling family or house, but does so, by virtue of having displaced, deposed or supplanted its predecessors. In other words one thinks of dynasties as commencing with a coup d’etat of one sort or another, often entailing the extinction of the previous ruling line. The Wars of the Roses in England, for instance, marked the change of a dynasty. A century or so later the

Stuarts mounted the English throne only when the Tudors were extinct.