Vaincre No. 3, September 1989, page 22
Managing Editor: Thomas PLANTARD de SAINT-CLAIR
110, Rue Henri Dunant, 92700 COLOMBES

SOME ARCHIVES OF THE ‘PRIORY OF SION’

DISCOVERED IN BARCELONA…

Since the end of 1939 certain archives of the PRIORY OF SION have been located in BARCELONA, where the Comte de Saint HILLIER deposited them in anticipation of the events that were to lead to the Second World War.

These archives are various statements of Pierre PLANTARD on the date of the foundation of the PRIORY. These sparked off the researches conducted by all the brothers of the ORDER. It was initially thought that certain archives had been sent, before the Second World War, to our Brother Gabriel TRARIEUX d’EGMONT by Brother de SAINT-HILLIER to be kept in MONTE-CARLO, but it was our Brother SAVIO who found evidence of the journey by Gabriel TRARIEUX to BARCELONA in December 1939 and who discovered in the archives in the vault of the Commandery the documents of the Children of Saint VINCENT as well as 60 years of letters and official documents relating to the PRIORY OF SION. According to these documents it is possible to dispel all the various uncertainties regarding the origin of the ORDER. All the documents will be reproduced on microfilm and later published in VAINCRE.

We are now able to officially state that the PRIORY OF SION has no direct or indirect connection with the ORDER OF THE TEMPLE, and that all this fantastic succession of Grand-Masters that authors such as Philippe TOSCAN, Mathieu PAOLI, Henry LINCOLN, Michael BAIGENT, Richard LEIGH, etc. have attributed to it derive merely from people’s imaginations and the realm of fantasy.

The origins of the PRIORY OF SION are actually quite modest. The PRIORY stems from RAZES and is only a more or less direct successor of the Children of St VINCENT and (probably) of the Company of the Blessed Sacrament founded in 1629 by Henri de LEVIS, theoretically then dissolved in 1665, but of which some secret adepts were still in existence 50 years later.

We now know that the PRIORY OF SION dates from 17 January 1681, with, as founder, JEAN-TIMOLEON NEGRI D’ABLES, and with the participation of Blaise d’HAUTPOUL (+1694), and Abbé André-Hercule de FLEURY (+ 1743).

Our Brothers must remember that, during the French Revolution of 1789-1792, a very large number of the ORDER’s documents were entrusted to Maximilien de LORRAINE, Archbishop of COLOGNE, and then partially returned in September 1840 to Victor HUGO during his journey to COLOGNE. A certain number of documents remained in the hands of the HABSBURGS. Later the HABSBURGS established secret contacts with Abbés Bérenger SAUNIERE and Henri BOUDET (of the two RENNES) in the years 1890 to 1914, with the aim of entering into negotiations.

By ‘negotiations’ we do not mean financial manoeuvres, but negotiations for the exchange of documents. At the end of the French Revolution the PRIORY OF SION had already tried to obtain various official documents from Angélique LENOIR, but without success, as this lady claimed ‘that, under the Terror, she had burned all the papers’. This is not correct, as she entrusted part of them to the Comte d’ANTRAIGUES...

What was the secret of Angélique LENOIR? Why did she publicly claim to have destroyed all the deeds, papers and manuscripts that had been entrusted to her? Abbé DELILLE, like André CHENIER, referred to the ‘documents of the TEMPLE’! But which TEMPLE? That of RENNES ... or that of the Templars? Or the mystery of the Temple perhaps?

The first two would not have been of any interest to the HABSBURGS, but the last of them certainly would have been, especially when we remember that Angélique LENOIR was the wife of Jean-Marie-Alexandre d’HAUTPOUL (she married him in 1781). In the spring of 1799 Elizabeth, known as ‘Mademoiselle de RENNES’, welcomed all her nephews (including General d’HAUTPOUL) to the Château de Montferrand (in Rennes-les-Bains). The aim of this family journey was to entrust to the eccentric noblewoman the famous documents of Angélique LENOIR. Elisabeth de RENNES died in Paris between 18 and 20 May 1820, completely ruined, and surviving only thanks to assistance from the sisters of a charitable order. The legitimist royalists did not hesitate to believe that the parchments of Angélique LENOIR (kept in Rennes) related to the escape of LOUIS XVII…. and the HABSBURGS themselves believed in this version of the facts! At the time of writing nothing has been found at RENNES ..... of the documents of Angélique LENOIR!

URSANNE

The Grand Masters of the PRIORY OF SION:

1681…Jean-Tim. NEGRI d’ABLES
1703…François d’HAUTPOUL
1726…André Hercule de ROSSET
1766…Charles de LORRAINE
1780…Maximilien de LORRAINE*
(period of the French Revolution)
1801…Charles NODIER
1844…Victor HUGO
1885…Claude DEBUSSY
1918…Jean COCTEAU
1963…François BALPHAGON
1969…John DRICK
1981…Pierre PLANTARD de St CLAIR
1984…Philippe de CHERISEY
1985…Patrice PELAT
1989…Pierre PLANTARD de St CLAIR
1989…Thomas PLANTARD de St CLAIR

* - Charles de LORRAINE married Marie Anne de HABSBURG. Maximilien de LORRAINE was the son of François Etienne de LORRAINE and Marie-Thérèse de HABSBURG.