Holy Blood, Holy Grail

by Baigent, Michael

  Could it be true after all? Could there be at least a grain of truth in it? In 1188 the Prieuré de Sion is said to have adopted the subtitle of "Rose-Croix veritas." If Pope John was affiliated with a Rose-Croix organization, and if that organization was the Prieuré de Sion, the implications would be extremely intriguing. Among other things they would suggest that Cardinal Roncalli, on becoming Pope, chose the name of his own secret grand master—so that, for some symbolic reason, there would be a John XXIII presiding over Sion and the papacy simultaneously.

  In any case the simultaneous rule of a John (or Jean) XXIII over both Sion and Rome would seem to be an extraordinary coincidence. Nor could the "Prieuré documents" have devised a list to create such a coincidence—a list that culminated with Jean XXIII at the same time that a man with that title occupied the throne of Saint Peter. For the list of Sion’s alleged grand masters had been composed and deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale no later than 1956—two years before John XXIII became Pope.

  There was another striking coincidence. In the twelfth century an Irish monk named Malachi compiled a series of Nostradamus-like prophecies. In these prophecies—which, incidentally, are said to be highly esteemed by many important Roman Catholics, including the present Pope, John Paul II—Malachi enumerates the Pontiffs who will occupy the throne of Saint Peter in the centuries to come. For each Pontiff he offers a species of descriptive motto. And for John XXIII the motto, translated into French, is "Pasteur et Nautonnier" —"Shepherd and Navigator."29 The official title of Sion’s alleged grand master is also "Nautonnier."

  Whatever the truth underlying these strange coincidences, there is no question that more than any other man Pope John XXIII was responsible for reorienting the Roman Catholic Church—and bringing it, as commentators have frequently said, into the twentieth century. Much of this was accomplished by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which John inaugurated. At the same time, however, John was responsible for other changes as well. He revised the Church’s position on Freemasonry, for example—breaking with at least two centuries of entrenched tradition and pronouncing that a Catholic might be a Freemason. And in June 1960 he issued a profoundly important apostolic letter.30 This missive addressed itself specifically to the subject of "the Precious Blood of Jesus." It ascribed a hitherto unprecedented significance to that blood. It emphasized Jesus’ suffering as a human being and maintained that the redemption of mankind had been effected by the shedding of his blood. In the context of Pope John’s letter, Jesus’ human Passion and the shedding of his blood assume a greater consequence than the Resurrection or even than the mechanics of the Crucifixion.

  The implications of this letter are enormous. As one commentator has observed, they alter the whole basis of Christian belief. If man’s redemption was achieved by the shedding of Jesus’ blood, his death and resurrection become incidental—if not, indeed, superfluous. Jesus need not have died on the cross for the faith to retain its validity.

  7

  Conspiracy Through the Centuries

  How were we to synthesize the evidence we had accumulated? Much of it was impressive and seemed to bear witness to something— some pattern, some coherent design. The list of Sion’s alleged grand masters, however improbable it had originally appeared, now displayed some intriguing consistencies. Most of the figures on the list, for example, were connected, by either blood or personal association, with the families whose genealogies figured in the ’Prieuré documents"—and particularly with the house of Lorraine. Most of the figures on the list were involved with orders of one kind or another, or with secret societies. Virtually all the figures on the list, even when they were nominally Catholic, held unorthodox religious beliefs. Virtually all of them were immersed in esoteric thought and tradition. And in almost every case there had been some species of close contact between an alleged grand master, his predecessor, and his successor.

  Nevertheless, these consistencies, impressive though they might be, did not necessarily prove anything. They did not prove, for instance, that the Prieuré de Sion, whose existence during the Middle Ages we had confirmed, had actually continued to survive through the subsequent centuries. Still less did they prove that the individuals cited as grand masters actually held that position. It still seemed incredible to us that some of them really did. So far as certain individuals were concerned, the age at which they allegedly became grand master argued against them. Granted, it was possible that Edouard de Bar might have been selected grand master at the age of five, or René d’Anjou at the age of eight, on the basis of some hereditary principle. But no such principle seemed to obtain for Robert Fludd or Charles Nodier, who both supposedly became grand master at the age of twenty-one, or for Debussy, who supposedly did so aged twenty-three. Such individuals would not have had time to "work their way up through the ranks," as one might, for example, in Freemasonry. Nor had they even become solidly established in their own spheres. This anomaly made no apparent sense. Unless one assumed that Sion’s grand mastership was often purely symbolic, a ritual position occupied by a figurehead—a figurehead who, perhaps, was not even aware of the status accorded him.

  However, it proved futile to speculate—at least on the basis of the information we possessed. We therefore turned back to history again, seeking evidence of the Prieuré de Sion elsewhere, in quarters other than the list of alleged grand masters. We turned particularly to the fortunes of the house of Lorraine and some of the other families cited in the "Prieuré documents." We sought to verify other statements made in those documents. And we sought additional evidence for the work of a secret society, acting more or less covertly behind the scenes.

  If it was indeed genuinely secret, we did not, of course, expect to find the Prieuré de Sion explicitly mentioned by that name. If it had continued to function through the centuries, it would have done so under a variety of shifting guises and masks, "fronts" and façades— just as it purportedly functioned for a time under the name Ormus, which it discarded. Nor would it have displayed a single obvious and specific policy, political position, or prevailing attitude. Indeed, any such cohesive and unified stance, even if it could be gleaned, would have seemed highly suspect. If we were dealing with an organization that had survived for some nine centuries, we would have to credit it with considerable flexibility and adaptability. Its very survival would have hinged on these qualities; and without them it would have degenerated into an empty form, as devoid of any real power as, say, the Yeomen of the Guard. In short, the Prieuré de Sion could not have remained rigid and immutable for the whole of its history. On the contrary, it would have been compelled to change periodically, modify itself and its activities, adjust itself and its objectives to the shifting kaleidoscope of world affairs—just as cavalry units during the last century have been compelled to exchange their horses for tanks and armored cars. In its capacity to conform to a given age and exploit and master the technology and resources of that age, Sion would have constituted a parallel to what seemed its exoteric rival, the Roman Catholic Church; or perhaps, to cite a deceptively sinister example, to the organization known as the Mafia. We did not, of course, see the Prieuré de Sion as unadulterated villains. But the Mafia at least provided testimony of how, by adapting itself from age to age, a secret society could exist, and of the kind of power it could exercise.

  THE PRIEURÉ DE SION IN FRANCE

  According to the "Prieuré documents," between 1306 and 1480 Sion possessed nine commanderies. In 1481—when René d’Anjou died—this number was supposedly expanded to twenty-seven. The most important are listed as having been situated at Bourges, Gisors, Jarnac, Mont-Saint-Michel, Montréval, Paris, Le Puy, Solesmes, and Stenay. And, the Dossiers secrets add cryptically, there was "an arch called Beth-Ania—house of Anne—situated at Rennes-le-Château."1 It is not clear precisely what this passage means, except that Rennes-le-Château would appear to enjoy some kind of highly special significance. And surely it cannot be coincidental that Saunière, on building h
is villa, christened it Villa Bethania.

  According to the Dossiers secrets the commandery at Gisors dated from 1306 and was situated in the rue de Vienne. From here it supposedly communicated, via an underground passageway, with the local cemetery and with the subterranean chapel of Saint Catherine located beneath the fortress. In the sixteenth century this chapel, or perhaps a crypt adjacent to it, is said to have become a depository for the archives of the Prieuré de Sion, housed in thirty coffers.

  Early in 1944, when Gisors was occupied by German personnel, a special military mission was sent from Berlin with instructions to plan a series of excavations beneath the fortress. The Allied invasion of Normandy thwarted any such undertaking; but not long after, a French workman named Roger Lhomoy embarked on excavations of his own. In 1946 Lhomoy announced to the mayor of Gisors that he had found an underground chapel containing nineteen sarcophagi of stone and thirty coffers of metal. His petition to excavate further and make public his discovery was delayed—almost deliberately, it might seem—by a welter of official red tape. At last, in 1962, Lhomoy commenced his requested excavations at Gisors. They were conducted under the auspices of André Malraux, French minister of culture at the time, and were not officially open to the public. Certainly no coffers or sarcophagi were found. Whether the underground chapel was found has been debated—in the press as well as in various books and articles. Lhomoy insisted he did find his way again to the chapel but that its contents had been removed. Whatever the truth of the matter, there is mention of the subterranean chapel of Saint Catherine in two old manuscripts, one dated 1696 and the other 1375.2

  On this basis Lhomoy’s story at least becomes plausible. So does the assertion that the subterranean chapel was a depository for Sion’s archives. For we, in our own research, found conclusive proof that the Prieuré de Sion continued to exist for at least three centuries after the crusades and the dissolution of the Knights Templar. Between the early fourteenth and early seventeenth centuries, for example, documents pertinent to Orléans and to Sion’s base there at Saint-Samson make sporadic references to the order. Thus, it is on record that in the early sixteenth century members of the Prieuré de Sion at Orléans—by flouting their "rule" and "refusing to live in common" — incurred the displeasure of the Pope and the king of France. Toward the end of the fifteenth century the order was again accused of a number of offenses—failing to observe their rule, living "individually" rather than "in common," being licentious, residing outside the walls of Saint-Samson, boycotting divine services, and neglecting to rebuild the walls of the house, which had been seriously damaged in 1562. By 1619 the authorities seemed to have lost patience. In that year, according to the records, the Prieuré de Sion was evicted from Saint-Samson and the house was made over to the Jesuits.3

  From 1619 onward we could find no reference to the Prieuré de Sion—not, at any rate, under that name. But if nothing else, we could at least prove its existence until the seventeenth century. And yet the proof itself, such as it was, raised a number of crucial questions. In the first place, the references we found cast no light whatever on Sion’s real activities, objectives, interests, or possible influence. In the second place, these references, it seemed, bore witness only to something of trifling consequence—a curiously elusive fraternity of monks or religious devotees whose behavior, though unorthodox and perhaps clandestine, was of relatively minor import. We could not reconcile the apparently remiss occupants of Saint-Samson with the celebrated and legendary Rose-Croix, or a band of wayward monks with an institution whose grand masters supposedly comprised some of the most illustrious names in Western history and culture. According to the "Prieuré documents" Sion was an organization of considerable power and influence, responsible for creating the Templars and manipulating the course of international affairs. The references we found suggested nothing of such magnitude.

  One possible explanation, of course, was that Saint-Samson at Orléans was but an isolated seat, and probably a minor one, of Sion’s activities. And indeed, the list of Sion’s important commanderies

  6 The duchy of Lorraine in the mid-sixteenth century

  in the Dossiers secrets does not even include Orléans. If Sion was in fact a force to reckon with, Orléans can only have been one small fragment of a much broader pattern. And if this were the case, we would have to look for traces of the order elsewhere.

  THE DUKES OF GUISE AND LORRAINE

  During the sixteenth century the house of Lorraine and its cadet branch, the house of Guise, made a concerted and determined attempt to topple the Valois dynasty of France—to exterminate the Valois line and claim the French throne. This attempt on several occasions came within a hair’s breadth of dazzling success. In the course of some thirty years all Valois rulers, heirs, and princes were wiped out and the line driven to extinction.

  The attempt to seize the French throne extended across three generations of the Guise and Lorraine families. It came closest to success in the 1550s and 1560s under the auspices of Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, and his brother, François, duke of Guise. Charles and François were related to the Gonzaga family of Mantua and to Charles de Montpensier, constable of Bourbon—listed in the Dossiers secrets as grand master of Sion until 1527. Moreover, François, duke of Guise, was married to Anne d’Este, duchess of Gisors. And in his machinations for the throne he seems to have received covert aid and support from Ferrante de Gonzaga, allegedly grand master of Sion from 1527 until 1575.

  Both François and his brother, the cardinal of Lorraine, have been stigmatized by later historians as rabidly bigoted and fanatic Catholics, intolerant, brutal, and bloodthirsty. But there is substantial evidence to suggest that this reputation is to some extent unwarranted, at least so far as adherence to Catholicism is concerned. François and his brother appear, quite patently, to have been brazen, if cunning, opportunists, courting both Catholics and Protestants in the name of their ulterior design. 4 In 1562, for example, at the Council of Trent, the cardinal of Lorraine launched an attempt to decentralize the papacy—to confer autonomy on local bishops and restore the ecclesiastical hierarchy to what it had been in Merovingian times.

  By 1563 François de Guise was already virtually king when he fell to an assassin’s bullet. His brother, the cardinal of Lorraine, died twelve years later, in 1575. But the vendetta against the French royal line did not cease. In 1584 the new duke of Guise and new cardinal of Lorraine embarked on a fresh assault against the throne. Their chief ally in this enterprise was Louis de Gonzaga, duke of Nevers—who, according to the "Prieuré documents," had become grand master of Sion nine years before. The banner of the conspirators was the Cross of Lorraine—the former emblem of René d’Anjou.5

  The feud continued. By the end of the century the Valois were at last extinct. But the house of Guise had bled itself to death in the process and could put forward no eligible candidate for a throne that finally lay within its grasp.

  It is simply not known whether there was an organized secret society or secret order supporting the houses of Guise and Lorraine. Certainly they were aided by an international network of emissaries, ambassadors, assassins, agents provocateurs, spies, and agents who might well have comprised such a clandestine institution. According to Gérard de Sède, one of these agents was Nostradamus, and there are other "Prieuré documents’’ that echo M. de Sède’s contention.

  7 The dukes of Lorraine and Guise

  In any case, there is abundant evidence to suggest that Nostradamus was indeed a secret agent working for François de Guise and Charles, cardinal of Lorraine.6

  If Nostradamus was an agent for the houses of Guise and Lorraine, he would have been responsible not only for providing them with important information concerning the activities and plans of their adversaries, but he would also, in his capacity as astrologer to the French court, have been privy to all manner of intimate secrets, as well as quirks and weaknesses of personality. By playing on vulnerabilities with which he had become acquainted he could
have psychologically manipulated the Valois into the hands of their enemies. And by virtue of his familiarity with their horoscopes he might well have advised their enemies on, say, an apparently propitious moment for assassination. Many of Nostradamus’ prophecies, in short, may not have been prophecies at all. They may have been cryptic messages, ciphers, schedules, timetables, instructions, blueprints for action.

  Whether this was actually the case or not, there is no question that some of Nostradamus’ prophecies were not prophecies but referred, quite explicitly, to the past—to the Knights Templar, the Merovingian dynasty, the history of the house of Lorraine. A striking number of them refer to the Razes—the old comté of Rennes-le-Château.7 And the numerous quatrains that refer to the advent of "le Grand Monarch" —the Great Monarch—indicate that this sovereign will derive ultimately from the Languedoc.

  Our research revealed an additional fragment that linked Nostradamus even more directly to our investigation. According to Gérard de Sede, 8 as well as to popular legend, Nostradamus, before embarking on his career as prophet, spent considerable time in Lorraine. This would appear to have been some sort of novitiate, or period of probation, after which he was supposedly "initiated" into some portentous secret. More specifically he is said to have been shown an ancient and arcane book, on which he based all his own subsequent work. And this book was reportedly divulged to him at a very significant place—the mysterious Abbey of Orval, donated by Godfroi de Bouillon’s foster mother, where our research suggested the Prieuré de Sion may have had its inception. In any case, Orval continued for another two centuries to be associated with the name of Nostradamus. As late as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era books of prophecies purportedly authored by Nostradamus were issuing from Orval.