Secrets behind 'The Da Vinci Code'

In the book, they are startling truths that have been protected and passed down through the ages by the members of an elite secret society called the Priory of Sion.

And while “The Da Vinci Code” is, once again, fiction, page one opens with these words -- "fact: The Priory of Sion, a European secret society founded in 1099, is a real organization." And if that society is real, some readers reason, then the secret it holds about Jesus and Mary must be real, too. But does the Priory of Sion exist?

Bill Putnam, archeologist: On page one or page two, it says, ‘fact.’ The large word, ‘fact.’ My reaction was screams.

“The Da Vinci Code” isn't the first book to make a case that the Priory of Sion and its secrets about Mary and Jesus are real. A similar story was first told in 1982 in a non fiction book called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

Co-authors Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln remember the controversy all too well.

Henry Lincoln, co-author "Holy Blood, Holy Grail": What we have now with ‘The Da Vinci Code’ Is repeat of what happened about 20 years ago when ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’ was published.

Richard Leigh,co-author "Holy Blood, Holy Grail":  The whole thing turned into a circus.

To separate fact from fiction in both books, you have to understand the true story at the heart of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," one that began more than a 100 years ago, in a tiny village in the south of France called Rennes le Chateau.

It all centers around a man named Sauniere. the same name author Dan Brown gave the curator in “The Da Vinci Code.” The real-life Sauniere was a young, penniless priest. But soon after he began renovating a church, all of that changed. He became rich, which left many in town wondering how he came by his fortune and what secrets it might hold....

Local legend has it Sauniere found some mysterious documents hidden deep in the church's altar.

Lincoln: The priest, in repairing his church, supposedly found some parchments. These parchments contained secret messages.

Secret messages, it was said, that led the priest to a buried treasure. But when the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" analyzed the parchments, they came up with a different theory: Sauniere had stumbled onto not gold and jewels, but evidence of a secret society that had been guarding the descendents of Jesus and Mary Magdalene for centuries.

The clues, they say, are there in the parchments. If you look closely enough you can find the letters, "Sion" and "PS," code for the Priory of Sion.

Lincoln: Nobody knows anything about the Priory of Sion.

To find out more about the Priory, the authors headed to the French National Library, and soon, made another discovery, a list of Priory leaders, or grand masters. The same list is featured in “The Da Vinci Code.”

Leigh: We checked all of these, even those that seemed irrelevant to the main story, and they all checked out.

But that wasn't all. The same files contained papers filled with elaborate family trees, genealogies and codes that seemed to directly tie a line of French kings and queens to the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Leigh: If we read the clues they provided correctly they claim, one, Jesus was married. At some point subsequent to the crucifixion Jesus' wife or widow, as the case, might be escaped either pregnant or with child to the South of France. Around 496 AD this blood line supposedly intermarries with the royal line of the Francs.

Could this radical -- even sacrilegious -- story be the real secret the priest stumbled onto all those years ago? And did he use that knowledge to extort money from someone, the Church perhaps, to keep silent?

Leigh: Whom could he blackmail? Well, he could blackmail the Vatican.

The authors followed the documents further and it wasn't long before those family trees led them to the doorstep of an eccentric Frenchman named Pierre Plantard.

Lincoln: Pierre Plantard was a charming man. I liked him very much.

Plantard was the soft-spoken son of a butler and a cook, who'd lived an unremarkable life as a low ranking government paper-pusher. But when the authors interviewed Plantard, a grander story emerged. Plantard said that the Priory of Sion was real and that he was a member.

Leigh: When we first established contact with members of Priory, Plantard was their official spokesman.

But in this 1979 BBC documentary interview, Plantard went one step further.

Lincoln: Can you tell us whether the Priory of Sion still exists today.
Plantard: At this moment Priory of Sion still exists.
Lincoln: Monsieur Plantard, you have supported the Priory of Sion.
Plantard: We have supported Sion and Sion has supported us.
Lincoln:  We? Who are we?
Plantard: We. I am speaking of the Merovingian line.

The same royal line described on the family trees— which raised the possibility that Plantard wasn't just a member of the priory, but also perhaps, a descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

And in 1982, they laid out the following theory in their non-fiction book: The Priory of Sion was a real organization that had been protecting the untold story of Jesus, Mary and their French descendants for centuries. A generation later, The Priory of Sion appeared in the “The Da Vinci Code,” on that page labeled "fact.”

There was just one problem.

Putnam: The whole thing is made up.

Archeologist Bill Putnam is one of several scholars, historians, and journalists who have called The Priory of Sion nothing more than a modern-day con.

Putnam: It's the greatest hoax in my experience.

By comparing the Priory documents to other paperwork, Putnam concluded that the grand master list, the family trees, the secret "Sion" and "PS" codes were all a hoax, fabricated by none other than Pierre Plantard.

Putnam: He's a very strange man. He's a very strange man. One might call him a fantasy worker.

Putnam says the deception began when Plantard heard legends about the French priest and his unexplained wealth and decided to fabricate coded parchments that would appear to explain the mystery of the priest's fortune.

Putnam: He creates a body called the Priory of Sion and argues that this had been in existence for 1,000 years.

Next, Putnam says, Plantard planted the list of priory grand masters and those family trees linking him to French royalty in the French National Library.

So why would Plantard go to all this trouble?

Putnam: He got the idea that he ought to be King of France, believe it or not.

Pierre Plantard died in 2000.  But Priory of Sion lives on in the pages of “The Da Vinci Code.”

And if you're wondering how that priest, Sauniere, amassed that mysterious fortune, it had nothing to do with unearthing secrets about the Holy Grail. It turns out he was accused of selling mail-order prayer services for the dead -- a scandal that got him suspended from the pulpit. It appears all other explanations for the mystery are simply fiction.

Unless, of course, like some true believers, you think the fake documents, the Sauniere mystery, and Plantard's story are just another smokescreen. Perhaps the Priory of Sion has managed, once again, to avoid detection— still carefully guarding its holy secret about Mary Magdalene. Are they eluding -- as “The Da Vinci Code” suggests, the all powerful Roman Catholic Church?

Lincoln: The simple facts are there are no facts. We just don't know.

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