Gérard de Sède
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Gérard de Sède (5 June 1921 – 29 May 2004) (full name Géraud Marie de Sède de Liéoux) was a French author and member of various surrealist organizations. He created more than 40 works on alternative history, and is best-known for his work on Rennes-le-Château, writing the 1967 book L'Or de Rennes, ou La Vie insolite de Bérenger Saunière, curé de Rennes-le-Château ("The Gold of Rennes, or The Strange Life of Bérenger Saunière, Priest of Rennes-le-Château"), that was later published in paperback under the title of Le Tresor Maudit de Rennes-le-Château ("The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château"), and then again in 1977 under the title of Signe: Rose+Croix ("Sign: Rose+Cross").
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[edit] Early life
He was born in Paris in 1921. His initial writing was as a Surrealist. In 1941, he was a member of the Surrealist group known as "La Main à Plume", which was named after a phrase by Rimbaud, "La main à plume vaut la main à charrue" ("The hand that writes is equal to the hand that ploughs").
The group published a newsletter. Its third issue, in 1943, included Gérard de Sède's L'Incendie habitable ("The Inhabitable Fire")
Gérard de Sède was active in the war, during the German occupation of Paris, and worked with the Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur (FFI), for which he received two citations.
After the war, he worked in a variety of jobs, including selling newspapers, digging tunnels, and working as a journalist during the 1950s and 1960s.
[edit] L'Or de Rennes
In 1956, he became a farmer, and it was during this period in his life that he met Roger Lhomoy who was his pig farmer - Lhomoy had previously worked as a tourist guide at the castle of Gisors in Normandy and claimed to have discovered a secret entrance to a long basement thirty meters long, nine meters wide, and approximately four and a half meters high, under the tower donjon - inside the basement Lhomoy claimed to have seen nineteen sarcophagi of stone, each two meters long and sixty centimeters wide - but Lhomoy was dismissed as a liar: nevertheless this inspired Gérard de Sède to write a magazine article about Gisors, which in turn was responsible for Gérard de Sède acquainting himself with Pierre Plantard and soon a collaboration developed between them that inspired Gérard de Sède's 1962 book, Les Templiers sont parmi nous, ou, L'Enigme de Gisors ("The Templars are Amongst Us, or The Enigma of Gisors"), which also paved the way for the introduction of the mythical Priory of Sion. The future publication in 1967 of L'Or de Rennes represented the pinnacle and crescendo of success between the two men, but they later parted company in the same year when Gérard de Sède refused to share his book royalties relating to L'Or de Rennes.
L'Or de Rennes was originally a manuscript written by Pierre Plantard[1] that had failed to find a publisher, and it was extensively re-written by Gérard de Sède. L'Or de Rennes was written in historical style, but it was also an indirect promotion of the mythical Priory of Sion, underlining some of the mythic allegations contained in several Priory of Sion documents that had been deposited in the Bibliothèque nationale de France several years earlier. The book also reproduced several diagrams of fake 'relics' with retouched photographs to embellish the story of a hidden treasure and the mystery of a priest - but the book was most famous for its reproduction of two parchments that had been allegedly discovered by the priest : but for a variety of numerous reasons the parchments have been recognised as being the forgeries of Philippe de Cherisey, a friend and associate of Pierre Plantard.
One of those who read the book was British script-writer Henry Lincoln, who created a series of BBC Two documentaries on the subject of Rennes-le-Château, as well as working some of its material into the 1982 bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail which itself was used as source material for the bestselling 2003 novel by Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code.
In his later years, Gérard de Sède looked critically at the subject matter of Rennes-le-Château. In Rennes-le-Château: le dossier, les impostures, les phantasmes, les hypothèses (1988) he discounted some of the more outlandish material which had appeared over the previous 20 years, but at the same time had added some of his own. For example, he made reference to a car chassis in the village of Rennes-le-Château that was riddled with machine-gun bullets implying it was the work of "silencing someone who knew too much", when in fact it belonged to a local farmer whose son used it for target practice.
[edit] Priory of Sion
In a 2005 TV documentary, de Sede's son Arnaud stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the existence of the Priory of Sion — to quote Arnaud de Sède in the programme, "frankly, it was piffle".[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Gérard de Sède, L'Incendie habitable (La Main à Plume, 1942).
- Gérard de Sède, Les Templiers sont parmi nous, ou, L'Enigme de Gisors (1962).
- Gérard de Sède, Le Trésor Cathare (1967).
- Gérard de Sède, L'Or de Rennes, ou La Vie insolite de Bérenger Saunière, curé de Rennes-le-Château (1967).
- Gérard de Sède, Le Trésor Maudit de Rennes-le-Château (1967).
- Gérard de Sède, La Race Fabuleuse, Extra-Terrestres Et Mythologie Mérovingienne (1973).
- Gérard de Sède, Le secret des Cathares (1974).
- Gérard de Sède, Le Vrai dossier de l'énigme de Rennes (1975).
- Gérard de Sède, Signe: Rose+Croix (1977).
- Gérard de Sède, Rennes-le-Château: le dossier, les impostures, les phantasmes, les hypothèses (1988).
- John Saul & Janice A. Glaholm, Rennes-le-Château, A Bibliography (1985).
- Jean-Luc Chaumeil, Rennes-le-Château – Gisors – Le Testament du Prieuré de Sion (Le Crépuscule d’une Ténebreuse Affaire), Editions Pégase, 2006.
- Marcus Williamson. "Gérard de Sède - Historian of the mystery of Rennes-le-Château" (obituary), The Independent (UK), 24 June 2004.
- Da Vinci Declassified, 2006 TLC video documentary
- "Priory of Sion", 60 Minutes, April 30, 2006, produced by Jeanne Langley, hosted by Ed Bradley
