Origins, Content, and Historical Context
The Dossiers Secrets d’Henri Lobineau are a collection of typewritten documents deposited anonymously between 1964 and 1967 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
They are registered under the reference 4° LM1 249 and, in their central folder, bear the date 1975. Today, the dossiers are preserved on microfilm and are accessible to researchers at the François-Mitterrand site of the National Library.
From the moment of their public discovery, these documents were widely described by journalists and commentators as fabricated evidence allegedly intended to support the restoration of a French monarchy led by a descendant of the Merovingian kings. This interpretation, however, simplifies both the nature of the dossiers and the position of their principal compiler, Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair.
Plantard’s Position and the Question of Nobility
Pierre Plantard never formally claimed to hold, nor to be legally entitled to, any noble or royal title. His position was consistently presented in genealogical and symbolic terms: he affirmed himself as a descendant of a bloodline, not as a claimant to temporal sovereignty. In this sense, Plantard proposed himself as a representative of a lineage, grounded in descent and in the transmission of values and ideals traditionally associated with that lineage, rather than as a pretender to political authority.
Legal Consequences and Retractions
The publication and circulation of the Dossiers Secrets eventually led to legal pressure against Plantard. This was not due to the genealogical hypotheses themselves, but rather to a declaration in which Plantard revealed the alleged membership in the Prieuré de Sion of Roger-Patrice Pelat, a figure closely connected to François Mitterrand.
Pelat’s reaction, reinforced by his political position, resulted in judicial action that forced Plantard to formally deny the validity of the Dossiers Secrets in their entirety. These retractions, however, must be understood within a context of legal constraint rather than as definitive historical clarification.
Physical Description of the Dossiers
The Dossiers Secrets d’Henri Lobineau appear as a slender bound folder containing a heterogeneous set of materials: press clippings, correspondence, inserts, genealogical charts, typed texts, and handwritten notes. The collection is not a single coherent treatise, but rather an assemblage of documents presented incrementally over several years.
The Six Deposits
1. January 1964
The first deposit bears the title “Genealogy of the Merovingian Kings and the Origins of Various French and Foreign Families of Merovingian Descent.”
Signed by “Henri Lobineau”, a pseudonym derived from the Rue Lobineau near Saint-Sulpice in Paris, the text outlines Merovingian genealogy and places the Plantard family in direct descent from Sigebert IV, presented as a hidden son of Dagobert II.
Subsequent texts within the dossiers suggest that Leo Schidlof, an Austrian-born art dealer active in London, may have been the actual author of parts of this material. Later publications by the Prieuré de Sion claimed that “Henri Lobineau” was in fact an aristocrat, Henri, Count of Lénoncourt.
2. August 1965
The second deposit, titled “The Merovingian Descendants or the Enigma of the Visigothic Razès,” is signed under another pseudonym, “Madeleine Blancasall.”
This document again advances Merovingian descent, linking it specifically to the region of Razès, including Rennes-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Château.
3. May 1966
The third document, “A Merovingian Treasure at… Rennes-le-Château…”, signed “Antoine l’Ermite,” is a nine-page pamphlet largely reproducing passages from a book by Robert Charroux, an early popular author on the Rennes-le-Château mystery.
The text closely mirrors Charroux’s work, with only minor alterations.
4. November 1966
The fourth deposit is presented as a supplement to the first dossier. Signed “S. Roux,” it references reports by Lionel Burrus and includes an article from La Semaine Catholique Genevoise identifying Lobineau with Leo Schidlof.
The author attacks both Burrus and Schidlof, accusing the latter of being a Soviet agent, reflecting the polemical and contradictory tone of some sections of the collection.
5. March 1967 – Le Serpent Rouge
The fifth document, The Red Serpent, is a symbolic prose poem composed of thirteen sections corresponding to the zodiac signs, with the addition of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.
It is accompanied by plans and diagrams relating to the seminary of Rue Saint-Sulpice and the nearby church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris.
The document is dated 15 February 1967 but was officially mailed and stamped on 20 March 1967. It is attributed to three real individuals—Pierre Feugère, Louis Saint-Maxent, and Gaston de Koker—each of whom died between those two dates, giving rise to the suggestion that their deaths were symbolically linked to the text itself.
6. April 1967
The final deposit bears the title “The Secret Files of Henri Lobineau,” compiled by Philippe Toscan du Plantier.
This collection both names the entire series and reinforces the identity of “Lobineau” as the central, if enigmatic, figure behind the dossiers. With this deposit, the presentation of the Prieuré de Sion to the public was effectively completed.
Contents and Claims
Among the materials is a manuscript dated 1956 affirming the existence of a secret society called the Prieuré de Sion, tracing its history back to its alleged foundation in 1099 by Godfrey of Bouillon.
The dossiers also include a list of Grand Masters attributed to the Order from the twelfth century onward, among them Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Claude Debussy, and Jean Cocteau.
The Dossiers Secrets d’Henri Lobineau occupy a liminal space between archival fact, symbolic construction, and initiatic narrative. While many of their claims remain contested, and some elements demonstrably derivative, their historical importance lies less in their literal assertions than in their role in shaping modern discourse around the Prieuré de Sion, Merovingian lineage, and sacred kingship.
Rather than constituting a straightforward political manifesto, the dossiers can be read as a complex exercise in mythopoesis, genealogy, and symbolic transmission—one that continues to provoke scholarly inquiry and debate.
“The Dossiers Secrets d’Henri Lobineau”