Founder

• In 1956, a Frenchman named Pierre Plantard created the Priory of Sion, to support his efforts to become King of France.
  
  

Where it Supposedly Began

• The organization was allegedly founded in 1681 in Rennes-le-Chateau, a small village near the French Pyrenees.
  
  

Discovery of hoax

• In 1967, a series of documents, referred to as "Les Dossiers secrets de Henri Lobineau" were deposited at Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, according to Massimo Introvigne's "The Da Vinci Code FAQ" Web site. They were discovered there in 1975. According to Paul Smith's article on the Priory of Scion, the documents include a fake list of "grandmasters" and an article containing a "patchwork of paragraphs from Paul Le Cour's 'The Age of Aquarius.'"
  
  

Alleged Grandmasters

• According to prioryofsion.co.uk, there were 26 grandmasters of the Priory, including Jean Cocteau, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Claude Debussy.
  
  

Da Vinci Code

• In Brown's bestseller, the Priory of Sion is responsible for guarding a secret that could shake Christians everywhere---the secret of the true identity of the Holy Grail. In Brown's book, the Grail was not a cup, chalice or object, but a person, the offspring of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ.