Behind COUNTDOWN: Pierre Plantard – grandmaster or not?

In the series Back omSten's time we have come to an important gentleman who has inspired me for some of the supporting plot elements in the book:

Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard (18 March 1920 – 3 February 2000). Grand Master of the Prieurie de Sion, the Priory of Sion, which since 1099 had the task of protecting the descendants of the last Merovingian king Dagobert the Third. Celebrities such as Leonardo da Vinci, Victor Hugo and Jean Cocteau should have been grandmasters before him. Since, according to legend, the Merovingians were descendants of Jesus, this bloodline was thus of David's blood and lineage and fulfillment of Nostradamus's prediction about le Grand Monarc. (C2-12). He mentions Henri de Monpezat – our Prince Henrik – in that connection. In the French national libraries in Paris, some old manuscripts were found, which officially did not appear anywhere, that could prove this claim. Pierre Plantard confessed under oath that it was all a forgery. He had a series of documents produced which he smuggled into the French National Library to give it all legitimacy.

"Life is not about facts, but what people believe," says Frantz-Ole Frimand in The Age of Stone.

I Countdown-trilogy, a neo-religious movement believes that Prince Henrik is a descendant of Jesus - thus also of "David's lineage and blood." - and the bloodline strives for life. 

Pierre Plantard: Danish wikipedia, English wikipedia.