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Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair was a French draughtsman, best known for being the principal perpetrator of the Priory of Sion hoax, by which he claimed from the 1960s onwards that he was a direct and legitimate male line Merovingian descendant of Dagobert II and the "Great Monarch" prophesied by Nostradamus. Today in France he is commonly regarded as a mystificator.Early lifePierre Plantard was born in 1920, in Paris, the son of a butler and a concierge (described as a cook for wealthy families in police reports of the 1940s). Leaving school aged 17, he became sacristan at the church of Saint-Louis d'Antin, in the 9th Arrondissement of Paris, and from 1937 began forming mystical ultranationalist associations like The French Union (1937) and French National Renewal (1941) to support a "National Revolution" based upon antisemitism and anti-Masonry.Occupation of FranceFollowing the dissolution of Grand Orient Freemasonry in Vichy France on 13 August 1940, Plantard wrote a letter dated 16 December 1940 to Marshal Philippe Pétain offering his services to the collaborationist government, referring to a 'terrible Masonic and Jewish conspiracy'. On 21 April 1941 Plantard wrote to the Paris Prefect of Police that his group the French National Renewal was to take possession of the unoccupied premises located at 22 place Malesherbes, 1st floor "which are currently let to an English Jew, Mr. Shapiro, who is presently fighting alongside his fellows in the British armed forces." By 1942 Plantard wanted to form another association, the Alpha Galates, membership prohibited to Jews, but the occupying German authorities refused permission.