There Is NO Templar Treasure in Ch teau de Gisors

Ch;teau de Gisors is a castle in the town of Gisors (a little over 6o km northwest from the center of Paris) in the department of Eure, France. The castle was a key fortress of the Dukes of Normandy. It was intended to defend the Anglo-Norman Vexin territory from the King of France. Since 1862, the Ch;teau de Gisors has been recognized as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.

The only known connection between the Ch;teau de Gisors and Templars has nothing to wo with the alleged treasure of the latter: the castle became the final prison of the last Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, in 1314.

The Ch;teau de Gisors hoax (yes, it was a hoax) was the result of collaboration of three… well, fraudsters: G;rard de S;de (writer), Roger Lhomoy (tourist guide at the Ch;teau de Gisors) and – surprise, surprise – Pierre Plantard. So, in fact, Ch;teau de Gisors deception is a part of an (in)famous Priory of Sion hoax.

G;raud-Marie de S;de, baron de Li;oux was a French author (his books mostly promoted various Medieval conspiracy theories and alternative history) who at some point decided to become a farmer.

One of the workers that he hired was one Roger Lhomoy – the former tourist guide at the Ch;teau de Gisors nearby. Lhomoy claimed to have discovered under the tower donjon in March 1946, a secret entrance to a long basement thirty meters long, nine meters wide, and approximately four and a half meters high, saying it was a subterranean chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine.

He alleged it contained nineteen sarcophagi of stone, each two meters long and sixty centimeters wide, with 30 iron coffers arranged in columns of ten. Lhomoy said he was sure it was the treasure of the Knights Templar.

De S;de – always a journalist – immediately smelled money and fame and wrote a magazine article where he made those really wild claims public. This article (not surprisingly) caught the attention of Pierre Plantard.

Not surprisingly either, they collaborated on the book “The Templars are Amongst Us, or The Enigma of Gisors“, that was published in 1962, containing passing references to the Priory of Sion (definitely no surprise here).

The hoax was predictably exposed as one in 1964, when an official excavation Ch;teau de Gisors found no trace of what Lhomoy claimed was there. Lhomoy was finally dismissed as a liar… which pretty much put an end to all speculation about the alleged Templar treasure at Gisors.