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Chaumeil says he got the parchments from de Cherisey and had them analyzed by two experts, who found that they are maybe 40 years old.

Chaumeil also has a document, handwritten and signed by de Cherisey in which he describes how he created the parchments to produce what he calls "a good hoax."

"But if the parchments are a hoax, if the parchments are forged, what does that do to the story of Rennes Le Chateau and the story of the Priory of Sion?" Bradley asked.

"If the parchments are wrong, no, the story is finished," Chaumeil replied.

None of this evidence has deterred Lincoln or his supporters, who refuse to accept that the story is finished.

"I am not a naïve innocent who was hoaxed by Monsieur Plantard and Cherisey. No, I am a very, very careful researcher," says Lincoln.

As for Brown, he declined 60 Minutes request for an interview. But on his official Web site, there's a page entitled "Bizarre True Facts from The Da Vinci Code," where he continues to claim that the Priory of Sion is a European secret society that since 1099 has been guarding "a shocking historical secret."

Asked where they would place this hoax in the list of hoaxes that have been perpetrated throughout history, Putnam and John Edwin Wood both say "at the top."

"This is undoubtedly the most magnificent — we take our hats off in admiration to the achievement. It's really quite extraordinary," says Putnam.

But one mystery still remains, and it's the one that began this story: Where did the priest of Rennes Le Chateau, Bérenger Saunière, get the money to build his estate? In 1910 he was summoned to appear before the bishop's court in the local, medieval-walled city of Carcasonne.

In Carcasonne, Sauniere was tried and found guilty of trafficking in masses. Priests are allowed to accept money for saying up to three masses a day. But what Saunière had done was to solicit and receive money for thousands of masses, which he couldn't possibly have said. In fact, he didn't even try. So the source of the wealth of the priest of Rennes le Chateau was not some ancient, mysterious treasure — but good old-fashioned fraud.

Produced By Jeanne Langley
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