One might imagine that if there were really “countless” scholars of that era who chronicled Mary Magdalene’s days in France and her family tree, Brown could have done us the favor of mentioning one of them by name.  That he does not is no accident, though, because the number of scholars who did so is not “countless.”  It is zero.   There is not a single ancient document that anyone can cite that suggests Mary Magdalene took up residence in France nor that purports to contain a record of her family tree.  There are French legends about Mary Magdalene that were created centuries after the fact, during an era when European Christians began to imagine that all kinds of biblical figures somehow found their way to Europe (and left behind “relics” that could be used to construct lucrative pilgrimage destinations), but these are called “legends” for a reason.  Susan Haskins, in Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor, shows that the story of Mary Magdalene traveling to France and living there at the end of her life does not surface until the 11^th century, invented by the French monks of Vezelay to account for their possession of her relics.  Many wild—and wildly contradictory—stories of Mary Magdalene’s life in France followed these initial ones, most of them so obviously fraudulent (like the story of Mary Magdalene’s role in the slaying of the wicked dragon at Tarascon) that it is almost beyond belief that Brown and others have fallen for them.   When one states that “countless scholars of that era” documented any of these stories about Mary Magdalene in France, we seem to have moved out of the (already incredible) realm of legends and into the realm of lies.  In fact, so much gullibility would be required for Brown to actually believe these stories that this explanation for his presentation of these “facts” begins to strain credibility, and it begins to appear more likely that—like the perpetrators of the frauds and hoaxes that so often accompanied the medieval relic business—Brown and his fellow conspiracy theorists are spreading stories that they know to be false simply for personal gain.  Scholars like myself can document his historical misdeeds all we want, but at 4.5 million copies of this book sold and still counting, Brown is laughing all the way to the bank.