Da
Vinci Code – Dan Brown.
Plot Overview-
In the Louvre, a monk of Opus Dei named Silas apprehends Jacques Saunière, the
museum’s curator, and demands to know where the Holy Grail is. After Saunière
tells him, Silas shoots him and leaves him to die. However, Saunière has lied
to Silas about the Grail’s location. Realizing that he has only a few minutes
to live and that he must pass on his important secret, Saunière paints a
pentacle on his stomach with his own blood, draws a circle with his blood, and
drags himself into the center of the circle, re-creating the position of Da
Vinci’s Vitruvian
Man. He also leaves a code, a line of numbers, and two lines of text on
the ground in invisible ink. A police detective, Jerome Collet, calls Robert Langdon, the
story’s protagonist and a professor of symbology, and asks him to come to the
Louvre to try to interpret the scene. Langdon does not yet realize that he
himself is suspected of the murder.
After
murdering Saunière, Silas calls the “Teacher” and tells him that, according to
Saunière, the keystone is in the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. The Teacher
sends Silas there. Silas follows Saunière’s clues to the keystone’s location
and discovers that he has been tricked. In a fit of rage, he kills Sister
Sandrine Bieil, the church’s keeper and a sentry for the Priory of Sion. At the
Louvre, Langdon meets Jerome Collet and Bezu Fache, the police captain, and
realizes that the two policemen suspect him of the murder.
Sophie Neveu, an
agent of the department of cryptology and Saunière’s granddaughter, arrives at
the crime scene and tells Langdon that he must call the embassy. When Langdon
calls the number Sophie gave him, he reaches her answering service. The message
warns Langdon that he is in danger and should meet Sophie in the bathroom at
the Louvre. In the bathroom, Sophie shows Langdon that Fache is noting his
movements with a tracking device. She throws the device out the window onto a
passing truck, tricking the police into thinking that Langdon has escaped from
the Louvre.
Sophie also tells Langdon
that the last line in the secret message, “P.S. Find Robert Langdon,” was her
grandfather’s way of alerting her: P.S. are the initials of her grandfather’s
nickname for her, Princesse Sophie. Langdon thinks that P.S. might stand
for Priory of Sion, an ancient brotherhood devoted to the preservation of the
pagan goddess worship tradition, and to the maintenance of the secret that
Saunière died protecting. Langdon decodes the second and third lines in
Saunière’s message: “Leonardo Da Vinci! The Mona Lisa!” Sophie returns to
the paintings to look for another clue. The police have returned to the Louvre
as well, and they arrest Langdon. Sophie finds a key behind
The Madonna
of the Rocks. By using the painting as a hostage, she manages to disarm
the police officer and get herself and Langdon out of the building.
As Sophie and Langdon drive
toward the Swiss bank identified on the back of the key, Langdon explains the
history of the Priory of Sion and their armed force, the Knights Templar. He
reveals that the Priory protects secret documents known as the Sangreal,
or the Holy Grail. Langdon’s latest manuscript is about this very subject.
When
Sophie and Langdon enter the bank, an unnamed security guard realizes that they
are fugitives and calls the police, but André Vernet, the bank’s manager and a
friend of Saunière’s, recognizes Sophie and helps her and Langdon escape.
Sophie and Langdon figure out that the number left near Saunière’s body must be
the account number that will open the vault. When they open the vault they find
a cryptex, a message delivery device designed by Da Vinci and crafted by
Saunière. The cryptex can only be opened with a password. Vernet successfully
smuggles Sophie and Langdon past Collet in the back of a locked armored car.
Vernet turns on them, but they manage to get away with the cryptex, which
Langdon realizes is actually the Priory keystone that is, the key to all of the
secrets the Priory holds about the location of the Holy Grail.
Langdon and Sophie go to the
house of Sir Leigh Teabing, a
historian, to ask for his help opening the box. Teabing tells them the legend
of the Grail, starting with the historical evidence that the Bible didn’t come
straight from God but was compiled by Emperor Constantine. He also cites
evidence that Jesus’ divinity was decided by a vote at Nicaea, and that Jesus
was married to Mary Magdalene, who was of royal blood, and had children by her.
Teabing shows them the hidden symbols in The Last Supper and
the painted representation of the Magdalene. He tells them that the Holy Grail
is actually Mary Magdalene’s body and the documents that prove Mary’s blood
line is related to Jesus. He says he thinks Saunière and the others may have
been killed because the Church suspected that the Priory was about to unveil
this secret. As Langdon is showing off the cryptex, Silas appears and hits him
over the head. Silas holds Sophie and Teabing at gunpoint and demands the keystone,
but Teabing attacks Silas, hitting him on the thigh where his punishment belt
is located, and Sophie finishes him off by kicking him in the face. They tie
Silas up.
Collet arrives at the castle,
but Sophie, Langdon, the bound Silas, Teabing, and his servant, Rémy, escape
and board Teabing’s private plane to England. Sophie realizes that the writing
on the cryptex is decipherable if viewed in a mirror. They come to understand
the poem, which refers to “a headstone praised by Templars” and the “Atbash
cipher,” which will help them arrive at the password. Langdon remembers that
the Knights Templar supposedly worshipped the god Baphomet, who is sometimes
represented by a large stone head. The word, unscrambled by the Atbash Cipher,
is Sofia. When they open
the cryptex, however, they find only another cryptex, this one with a clue
about a tomb where a knight was buried by a pope.
They must find the orb that
should have been on the knight’s tomb. Fache realizes that Teabing and the rest
of them are in the jet. He calls the British police and asks them to surround
the airfield, but Teabing tricks the police into believing that there is nobody
inside the plane but himself. Then he goes with Sophie, Langdon, Rémy, and
Silas to the Temple Church in London, the burial site of knights that the Pope
had killed.
Rémy
frees Silas and reveals that he, too, follows the Teacher. Silas goes to the
church to get the keystone, but when he tries to force Langdon to give it up,
Langdon threatens to break it. Rémy intervenes, taking Teabing hostage and thus
forcing Langdon to give up the cryptex. Meanwhile, Collet and his men look
through Teabing’s house and become suspicious when they find that he has been
monitoring Saunière. Over the phone, the Teacher instructs Silas to let Rémy
deliver the cryptex. The Teacher meets Rémy in the park and kills him. The
Teacher calls the police and turns Silas in to the authorities. As Silas tries
to escape, he is shot, and he accidentally shoots his idol, Bishop Aringarosa.
Silas
takes Bishop Aringarosa to the hospital and staggers into a park, where he
dies. In the hospital the next day, Aringarosa bitterly reflects that Teabing
tricked him into helping with his murderous plan by claiming that if the Bishop
delivered the Grail to him, he would help the Opus Dei regain favor with the
Church. Sophie’s and Langdon’s research leads them to the discovery that Sir
Isaac Newton is the knight they are looking for, the one buried by a Pope,
because they learn he was buried by Alexander Pope. They go to Westminster
Abbey, where Newton is buried. There, the Teacher lures them to the garden with
a note saying he has Teabing. They go there only to discover that Teabing
himself is the Teacher. Teabing suspected that Saunière had decided not to
release the secret of the Priory of Sion, because the Church threatened to kill
Sophie if the secret was released. Wanting the secret to be public knowledge,
he had decided to find the Grail himself.
Teabing gives Langdon the
cryptex and asks Langdon and Sophie to help him open it. Langdon figures out
that the password is apple the orb missing from
Newton’s tomb. He opens the cryptex and secretly takes out the papyrus. Then he
throws the empty cryptex in the air, causing Teabing to drop his pistol as he
attempts to catch it and prevent the map inside from being destroyed. Suddenly,
Fache bursts into the room and arrests Teabing.
The
papyrus inside the second cryptex directs Sophie and Langdon to Scotland, where
Sophie finds her brother and her grandmother. During the reunion, she discovers
that her family is, indeed, of the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Sophie and Langdon part, promising to meet in Florence in a month. Back in
Paris, Langdon comprehends the poem, which leads him to the small pyramid built
into the ground in the Louvre, where he is sure the Grail must be hidden.
Reference-
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