The story begins in the Louvre Museum, which is housed within the Louvre Palace in the heart of Paris. Silas, an Opus Dei monk, holds Jacques Saunière, the museum’s curator and Priory of Sion grand master, at gunpoint and wants to know the location of the Holy Grail. When Saunière provides the required information, Silas shoots him and leaves him to die. However, Saunière has lied to Silas about the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.

Saunière, seeing he only has a few minutes to live and must pass on his vital information, paints a pentacle on his stomach with his own blood, makes a circle with his blood, and pulls himself into the center of the circle, recreating Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man.”. He also writes code, an out-of-order Fibonacci sequence, and two lines of text with invisible ink on the ground.

The message reads:

13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5

O, Draconian devil!

Oh, lame saint!

After Saunière’s murder is discovered, a police investigator, Jerome Collet, contacts the story’s protagonist, Robert Langdon, a symbology professor at Harvard University, who is in the city for a lecture. He invites him to the Louvre to attempt to explain the scene. Police Captain Bezu Fache informs Langdon about the mysterious code Saunière left in his last moments and requests his help in deciphering it.

Langdon explains to Fache that Saunière was a renowned authority on goddess artwork and that the pentacle Saunière drew in his own blood is an homage to the goddess rather than “devil worship,” as Fache believes.

On the other side, Silas calls the “Teacher” after murdering Saunière and informs him that, according to Saunière, the keystone is at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Silas is sent there by the Teacher. Silas follows Saunière’s hints about the location of the keystone and realizes that he has been duped. In a moment of wrath, he murders Sister Sandrine Bieil, custodian of the church and a helper for the Priory of Sion.

Sophie Neveu, a cryptology department agent and Saunière’s granddaughter, arrives at the crime site and informs Langdon that he must contact the embassy. Langdon dials the number Sophie supplied him and gets her answering service. The note informs Langdon that he is in danger and should meet Sophie in the Louvre’s restroom.

Sophie reveals to Langdon in the restroom that Fache is following his movements with a tracking device. She throws the tracking gadget out the window onto a passing truck, fooling the cops into believing Langdon has fled from the Louvre. The cops pursue the fleeing truck by following the device’s signals.

Sophie also informs Langdon that the final line of the hidden message, “P.S. Find Robert Langdon,” was her grandfather’s method of notifying her: P.S. is an abbreviation for her grandfather’s nickname for her, ‘Princesse Sophie’. Langdon believes P.S. stands for Priory of Sion, an ancient society dedicated to the preservation of the pagan goddess worship tradition and the preservation of the secret that Saunière died guarding.

Langdon decodes Saunière’s message’s second and third lines by rearranging the letters of the anagrams:

O, Draconian devil —-> Leonardo Da Vinci

Oh, lame saint. The Mona Lisa

When Sophie goes to observe the “Mona Lisa” painting, she finds yet another piece of information that points to the painting “Madonna of the Rocks.” Sophie finds a key behind the painting “Madonna of the Rocks.” The key has the name of Swiss Bank printed on it.

Meanwhile, the police returned to the Louvre and arrested Langdon. Using the painting as a hostage, she is able to resist the police officer and get herself and Langdon out of the museum.

Sophie and Langdon drive towards the Swiss bank. In this way, Langdon narrates the history of the Priory of Sion and their military force, the Knights Templar. He describes that the Priory guards the Sangreal, or Holy Grail, hidden papers. This is the subject of Langdon’s most recent manuscript.

Sophie and Langdon deduce that the number found beside Saunière’s body must be the vault’s account number. As they unlock the vault with that number, they find a cryptex, a message transmission device devised by Da Vinci. The cryptex can only be opened with a password. When Sophie and Langdon were entering the bank, an anonymous security officer realized they were fugitives and informed the police about them, but André Vernet, the bank’s boss and Saunière’s buddy, recognized Sophie and assisted her and Langdon in escaping.

Vernet conceals Sophie and Langdon in the back of an armored truck and drives past Collet.  But Vernet was deceiving them. He demands the cryptex at gunpoint, but Sophie and Langdon manage to get away with the cryptex. Langdon recognizes the cryptex as the Priory’s headstone and, by extension, the Holy Grail’s whereabouts.

The cryptex would only open with the right password; otherwise, the secret paper inside would be ruined. Langdon and Sophie went to Sir Leigh Teabing’s mansion to beg for his assistance in cracking the cryptex. Teabing begins the narrative of the Grail by presenting historical proof that the Bible did not originate directly from God but was created by Emperor Constantine. He also claims evidence that Jesus’ divinity was determined by a vote at Nicaea and that Jesus married and had children with Mary Magdalene, who was of royal descent, and had children by her. Teabing reveals that the painting “The Last Supper” contained hidden symbolism and a painted portrayal of Magdalene.

He also reveals to them that the Holy Grail is actually the body of Mary Magdalene, along with documents that prove that Mary’s bloodline is linked to Jesus. He says Saunière and the others may have been murdered because the church was afraid the priory would uncover the truth.

Silas makes an appearance just as Langdon is demonstrating the cryptex, and he knocks him unconscious with a blow to the head. Silas wants the keystone while holding Sophie and Teabing at gunpoint. However, Teabing fights Silas by striking him in the punishment belt area on the leg, while Sophie kills Silas by kicking him in the face. They restrain Silas.

Sophie, Langdon, the bound Silas, Teabing, and his attendant Rémy escape the castle and board Teabing’s private aircraft to England before Collet’s arrival. Sophie discovers that the writing on the cryptex can be deciphered using a mirror. They come to comprehend the poem, which alludes to “a headstone praised by Templars,” and the “Atbash cypher,” which will assist them in determining the password. Langdon recalls that the Knights Templar were rumoured to have venerated the deity Baphomet, who is sometimes represented by a large stone head. Sofia is the word deciphered by the Atbash Cypher. When they use this password to access the cryptex, they discover another cryptex containing a clue about a tomb where a knight was interred by a pope. They must locate the orb that should have been on the tomb of the knight.

Fache realises that Teabing and the others are on board the aircraft. He calls the British police and requests that they surround the aerodrome, but Teabing fools the police into believing that he is the only person inside the aircraft. Then he proceeds with Sophie, Langdon, Rémy, and Silas to the Temple Church in London, where the knights who were killed by the pope are buried.

Silas is set free by Rémy, who was originally a follower of the teacher. When Silas goes to the church to obtain the keystone, Langdon threatens to break it if he doesn’t give it up. Rémy steps in, kidnaps Teabing, and forces Langdon to hand over the cryptex.

While this is going on, Collet and his men look through Teabing’s house. When they find out that Teabing has been spying on Saunière, they become suspicious of him. The teacher tells Silas over the phone to let Rémy bring the cryptex. Rémy and the teacher meet in the park, and the teacher kills Rémy. The teacher calls the cops and tells them where Silas is. As Silas tries to get away, he is shot, and he kills Bishop Aringarosa by mistake.

Silas takes Bishop Aringarosa to the hospital, but then he falls and dies in a park. The next day, Aringarosa thinks angrily about how Teabing fooled him into helping him kill people by telling him that if the Bishop gave him the Holy Grail, he would help the Opus Dei get back in good standing with the Church.

Sophie and Langdon’s investigation leads them to the conclusion that Sir Isaac Newton is the knight they seek—the one buried by a Pope. They travel to Westminster Abbey, where Newton is laid to rest. The teacher lures them to the garden with a message claiming to have teabing. They arrive only to learn that Teabing is the teacher.

Teabing felt that Saunière had opted not to reveal the Priory of Sion’s secret because the Church had threatened to murder Sophie if she did. He had chosen to discover the Grail personally in order to make the mystery known.

Teabing hands Langdon the cryptex and requests to assist him in opening it. Langdon realises the password to be apple—the orb missing from Newton’s grave. He quietly opens the cryptex and removes the papyrus. Then he tosses the empty cryptex into the air, leading Teabing to drop his gun in an attempt to grab it and save the map within. Fache storms into the room and arrests Teabing.

Sophie and Langdon follow the directions on the papyrus in the second cryptex to visit Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, where they meet Sophie’s long-lost brother, whom they had thought had died in the automobile accident that took their parents’ lives as children. Marie Chauvel Saint Clair, the widow of Jacques Saunière and the guardian of Rosslyn Chapel, is Sophie’s long-lost grandmother. Sophie is revealed to be a descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion concealed her identity in order to shield her from any threats to her life. Sophie and Langdon say their goodbyes, agreeing to meet again in Florence in a month.

Back in Paris, Langdon realizes the true meaning of the poem, which leads him back to the Louvre, where he is certain the Grail is buried beneath the little pyramid just beneath the Louvre’s inverted glass pyramid. It’s also beneath the “Rose Line,” a reference to “Roslyn.” Langdon discovers the final piece of the jigsaw in the closing pages of the book, but he does not appear to want to inform anyone.

INTRODUCTION  THEMES AND MOTIFS  CURIOSITY & SUSPENSE

CRITICAL REVIEW  IMPORTANT CHARACTERS  STRESSFUL MOMENTS & CLIFFHANGERS

DESCRIPTIONS OF OBJECTS, PLACES, ORGANIZATIONS & PROCESSES  MOVIE ADAPTATION