The Da Vinci Code

Sister Sandrine Bieil, the maintenance administrator for the Church of Saint-Sulpice, is awoken during the night by her boss’ request: Open the church to an Opus Dei numerary, instruction direct from Bishop Aringarosa. Though confused, she agrees. Sister Bieil is unsettled by Opus Dei’s ascension to prominence, its close ties with the Vatican. She disapproves of their traditionalism on matters of orthodoxy as well as their marginalization of women. She follows her orders despite her intuition.

Inside the Grand Gallery, Langdon stares at Sauniére’s final message:

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

O, Draconian devil!

Oh, lame saint! (47).

He puzzles over the enigmatic message, noting that it’s written in English rather than French. Fache pulls back the light to reveal a circle circumscribed around the body, what Langdon interprets as a reference to Da Vinci’s famous sketch, Vitruvian Man, the circle a symbol of male/female harmony. Langdon hypothesizes that the Da Vinci reference plus the coded message might be a condemnation of the Church’s marginalization of the divine feminine in favor of a male-centric orthodoxy, an idea Fache dismisses. He thinks the curator was trying to communicate the identity of his killer, a person he presumably knew.

Back in Sauniére’s office. Collet listens to the conversation through headphones, replaying in his mind Fache’s orders earlier in the evening: “‘I know who murdered