CHAPTER 37

As Langdon and Sophie ride by taxi through the Bois de Boulogne, the park’s nighttime atmosphere distracts Langdon while Sophie asks him to explain the Priory of Sion. Langdon gathers his thoughts and begins with the order’s alleged founding in Jerusalem in 1099 by Godefroi de Bouillon, who supposedly possessed a powerful secret dating back to the time of Christ.

Langdon explains that Godefroi created the Priory to protect and transmit that secret. According to the account, the Priory later learned of hidden documents buried beneath the ruins of Herod’s temple, documents that could corroborate the secret and threaten the Church. To retrieve them, the Priory created a military arm: the Knights Templar.

Sophie challenges the familiar belief that the Templars existed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Langdon says that protection was only their public purpose; their real mission was to excavate beneath the temple ruins. After nearly a decade, the Templars allegedly found something powerful enough to transform them from poor knights into an immensely wealthy and politically protected force.

Langdon then outlines how the Templars gained unprecedented autonomy from Pope Innocent II, expanded across Europe, and helped develop early banking through loans to royals. Their growing power eventually alarmed Pope Clement V, who, with King Philippe IV of France, orchestrated a coordinated purge on Friday, October 13, 1307. Many Templars were arrested, tortured, and executed under fabricated charges of heresy.

When Sophie asks how Templar groups still exist, Langdon explains that some knights survived and that the true treasure—documents tied to the Priory’s secret—escaped the Vatican’s grasp. He says the Priory smuggled the documents away, and their location remains a mystery. Langdon finally names the collection and its secret as the Sangreal, then reveals that its modern name is the Holy Grail.