The Da Vinci Code

CHAPTER 32
The security alarm on the west end of the Denon Wing sent the pigeons in the nearby Tuileries 
Gardens scattering as Langdon and Sophie dashed out of the bulkhead into the Paris night. As they 
ran across the plaza to Sophie's car, Langdon could hear police sirens wailing in the distance.
"That's it there," Sophie called, pointing to a red snub-nosed two-seater parked on the plaza.
She's kidding, right? The vehicle was easily the smallest car Langdon had ever seen.
"SmartCar," she said. "A hundred kilometers to the liter."
Langdon had barely thrown himself into the passenger seat before Sophie gunned the SmartCar up 
and over a curb onto a gravel divider. He gripped the dash as the car shot out across a sidewalk and 
bounced back down over into the small rotary at Carrousel du Louvre.
For an instant, Sophie seemed to consider taking the shortcut across the rotary by plowing straight 
ahead, through the median's perimeter hedge, and bisecting the large circle of grass in the center.

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"No!" Langdon shouted, knowing the hedges around Carrousel du Louvre were there to hide the 
perilous chasm in the center—La Pyramide Inversée—the upside-down pyramid skylight he had 
seen earlier from inside the museum. It was large enough to swallow their Smart-Car in a single 
gulp. Fortunately, Sophie decided on the more conventional route, jamming the wheel hard to the 
right, circling properly until she exited, cut left, and swung into the northbound lane, accelerating 
toward Rue de Rivoli.
The two-tone police sirens blared louder behind them, and Langdon could see the lights now in his 
side view mirror. The SmartCar engine whined in protest as Sophie urged it faster away from the 
Louvre. Fifty yards ahead, the traffic light at Rivoli turned red. Sophie cursed under her breath and 
kept racing toward it. Langdon felt his muscles tighten.
"Sophie?"
Slowing only slightly as they reached the intersection, Sophie flicked her headlights and stole a 
quick glance both ways before flooring the accelerator again and carving a sharp left turn through 
the empty intersection onto Rivoli. Accelerating west for a quarter of a mile, Sophie banked to the 
right around a wide rotary. Soon they were shooting out the other side onto the wide avenue of 
Champs-Elysées.
As they straightened out, Langdon turned in his seat, craning his neck to look out the rear window 
toward the Louvre. The police did not seem to be chasing them. The sea of blue lights was 
assembling at the museum.
His heartbeat finally slowing, Langdon turned back around. "That was interesting."
Sophie didn't seem to hear. Her eyes remained fixed ahead down the long thoroughfare of Champs-
Elysées, the two-mile stretch of posh storefronts that was often called the Fifth Avenue of Paris. 
The embassy was only about a mile away, and Langdon settled into his seat. So dark the con of 
man. Sophie's quick thinking had been impressive. Madonna of the Rocks.
Sophie had said her grandfather left her something behind the painting. A final message? Langdon 
could not help but marvel over Saunière's brilliant hiding place; Madonna of the Rocks was yet 
another fitting link in the evening's chain of interconnected symbolism. Saunière, it seemed, at 
every turn, was reinforcing his fondness for the dark and mischievous side of Leonardo da Vinci.
Da Vinci's original commission for Madonna of the Rocks had come from an organization known 
as the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which needed a painting for the centerpiece of 
an altar triptych in their church of San Francesco in Milan. The nuns gave Leonardo specific 
dimensions, and the desired theme for the painting—the Virgin Mary, baby John the Baptist, Uriel, 
and Baby Jesus sheltering in a cave. Although Da Vinci did as they requested, when he delivered 
the work, the group reacted with horror. He had filled the painting with explosive and disturbing 
details.

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The painting showed a blue-robed Virgin Mary sitting with her arm around an infant child, 
presumably Baby Jesus. Opposite Mary sat Uriel, also with an infant, presumably baby John the 
Baptist. Oddly, though, rather than the usual Jesus-blessing-John scenario, it was baby John who 
was blessing Jesus... and Jesus was submitting to his authority! More troubling still, Mary was 
holding one hand high above the head of infant John and making a decidedly threatening 
gesture—her fingers looking like eagle's talons, gripping an invisible head. Finally, the most 
obvious and frightening image: Just below Mary's curled fingers, Uriel was making a cutting 
gesture with his hand—as if slicing the neck of the invisible head gripped by Mary's claw-like 
hand.
Langdon's students were always amused to learn that Da Vinci eventually mollified the 
confraternity by painting them a second, "watered-down" version of Madonna of the Rocks in 
which everyone was arranged in a more orthodox manner. The second version now hung in 
London's National Gallery under the name Virgin of the Rocks, although Langdon still preferred 
the Louvre's more intriguing original.
As Sophie gunned the car up Champs-Elysées, Langdon said, "The painting. What was behind it?"
Her eyes remained on the road. "I'll show you once we're safely inside the embassy."
"You'll show it to me?" Langdon was surprised. "He left you a physical object?"
Sophie gave a curt nod. "Embossed with a fleur-de-lis and the initials P.S."
Langdon couldn't believe his ears.