Epilogue
Robert Langdon awoke with a start.
He had been dreaming.
The bathrobe beside his bed bore the monogram
HOTEL RITZ PARIS.
He saw a dim light filtering through the blinds.
Is it dusk or dawn? he wondered.
Langdon's body felt warm and deeply contented.
He had slept the better part of the last two
days.
Sitting up slowly in bed, he now realized
what had awoken him... the strangest thought.
For days he had been trying to sort through
a barrage of information, but now Langdon
found himself fixed on something he'd not
considered before.
Could it be?
He remained motionless a long moment.
Getting out of bed, he walked to the marble
shower.
Stepping inside, he let the powerful jets
message his shoulders.
Still, the thought enthralled him.
Impossible.
Twenty minutes later, Langdon stepped out
of the Hotel Ritz into Place Vendôme.
Night was falling.
The days of sleep had left him disoriented...
and yet his mind felt oddly lucid.
He had promised himself he would stop in the
hotel lobby for a cafe au lait to clear his
thoughts, but instead his legs carried him
directly out the front door into the gathering
Paris night.
Walking east on Rue des Petits Champs, Langdon
felt a growing excitement.
He turned south onto Rue Richelieu, where
the air grew sweet with the scent of blossoming
jasmine from the stately gardens of the Palais
Royal.
He continued south until he saw what he was
looking for—the famous royal arcade—a
glistening expanse of polished black marble.
Moving onto it, Langdon scanned the surface
beneath his feet.
Within seconds, he found what he knew was
there—several bronze medallions embedded
in the ground in a perfectly straight line.
Each disk was five inches in diameter and
embossed with the letters N and S.
Nord.
Sud.
He turned due south, letting his eye trace
the extended line formed by the medallions.
He began moving again, following the trail,
watching the pavement as he walked.
As he cut across the corner of the Comédie-Française,
another bronze medallion passed beneath his
feet.
Yes!
The streets of Paris, Langdon had learned
years ago, were adorned with 135 of these
bronze markers, embedded in sidewalks, courtyards,
and streets, on a north-south axis across
the city.
He had once followed the line from Sacré-Coeur,
north across the Seine, and finally to the
ancient Paris Observatory.
There he discovered the significance of the
sacred path it traced.
The earth's original prime meridian.
The first zero longitude of the world.
Paris's ancient Rose Line.
Now, as Langdon hurried across Rue de Rivoli,
he could feel his destination within reach.
Less than a block away.
The Holy Grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits.
The revelations were coming now in waves.
Saunière's ancient spelling of Roslin...
the blade and chalice... the tomb adorned
with masters' art.
Is that why Saunière needed to talk with
me?
Had I unknowingly guessed the truth?
He broke into a jog, feeling the Rose Line
beneath his feet, guiding him, pulling him
toward his destination.
As he entered the long tunnel of Passage Richelieu,
the hairs on his neck began to bristle with
anticipation.
He knew that at the end of this tunnel stood
the most mysterious of Parisian monuments—conceived
and commissioned in the 1980s by the Sphinx
himself, François Mitterrand, a man rumored
to move in secret circles, a man whose final
legacy to Paris was a place Langdon had visited
only days before.
Another lifetime.
With a final surge of energy, Langdon burst
from the passageway into the familiar courtyard
and came to a stop.
Breathless, he raised his eyes, slowly, disbelieving,
to the glistening structure in front of him.
The Louvre Pyramid.
Gleaming in the darkness.
He admired it only a moment.
He was more interested in what lay to his
right.
Turning, he felt his feet again tracing the
invisible path of the ancient Rose Line, carrying
him across the courtyard to the Carrousel
du Louvre—the enormous circle of grass surrounded
by a perimeter of neatly trimmed hedges—once
the site of Paris's primeval nature-worshipping
festivals... joyous rites to celebrate fertility
and the Goddess.
Langdon felt as if he were crossing into another
world as he stepped over the bushes to the
grassy area within.
This hallowed ground was now marked by one
of the city's most unusual monuments.
There in the center, plunging into the earth
like a crystal chasm, gaped the giant inverted
pyramid of glass that he had seen a few nights
ago when he entered the Louvre's subterranean
entresol.
La Pyramide Inversée.
Tremulous, Langdon walked to the edge and
peered down into the Louvre's sprawling underground
complex, aglow with amber light.
His eye was trained not just on the massive
inverted pyramid, but on what lay directly
beneath it.
There, on the floor of the chamber below,
stood the tiniest of structures... a structure
Langdon had mentioned in his manuscript.
Langdon felt himself awaken fully now to the
thrill of unthinkable possibility.
Raising his eyes again to the Louvre, he sensed
the huge wings of the museum enveloping him...
hallways that burgeoned with the world's finest
art.
Da Vinci...
Botticelli...
Adorned in masters' loving art, She lies.
Alive with wonder, he stared once again downward
through the glass at the tiny structure below.
I must go down there!
Stepping out of the circle, he hurried across
the courtyard back toward the towering pyramid
entrance of the Louvre.
The day's last visitors were trickling out
of the museum.
Pushing through the revolving door, Langdon
descended the curved staircase into the pyramid.
He could feel the air grow cooler.
When he reached the bottom, he entered the
long tunnel that stretched beneath the Louvre's
courtyard, back toward La Pyramide Inversée.
At the end of the tunnel, he emerged into
a large chamber.
Directly before him, hanging down from above,
gleamed the inverted pyramid—a breathtaking
V-shaped contour of glass.
The Chalice.
Langdon's eyes traced its narrowing form downward
to its tip, suspended only six feet above
the floor.
There, directly beneath it, stood the tiny
structure.
A miniature pyramid.
Only three feet tall.
The only structure in this colossal complex
that had been built on a small scale.
Langdon's manuscript, while discussing the
Louvre's elaborate collection of goddess art,
had made passing note of this modest pyramid.
"The miniature structure itself protrudes
up through the floor as though it were the
tip of an iceberg—the apex, of an enormous,
pyramidical vault, submerged below like a
hidden chamber."
Illuminated in the soft lights of the deserted
entresol, the two pyramids pointed at one
another, their bodies perfectly aligned, their
tips almost touching.
The Chalice above.
The Blade below.
The blade and chalice guarding o'er Her gates.
Langdon heard Marie Chauvel's words.
One day it will dawn on you.
He was standing beneath the ancient Rose Line,
surrounded by the work of masters.
What better place for Saunière to keep watch?
Now at last, he sensed he understood the true
meaning of the Grand Master's verse.
Raising his eyes to heaven, he gazed upward
through the glass to a glorious, star-filled
night.
She rests at last beneath the starry skies.
Like the murmurs of spirits in the darkness,
forgotten words echoed.
The quest for the Holy Grail is the quest
to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene.
A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast
one.
With a sudden upwelling of reverence, Robert
Langdon fell to his knees.
For a moment, he thought he heard a woman's
voice... the wisdom of the ages... whispering
up from the chasms of the earth.
