10 a.m. Atop the pyramid

A plodding, beetlelike robot scales I.M. Pei's modernist pyramid, then eases down again. Slowly. Until two years ago, sure-footed climbers cleaned the 72-foot pyramid. Now a one-of-a-kind robot has the job. Michel Jocou, who mans the remote control, spends two full days on the task -- half a day for each side of the pyramid, now so emblematic of the Louvre that it's hard to believe it caused a public outcry when it was unveiled in 1988. When the sun glints off the glass, the effect is dazzling, dizzying. Jocou has never counted the number of panes. He takes it on faith that there are 666, like Dan Brown says.