Eglise Sainte-Geneviève
The Pantheon is a rather unique building. Neither a church nor a temple as per say, it houses the tombs of the great men and women of the French nation.
This imposing monument stands on Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, in the heights of the Latin Quarter. This district corresponds to the new city that the Romans developed on the left bank of the river seine around 2,000 years ago, when the Île de la Cité had become too small for a rapidly growing population.
In 507 AD, Geneviève founded an abbey on the site of the Roman forum, on the heights of the hill. This abbey, placed under the patronage of King Clovis and his wife Clotilde, was one of the most influential in Paris.
In 1744, King Louis XV became convinced that his prayers to Saint Geneviève had helped him recover from a long illness. To give thanks to the patron saint of Paris, he commissioned the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot to build a new abbey church dedicated to Sainte-Geneviève (the current Pantheon). The foundation work lasted nine years due to the discovery of numerous remains of Roman pottery workshops. The first stone was finally laid in 1764. Soufflot died in 1780, and his assistant, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet, resumed the construction of the church, which was eventually completed in 1790.
Temple of the Republic, Pantheon and Church!
The church narrowly escaped demolition during the French Revolution, thanks to a decree in 1791 that transformed it into the Pantheon, or Temple of the Republic, intended to house the ashes of the nation’s great figures.
The architect Quatremère de Quincy was commissioned to make the modifications. He reduced the height of the towers, removed the cross that topped the dome, bricked up most of the openings, and altered the pediment.
In 1806, Emperor Napoleon returned the Pantheon to its religious function, and thus had the pediment and the cross rebuilt.
In 1830, Louis-Philippe decreed that the Church of Sainte-Geneviève should once again become the Pantheon, which led to the creation of a new pediment and the removal of all religious symbols.
In 1850, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte converted the building back into a church, installed a new pediment, and replaced the cross on the dome. This cross has remained there ever since!
However, the building was returned to secular use in 1885 and has since housed the Pantheon, dedicated to the memory of illustrious French figures.
It’s impossible to visit the crypt without first marvelling at the architecture and decoration of the Pantheon!
The building is indeed colossal in size: 83 metres high, 110 metres long, and 82 metres wide. Built on a Greek cross plan, with four massive naves and a gigantic dome, it has an equally imposing facade reminiscent of the Pantheon in Rome.
Inside, there are no benches, chairs or altar, but a wealth of monumental frescoes, Corinthian columns and sculptures created by the greatest artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Great Men of the Nation
The Great Men of the Nation, who contributed to its grandeur and glory, were buried in the crypt of the Pantheon.
The vast vestibule leading to the crypt houses the tombs and statues of the philosophers Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. On November 11, 1920, the heart of Léon Gambetta, founder of the Third Republic, was placed in an urn near the entrance.
The crypt consists of four main vaults, the western vault being the longest and largest.
It is divided into two galleries.
The right-hand gallery contains the tombs of 41 major figures of the Empire, among them François Denis Tronchet (1726-1806), the jurist who authored the Civil Code, also known as Napoleon Code, which defined the principles of French customary law. Tronchet was also the first senator of the Empire to be buried in the Pantheon.
The left branch of the west crypt houses the tombs of literary giants Victor Hugo and Émile Zola, who were joined in 2002 by Alexandre Dumas père.
Who else is buried in the Pantheon’s Crypt?
It is impossible to name all the figures buried in the Panthéon, but here is a short list of names you might recognise:
- Jean Jaurès: A leading politician, considered the father of modern socialism.
- Marie François Sadi Carnot: The fourth president of the French Third Republic, from 1887 until his assassination in 1894.
- Paul Painlevé: Prime Minister twice under the Third Republic (from September 12 to November 13, 1917, and from April 17 to November 22, 1925).
- Adolphe-Sylvestre Félix Eboué: The first French overseas resistance fighter and Governor of French Africa.
- Victor Schoelcher: Abolitionist.
- Jean Moulin: Hero of the French Resistance, executed by the Germans during World War II.
- André Malraux: Writer and Minister of Culture, who was instrumental in designating the Marais district as a protected area.
- Jean Monnet: Founding member of the European Community.
- René Cassin: Author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948.
- Pierre and Marie Curie: Nobel Prize laureates, had their ashes placed together.
- Louis-Antoine de Bougainville: Explorer who brought back from France the plant now known as the Bougainvillaea.
- Louis Braille: Inventor of Braille, the alphabet for the blind.
- Gaspard Monge: Mathematician and co-founder of the École Polytechnique.
- Jacques-Germain Soufflot: Architect of the Panthéon.
- François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture: Although his remains do not rest in the crypt, a commemorative plaque pays tribute to the leader of the Haitian Revolution.
These exceptional individuals contributed to French politics, sciences, culture and human rights.
However, the bodies of two prominent figures of the French Nation were also exhumed from the Panthéon.
The first was Louis-Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, a lawyer and member of the Revolutionary Legislative Assembly, who voted in favour of the execution of Louis XVI.
Le Peletier was initially interred in the Panthéon in 1793, but his family reclaimed his remains in 1795.
Another figure who was exhumed, but for different reasons, was Jean-Paul Marat, a journalist and politician assassinated in his bathtub.
Marat was interred in the Pantheon in 1793, but he fell out of favour shortly thereafter, and his ashes were exhumed in 1795.
Five Great Women of the Nation
1-The Polish physicist and chemist Marie Curie became a French citizen when she married Pierre Curie in 1895. Their remains were transferred to the Panthéon in 1995, and until 2014, she was the only woman buried there. She was also the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for her research on radioactivity, polonium, and radium, and remains, to this day, the only woman to have received two Nobel Prizes in distinct scientific fields.
2-3-On May 27, 2015, an official ceremony was held in honour of two remarkable women for their heroic actions during the Second World War: Geneviève de Gaulle and Germaine Tillion. They were the first women to receive the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and were commended for their exceptional courage.
Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, niece of General de Gaulle and a member of the French Resistance, was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944 and died in 2002. Germaine Tillion, also a member of the Resistance and a renowned anthropologist, died in 2008.
4-Simone Veil, former Minister of Health, member of the Constitutional Council and later of the French Academy, and former President of the European Parliament, was interred in the Panthéon on July 5, 2017, where she rests beside her husband, Antoine, who died in 2013. A Holocaust survivor, she was one of the few women involved in politics in the 1970s and played a pivotal role in the legalisation of abortion in France.
5-The French-American artist Josephine Baker is the fifth woman, and the first Black woman, to be interred in the Panthéon in Paris. Here is the beginning of the tribute paid to her on November 30, 2021, by the President of the French Republic: “An artist devoted to freedom, a member of the Resistance, a civil rights activist, a woman committed to the fight against racism in Les Milandes, a mother, Josephine Baker enters the Pantheon today.”
Foucault’s Pendulum
Finally, the Pantheon houses a replica of a fascinating instrument, Foucault’s pendulum!
In 1851, the physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the Earth’s rotation by constructing a 67-metre-long pendulum beneath the central dome of the Pantheon.
This pendulum was first exhibited at the Arts et Métiers Museum, then temporarily at the Pantheon during renovations in the mid-1990s. It has since been returned to the museum, and a replica is now on display at the Pantheon. Foucault’s pendulum has been listed as a historical monument since 1920.
Directions: 5th District
RER B Station: Luxembourg
Coordinates: Lat 48.846374 – Long 2.345340
Tourist sites near the Pantheon
Luxembourg palace and gardens, St-Etienne-du-Mont Church with the shrine containing the remains of Ste-Geneviève
