Paris - The Panthéon - 4me

Plate XLIII - The Pantheon…

On the same day that I had climbed the 280 stairs of the Arc de Triomphe, I was again to get some more vigorous exercise on the stairs of the Panthéon. This time I did not count them but similarly, the views over Paris from the dome are a worthwhile reward.

Construction of the Jacques-Germain Soufflot designed Church of Ste Geneviève (patron Saint of Paris) began at the end of the 1750’s, replacing an older church on the site. It was built to fulfil a vow made by King Louis XV after his recovery from an illness in 1744. Deconsecrated during the Révolution it was renamed the Panthéon (from the Greek word meaning every god) and dedicated as a memorial to all great Frenchmen. The building, in the Neoclassical style, is cruciform in outline and is covered with an imposing domed roof, visible across the city.

The interior is magnificently decorated with fresco paintings and mosaics depicting scenes from French history. Externally the building is distinguished by columns surmounted by pediments housing Pierre-Jean David d'Angers statues of many post-revolutionary heroes. Twice re and deconsecrated the now state owned Panthéon is again a mausoleum and memorial to the heroes of France, many of whom are interred within the vast crypt necropolis below the former church’s nave. These include Voltaire (whose brain is said to be housed in the Comédie Française), Jean Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur, Emile Zola, Louis Braille, Pierre and Marie Curie, and notably - reinterred here in 2002, 132 years after his death - Alexandre Dumas.

AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE.