Paris - Sorbonne - 5me

Plate XLV - The Church of the Sorbonne…

Practically across the road from the Panthéon is (part of) the University of Paris. Whatever French I speak today, I owe in some measure to the ‘Sorbonne’*. My first French teacher, you see, did her post graduate language studies here in Paris - and you can’t get much better than that! Of course it meant that I learned the purest form of the language and even today I am told that I have the accent of a Suisse Romande. I guess that’s good?

Originally a theological college founded in 1257 by Robert de Sorbon, confessor to Louis IX, the College of the Sorbonne became the greatest seat of learning in Europe, and the centre of the University of Paris - with a claimed enrolment of some twenty thousand students as far back as the Renaissance age. The domed Church of the Sorbonne, added in 1637 contains the tomb of Cardinal Richelieu, both benefactor and sponsor of the college.  It was suppressed during the Revolution, restored by Napoleon in 1808, and was closed in 1882.  A secular institution since then, the present buildings of the university were completed in 1889. Marie Curie - the first woman Nobel Prize winner - also became the first woman professor at the University in 1908. The Curie Institute, still involved in teaching and research is in close proximity.

The University became a centre of world attention in May 1968 when it was occupied by student radicals during violent protests that spread throughout the Latin quarter of the city - evacuated by order of President Georges Pompidou. Later called the ‘events of May’ this civil unrest would lead to the political demise of General de Gaulle, and to widespread educational reforms.

*Although comprising of a number of colleges, the Universities of Paris today are familiarly referred to collectively as The Sorbonne.

Paris - Panthéon View - 5me

Plate XLV - From The Pantheon, Les Toits de Paris…

Displayed inside the walls of the Panthéon I saw an iron sphere. Weighing some 28 kilograms it had been used by physicist Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault in an 1851 experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the earth.

Suspended on wire from the 67 metre high roof of the central dome of the Panthéon, the experiment started with the sphere, now known as the Foucalt Pendulum, being set in motion swinging in a vertical plane.

Viewed from above it was observed that the plane of the pendulum rotated clockwise at slightly more than 11° each hour due to the earth’s rotation on it’s axis. This was the first recorded ‘laboratory’ proof of this phenomenon.

In quieter moments while his experiment was in progress I imagine this is the view that Foucault and his observers would have contemplated, while looking over the roofs of Paris. Many well known landmarks can today be seen – but it’s strange to think there was no Eiffel Tower there in Foucault’s time.

The view does inspire thinking.

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.