Le Panthéon

Here's a riddle for
you...What stands tall
and proud, has many
columns, and is the
most honorable place in
France to be buried?
It's le Panthéon, of
course!

What the heck is a
panthéon anyway?
Good question! A
panthéon is technically
a temple, like the
panthéon in Rome, in
which le Panthéon was                                            Photo by Cayetano
modeled after. For the French, the Panthéon is a sort of funeral "Hall of Fame", housing the tombs of some of France's greatest heroes.

The panthéon has an interesting history. It was first built as a church; then it was turned into a panthéon. Then it was turned back into a church, then back into a panthéon again! Are the French indecisive or what?

• In 1744, Louis XV was stricken with a mysterious disease. He vowed that if he recovered, he would build a church to replace the Abbaye de Ste-Geneviève.



• The king recovered and was so grateful to be alive that he built a church honoring Sainte Geneviève, patron saint of Paris.



• Architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot was hired for the job, and he designed the church in a neo-classical style. The interior has four isles arranged in the form of a Greek cross. It also has a dome, much like Saint Paul's Cathedral in London.



• Work began on the church in 1764. Soufflot died before it was finished however, and his pupil Guillaume Rondelet carried out his work. The monument was completed in 1790, ten years after Soufflot's death.



• After the revolution, the church was converted into a "Temple of Fame" - serving as a panthéon of great men. Both Mirabeau and Marat were temporary tenants there.



• In the 19th century, the building changed roles many times. In 1806, Napoléon turned it into a church. Eventually it was turned into a panthéon again, then back and forth, until it became a panthéon yet again in 1885, when Victor Hugo was buried there.



• Today, the monument houses the tombs of France's greatest heroes. Men laid to rest there include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile Zola, Louis Braille, Pierre Curie, Alexandre Dumas, André Malraux, and Voltaire.



• In 1995, the ashes of scientist Marie Curie were buried there, as the "first lady so honored in our history for her own merits" - Francois Mitterrand. (Another woman, Sophie Berthollet, was buried here first, alongside her chemist husband, Marcellin, but not as personal honor to her).

• The dome



• The façade



• The pendulum



• The paintings and sculptures



• The crypt and famous tombs

Hanging from the dome is the
pendulum, hung in 1851 by the
scientist Léon Foucault. The
Foucault pendulum was
conceived as an experiment to
demonstrate the rotation of the
Earth. It is a sort of permanent
exhibition in the Panthéon.

The Panthéon also has many
other exhibitions at various
times. If you're lucky, you'll be
there to see one!


The paintings and sculptures in
the Panthéon are beautiful. The
revolution is a common theme
that is featured in numerous
  Photo by Casper Moller                        paintings and sculptures. In the naves of the building are many paintings with prominent religious heroes, such as Sainte Geneviève (of course), the beheaded Sainte Denis, Sainte Louis, and Jean of Arc.

The finest frescoes however, by Puvis de Chavannes, are at the end of the left wall before you enter the crypt. One illustrates Sainte Geneviève bringing supplies to relieve the victims of the famine. The best one depicts the patron saint with her white draped head looking out over a moonlit medieval Paris.