My next stop after the Musée Rodin was Le Panthéon, located in the Latin Quarter, south of the River Seine. I took SNCF Metro line 10 from the Vaneau station, that brought me to the Cardinal Lemoine subway station in the 5th Arrondissement, from where I walked about half a kilometre to the Panthéon.
Walking along Rue Clovis, towards the Panthéon...
Ah! There I see the rotunda of Le Panthéon, but it is under renovation...
Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, a church that contains the shrine of St. Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris and the tombs of Blaise Pascal and Jean Racine...
Construction started in 1494 and the church was completed in 1624. The architecture reflects an amalgam of Gothic and French Renaissance styles. During the French Revolution, the church was closed down and then turned into a "Temple of Filial Piety." Worship was restored here in 1801 after a rapprochement between the Vatican and France. Pope Pius VII subsequently conducted services here.
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, or the Library of Sainte-Geneviève...
Building of the Pantheon-Sorbonne University...
Statue of the French playwright, Pierre Corneill...
Place du Pantheon...
Finally at the doorstep of Le Panthéon...
Martyrdom of St Denis, a painting by Léon Bonnat...
The plan of the Pantheon...
In 1744, Louis XV was stricken with a mysterious disease. He vowed that if he recovered, he would build a church to replace the aging Abbaye de Ste-Geneviève. The king recovered and he built the Panthéon as a church honoring Sainte Geneviève, patron saint of Paris.
Designed by Jacques-Germain Soufflot, work began on the church in 1764 and got completed in 1790. After the revolution, the church was converted into a “Temple of Fame” – serving as a panthéon of great men. But, in 1806, Napoléon turned it again into a church. It became a panthéon again in 1885, when Victor Hugo was buried there.
Painting depicting the march of Atilla...
The remodeled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, during the French Revolution. It was then when the new government changed the church into a mausoleum, a place to bury notable and distinguished Frenchmen...
Painting by Ernest Hebert is Christ with the angel of France with St Genevieve and Joan d'Arc to the left and the City of Paris kneeling to the right...
La Convention Nationale, a monument consecrated in 1920...
The Foucault's Pendulum which was supposed to be hanging from the dome was not there to my dismay...
The pendulum was hung in 1851 by the scientist Léon Foucault, as an experiment to demonstrate earth's rotation...
Painting of Saint Geneviève calming the Parisians...
A monument commemorating the Battle of Valmy, which was the first major victory by the army of France during the French Revolution...
Monument to Denis Diderot, a French philosopher, art critic, and writer of the 1700s....
A monument dedicated to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a philosopher, writer, and composer whose philosophy influenced the French Revolution...
Monuments to orators, statesmen and generals...
Painting depicting the death of Saint-Geneviève, by Jean-Paul Laurens...
Heading to the crypts, where the noble and accomplished Frenchmen lie buried...
...and passing by a model of the Panthéon...
Going back in time?
The crypts in the basement house the tombs of France’s greatest heroes. Men laid to rest there include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile Zola, Louis Braille, Pierre Curie, Alexandre Dumas, Voltaire and the architect of the Panthéon himself, Jacques-Germain Soufflot.
In 1995, the ashes of scientist Marie Curie were buried here. The then French President, Francois Mitterrand as the “first lady so honored in our history for her own merits.”
Rosseau's tomb...
Tombs of awardees of the national honour, the Légion d'honneur...
The tombs of Louis Braille, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, among others...
The tomb of Voltaire...
Under the rotunda...
One last look, and it's time to head back...
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