Panthéon, Paris

The Panthéon (Latin: Pantheon,^[1] from Greek Pantheon, meaning "Every god") is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, but after many changes now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neoclassicism, with a façade modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's "Tempietto". Located in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a mausoleum required the great gothic windows to be blocked. Nevertheless, it is one of the most important architectural achievements of its time and the first great neoclassical monument.

Contents 1 History 2 Burial place 2.1 Full list of people interred 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

History

King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from an illness he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny with the fulfillment of his vow. In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later. The overall design was that of a Greek cross with massive portico of Corinthian columns. Its ambitious lines called for a vast building 110 meters long by 84 meters wide, and 83 meters high. No less vast was its crypt.

The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to the economic problems in France at this time, work proceeded slowly. In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his student, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The remodeled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, coinciding with the early stages of the French Revolution. The National Constituent Assembly ordered it to be changed from a church to a mausoleum for the interment of great Frenchmen, retaining Quatremère de Quincy to oversee the project. Jean Guillaume Moitte created the pediment The Fatherland crowning the heroic and civic virtues (replaced upon the Bourbon Restoration with one by David d'Angers).

Twice since then it has reverted to being a church, only to become again a meeting house to the great intellectuals of France.

In 1851, physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the Earth by his experiment conducted in the Panthéon, by constructing a 67 meter Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. The original iron sphere from the pendulum was returned to the Panthéon in 1946 from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers.

From 1906 to 1922 this was the site of the famous sculpture The Thinker.

In 2006, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, installed "Léviathan Thot", an anthropomorphic installation inspired by the biblical monster. The art installation was in the Panthéon from September 15, 2006, until October 31 for Paris' Autumn Festival.

In late 2006, a "cultural guerilla movement" calling itself Untergunther completed a year-long project where they covertly repaired the Panthéon's antique clockworks.^[2][3][4]

Burial place

The inscription above the entrance reads AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE (lit. "To the great men, the homeland [is] grateful"). By burying its great men in the Panthéon, the Nation acknowledges the honour it received from them. As such, interment here is severely restricted and is allowed only by a parliamentary act for "National Heroes". Similar high honours exist in Les Invalides for historical military leaders such as Napoléon, Turenne and Vauban.

Among those buried in its necropolis are Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Louis Braille, Jean Jaurès and Soufflot, its architect.

The widely-repeated story that the remains of Voltaire were stolen by religious fanatics in 1814 and thrown into a garbage heap is false. Such rumours resulted in the coffin being opened in 1897, which confirmed that his remains were still present.

On 30 November 2002, in an elaborate but solemn procession, six Republican Guards carried the coffin of Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870), the author of The Three Musketeers, to the Panthéon. Draped in a blue-velvet cloth inscribed with the Musketeers' motto: "Un pour tous, tous pour un" ("One for all, all for one,") the remains had been transported from their original interment site in the Cimetière de Villers-Cotterêts in Aisne, France. In his speech, President Jacques Chirac stated that an injustice was being corrected with the proper honoring of one of France's greatest authors.

In January 2007, President Jacques Chirac unveiled a plaque in the Panthéon to more than 2600 people recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel for saving the lives of Jews who would otherwise have been deported to concentration camps. The tribute in the Panthéon underlines the fact that around three quarters of the country's Jewish population survived the war, often thanks to ordinary people who provided help at the risk of their own life. This plaque says :

Sous la chape de haine et de nuit tombée sur la France dans les années d'occupation, des lumières, par milliers, refusèrent de s'éteindre. Nommés "Juste parmi les Nations" ou restés anonymes, des femmes et des hommes, de toutes origines et de toutes conditions, ont sauvé des juifs des persécutions antisémites et des camps d'extermination. Bravant les risques encourus, ils ont incarné l'honneur de la France, ses valeurs de justice, de tolérance et d'humanité.

Which can be translated as follows :

Under the cloak of hate and darkness that spread over France during the years of [Nazi] occupation, thousands of lights refused to be extinguished. Named as "Righteous among the Nations" or remaining anonymous, women and men, of all backgrounds and social classes, saved Jews from anti-Semitic persecution and the extermination camps. Braving the risks involved, they incarnated the honour of France, and its values of justice, tolerance and humanity.

Full list of people interred

Year of burial in the Panthéon	Name	Notes
1791	Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau	First person honored with burial in the Panthéon, 4 April 1791. Disinterred on 25 November 1794.
1791	Voltaire
1792	Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire	Disappeared
1793	Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau	Assassinated deputy, disinterred from the Panthéon. His body was removed by his family on 14 February 1795.
1793	Augustin-Marie Picot, marquis de Dampierre	Disappeared
1794	Jean-Paul Marat	Disinterred from the Panthéon
1794	Jean Jacques Rousseau
1806	Claude-Louis Petiet
1807	Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis
1807	Louis-Pierre-Pantaléon Resnier
1807	Louis-Joseph-Charles-Amable d'Albert, duc de Luynes	Disinterred from the Panthéon
1807	Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Bévière
1808	Francois Barthélemy, comte Béguinot
1808	Pierre Jean George Cabanis
1808	Gabriel-Louis, marquis de Caulaincourt
1808	Jean-Frédéric, comte de Perrégaux
1808	Antoine-César de Choiseul, duc de Praslin
1808	Jean-Pierre-Firmin, comte Malher	Urn with his heart
1809	Jean Baptiste Papin, comte de Saint-Christau
1809	Joseph-Marie, comte Vien
1809	Pierre Garnier, comte de Laboissière
1809	Jean Pierre, comte Sers	Urn with his heart
1809	Jérôme-Louis-François-Joseph, comte de Durazzo	Urn with his heart
1809	Justin-Bonaventure, comte Morard de Galles	Urn with his heart
1809	Emmanuel Crétet, comte de Champnol
1810	Giovanni Baptista, cardinal Caprara
1810	Louis-Joseph-Vincent-Leblon, comte de Saint-Hilaire
1810	Jean-Baptiste, comte Treilhard
1810	Jean Lannes, duc de Montebello
1810	Charles-Pierre-Claret, comte de Fleurieu de La Tourette
1811	Louis Antoine de Bougainville
1811	Charles, cardinal Erskine of Kellie
1811	Alexandre-Antoine Hureau, baron de Sénarmont	Urn with his heart
1811	Ippolito Antonio, cardinal Vicenti Mareri
1811	Nicolas-Marie, comte de Songis des Courbons
1811	Michel Ordener, First Count Ordener[5]
1812	Jean-Marie-François Lepaige, comte Dorsenne
1812	Jan Willem de Winter or in French Jean Guillaume De Winter, comte de Huessen
1813	Hyacinthe-Hugues-Timoléon de Cossé, comte de Brissac
1813	Jean-Ignace Jacqueminot, comte de Ham
1813	Joseph Louis, comte Lagrange
1813	Jean, comte Rousseau
1813	François-Marie-Joseph-Justin, comte de Viry
1814	Jean-Nicolas, comte Démeunier
1814	Jean-Louis-Ebenezer, comte Reynier
1814	Claude-Ambroise Régnier, duc de Massa di Carrara
1815	Antoine-Jean-Marie, comte Thévenard
1815	Claude-Juste-Alexandre, comte Legrand
1829	Jacques-Germain Soufflot
1885	Victor Hugo
1885	Louis Pasteur
1889	Lazare Carnot	Buried at the time of the centennial celebration of the French Revolution.
1889	Théophile-Malo Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne	Buried at the time of the centennial celebration of the French Revolution.
1889	Pierre Galetto	Buried at the time of the centennial celebration of the French Revolution.
1889	François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers	Buried at the time of the centennial celebration of the French Revolution – Only his ashes are buried there.
1894	Marie François Sadi Carnot	Buried immediately after his assassination.
1907	Marcellin Berthelot	Mme Sophie Berthelot is buried with her husband.
1908	Émile Zola
1920	Léon Gambetta	Urn with his heart
1924	Jean Jaurès	Interred ten years after his assassination.
1933	Paul Painlevé
1948	Paul Langevin
1948	Jean Perrin	Buried the same day as Paul Langevin.
1949	Victor Schoelcher	His father Marc, is also in the Panthéon. Victor wanted to be buried with his father.
1949	Félix Éboué	Buried the same day as Victor Schoelcher.
1952	Louis Braille	Body moved to the Panthéon on the centenary of his death.
1964	Jean Moulin	Ashes transferred from Père Lachaise Cemetery on December 19, 1964.
1987	René Cassin	Entered the Pantheon on the centenary of his birth.
1988	Jean Monnet	Entered the Pantheon on the centenary of his birth.
1989	Abbé Baptiste-Henri Grégoire	Buried at the time of the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution.
1989	Gaspard Monge	Buried at the time of the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution.
1989	Marquis de Condorcet	Buried at the time of the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution. The coffin is in fact empty, his remains having been lost.
1995	Pierre Curie	Both Pierre and Marie were enshrined in the crypt in April 1995.
1995	Marie Curie	First woman to be buried in the Pantheon, for her contributions to science.
1996	André Malraux	Ashes transferred from Verrières-le-Buisson (Essonne) Cemetery on 23 November 1996 on the twentieth anniversary of his death.
2002	Alexandre Dumas, père	Reburied here 132 years after his death.

See also

• Pantheon, Rome
• Panteón Nacional, Caracas

References

External links

• Panthéon at Centre des Monuments Nationaux
• Panthéon - current photographs and of the years 1900
• 38 recent photos of the Panthéon
• Panthéon at Structurae
• The Pantheon Paris (unofficial site) offers a gallery of 20 images