Panthéon, Paris > Reviews > The Pantheon

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Advantages:	Voltaire, interesting history
Disadvantages:	No disabled access

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yes

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I have just returned from the most beautiful city I have ever visited. Paris lives up to the reputation, it is an incredible city full of amazing architecture, art, culture and tasty food. One of the first places I visited was the Pantheon. Wandering up the broad rue Soufflot you will be greeted by the large dome of the sixty meter tall Pantheon building.

Originally there was a church built here to honour Saint Genevieve (the patron saint of Paris) after she saved the city from Attila and his band of not so merry Huns in 451 AD. When it became run down Louis XV built a new church on the site in the 18th century. The building is today known as the Pantheon, built in a neo-classical style it was completed in the first year of the French Revolution (it took thirty years to build). In a twist of fate, which I find amusing, the heroes of the revolution became the focus of this great memorial.

In 1871 the Pantheon was apparently used temporarily as the HQ of the Paris Commune, we can only imagine what Louis XV would have said about that. Nowadays it is used as the resting place of great figures from the Grande Nation, including my personal favourite - Voltaire. It also houses Foucault's Pendulum which demonstrates the movement of the earth on it's axis, this causes the pendulum, which descends from the top of the dome, to revolve around a central disc. It takes a full day for the pendulum to move completely around the disc. Leon Foucault was a physicist and his pendulum also formed the name of an excellent Umberto Eco book. There are videos of the setting up of the pendulum at each side of the central dome, in English and French.

Entry costs 25 francs for those under 26 and about 35 francs for older people. 25 francs is only £2.50 so it is well worth it. The main hall is in a cross shape 110 metres by 85 metres. All around the walls there are huge paintings depicting various stories about St. Genevieve and Joan of Arc. There are also a few statues and memorials and a huge scale model of the whole thing. The huge main steps up the entrance and the spiral staircase down to the tomb suggest that little regard has been given to disabled access, in this respect France seems to lag behind Britain.

Entrance to the crypt can be found at the back of the building. Descending down a spiral staircase you will find yourself in a large open chamber with a few tombs around you. I was most interested in seeing Francois-Marie Arouet dit Voltaire (1694-1778) a poet, historian and philosopher who had all kinds of witty and clever things to say. He was honoured with a large stone sarcophagus with a statue of himself in front, he smiles down beneficiently with a pen in one hand and a book in the other. The main chamber also houses Rousseau.

Elsewhere you can find the amazing Victor Hugo, buried there in 1885. Rene Cassin, the author of the Bill of Human Rights. Louis Braille, interred in 1952, Jean Moulin, the resistance leader, Pierre and Marie Curie, Jean Jaures, the socialist, Emile Zola, Andre Malraux and the architect himself Jacques-Germain Soufflot. There is a labyrinthe of tunnels with a symmetrical round central chamber with other halls leading off. Rows of creepy looking doors guard the tombs, which can be glimpsed by peering through the grills.

During the revolution the rebels apparently barricaded themselves in the crypt, I must admit it would not have been my choice of hiding place. The crypt is cold and would be creepy if it wasn't for other groups of tourists wandering around taking photos. An interesting building with a mixed history from its early beginnings as a religious building, through its time as a revolutionary monument to the position it occupies today. The final resting place of especially amazing people, it would take more than wealth to secure a spot here. On emerging back into the daylight I would reccommend heading down rue Soufflot and entering the beautiful lush greenery of the Jardin du Luxembourg, just to shake off that tomb feeling.