Paris

Pantheon

Pantheon seen from Jardin du Luxembourg. The Pantheon's history is a perfect illustration of the relation of architecture and art to politics. Originally built in the Roman classical style as a Catholic church, St. Genevieve (1755-90), it was turned into the Pantheon, a tome for heroes of the Great French Revolution, with the bodies of Voltaire (11 July 1791), Marat (21 September 1794) and Rousseau (11 October 1794) transported there in festival processions. When the revolution failed and Napoleon assumed power, he buried his generals there; his nephew, Louis Bonaparte, as the second emperor from 1852 to 1871, followed suit. Then the Third Republic, the democratic political regime which drew the support of artists and intellectuals, including the French founder of sociology, Emile Durkheim, buried its heroes there in mass celebrations of republican liberties. The largest funeral procession being when Victor Hugo was interred there. [Further reading: Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, 1991; Katherine Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie, 1982.]

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