The Pantheon Paris : Paris Tourism

Place du Panthéon 75005 Paris Opens everyday from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. during winter Opens everyday from 9.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. during summer. Closes on public holyidays Ordered by King Louis XV, the Pantheon comes from the 18th Century. The architect Jacques Germain Soufflot had the duty to build a commemorating monument to Saint Genevieve to who he owes his miraculous cure. Soufflot mixed the architectural styles : the outside walls are inspired from the roman Pantheon, whereas French Classicist style takes place in the centre of Greek and gothic styles. The Pantheon was decided to be the necropolis of important men during the Revolution : some of them were Mirabeau, Voltaire, or Rousseau. The fourty two windows had been walled in order to give a more sepulchral aspect to the monument. However, different forms of governments succeeding to each others, the Pantheon didn’t stop oscillating between civil and religious devoting. The building is being used to commemorate important men since the death of Victor Hugo whose corps had been transferred to the monument in 1885. on the front is written “to great men, the greatful country” Leon Foucault used the monument as a laboratory. He installed a pendulum to prove the earth turns on itself. The last important ceremonies happened in the middle of the 20th Century. The ashes of Jean Moulin were transferred to the Pantheon in 1964. in this occasion André Malraux did a famous speech in the presence of the General de Gaulle. André Malraux himself found his last rest in the same monument on the 23rd of November, 1996. the last successor was Alexandre Dumas.