Église Sainte-Geneviève

“A church, then a mausoleum, then a church again…” mused a voice behind me, startling me slightly. I turn to see an elderly woman, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Élise Sainte-Geneviève has quite the story, wouldn’t you say?” It seems the Église Sainte-Geneviève, later known as the Panthéon, can’t escape its dramatic past, even now. Louis XV, seeking divine intervention for a grave illness in Metz, vowed to rebuild the crumbling abbey of Sainte-Geneviève if he recovered. He did, and so began the saga of Église Sainte-Geneviève. A royal lottery was launched to finance the ambitious project. Twenty years later, in 1764, the first stone was laid. The task fell to a relatively unknown architect, Jacques-Germain Soufflot, who envisioned a structure to rival the great domes of Rome and London. His design, a Greek cross crowned by a triple dome, was as controversial as it was audacious. The materials, the scale, the very structure itself, drew both praise and criticism. Sadly, Soufflot wouldn’t live to see his vision realized, leaving its completion to his associate, Maximilien Brébion, and student, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet in 1790. Ironically, the year of completion also marked the beginning of the French Revolution. The newly finished church was almost immediately repurposed. With Mirabeau’s death in 1791, the Église Sainte-Geneviève transformed into a national necropolis, the Panthéon, a temple to honor France’s illustrious citizens. Voltaire joined Mirabeau in 1791, followed by Rousseau in 1794. The Panthéon became a stage for the changing tides of French history. Napoleon, in 1806, restored the building to the church, yet reserved the crypt for dignitaries of his Empire. The pendulum swung back in 1815 when the entire structure, crypt included, was returned to the Catholic Church under the Bourbon Restoration. Then, in 1830, with the July Monarchy, the Panthéon was reborn. A brief stint as the “Temple of Humanity” under the Second Republic ended with the Second Empire in 1851, when the building once again became a church. Finally, with Victor Hugo’s grand funeral in 1885, the Panthéon found its lasting identity, the final resting place for the great men and women of France. The tug-of-war between church and state, etched into the very stones of this building, culminates in a space that resonates with the spirit of France. From royalty to revolutionaries, writers to scientists, the Panthéon whispers their stories.