{"id":63632,"date":"2018-01-31T00:59:01","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T05:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wend.ca\/?p=63632"},"modified":"2021-12-29T20:27:59","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T01:27:59","slug":"pantheon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/?p=63632","title":{"rendered":"The Panthe\u0301on and Hoche"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Panthe\u0301on in Paris is King Louis XV’s great contribution to the world of cemeteries… sort of. The original intent in 1755 was to build a church to replace the crumbling Abbey of St. Genevieve, but due to lack of money, it took decades to build and with the onset of the French Revolution (about the same time it was completed), Parisians decided to make the building a mausoleum instead of a church.<\/p>\n

Many of France’s great minds are buried in the cavernous, marble, maze-like halls: Marie Currie, Voltaire, Rousseau, Honor\u00e9 Mirabeau, Marat, Victor Hugo, \u00c9mile Zola, Jean Moulin, Louis Braille… and the list goes on and on and on.<\/p>\n

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The macabre piece of this is that from the completion of construction in 1790 to today, luminaries and personalities from all over France are chosen, exhumed, and reburied in the crypt (if allowed by the family; if not, a piece of the body or soil from the original grave is used)… some to be removed later depending on the French sentiments of the moment.<\/p>\n

For example, Honor\u00e9 Gabriel Riqueti, the first person buried in the Panthe\u0301on, was later moved to an anonymous grave after he was publicly discredited and deemed a traitor. The “suicidal” Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire was moved to the Panthe\u0301on but the body disappeared at some unknown point (his family thinks he is still interred in Sainte-Menehould of Argonneand where he died and was never actually moved). And, the poor body of outspoken Jean-Paul Marat was buried, disinterred, memorials destroyed, and reinterred in the cemetery at Saint-\u00c9tienne-du-Mont; the tub he used to soak in (because of a skin ailment) is on display at the Grevin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For others, their hearts were added to the Panthe\u0301on (e.g. L\u00e9on Gambetta, Jean-Pierre-Firmin, Jean Pierre, J\u00e9r\u00f4me-Louis-Fran\u00e7ois-Joseph, Justin Bonaventure Morard de Galles) and their bodies buried elsewhere (or v.v.). It’s nothing new to have bodies move from place to place in Paris like a grotesque game of hide-and-go-seek<\/a>… or like the dead are periodically moving to a different house.<\/p>\n

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Above is Victor Hugo being taken to the Panthe\u0301on… though I’m not sure he would have liked the pomp and manner surrounding his burial (and final resting place) given he was an outspoken advocate of the poor and frequently wrote to bring awareness to poverty, political injustice, and Paris’ neglect of their national treasures. The Panthe\u0301on seems to be the antithesis of this… a largely ceremonial antithesis.<\/p>\n