Montagne Sainte-Geneviève

At the top of Montagne Sainte-Geneviève up the street behind our apartment is the church Saint-Étienne-du-Mont and the Panthéon. 

Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

Panthéon

Sainte Geneviève is the patron saint of Paris and what is left of her relics is in the church Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, which is next to what was the abbey of Sainte Geneviève. In 451, Geneviève led a prayer marathon that was said to have saved Paris by diverting Attila the Hun's army away from the city.  Then, when Paris came under siege in 464 by the Germanic king, Childeric, she acted as a go-between, collecting food for the city to keep them from starving and convincing Childeric to release his prisoners.  By saving Paris twice, she became the city's patron saint.


Sainte Geneviève Abbey Church Tower

Sainte Geneviève was buried in the Sainte Geneviève abbey church.  When the church fell into decay, Louis XV ordered a new church built in a neo-classical design just down the street.  Before it was finished, the French Revolution broke out.  In 1791 the new government took over the new church intended to be named for Sainte Geneviève and renamed it the Panthéon.  It was to be a burial place or mausoleum for distinguished French citizens.  Only the tower remains of the original Sainte Geneviève abbey church and a school is built on the ruins of the abbey surrounding the tower.

Sainte Geneviève's Burial Slab

Sainte Geneviève's Relics

In the meantime, also during the French Revolution, Sainte Geneviève's shrine was melted down and her bones were burned on the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville and the ashes thrown in the Seine.  The slab of stone on which her tomb rested was eventually found and brought to Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.  There are also a few of her remains in a tiny glass cylinder at the church.


Interior of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont
with Double Spiral Staircase 

View of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont
from the Panthéon

Organ Loft

Saint-Étienne-du-Mont is such a pretty church with the double spiral staircase.  It is a type of rood screen that originally separated the congregation from the high altar.  This one was installed in the 16th century and is the only surviving example of a rood screen in Paris.
The Panthéon is modeled on the Pantheon in Rome and was finished in 1790.  It's walls contain paintings of the life of Sainte Geneviève.

Tom, Sue and Claire in the Panthéon

In 1851, the physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing the Foucault pendulum beneath the huge center dome.  It was fascinating to watch.  Claire had never seen one before.

Foucault Pendulum

The crypt is full of tombs of important people.  Voltaire is buried across from Rousseau, his rival.  And Marie and Pierre Curie are buried here.  Jean Moulin, the head of the Resistance in Paris in World War II, is also here.

Statue in front of Voltaire's Tomb

Curie Tombs

Claire outside the Panthéon

There is a beautiful view from the front of the Panthéon down the rue Sufflot towards the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Tour Eiffel.  All this is just up the street behind our apartment.  So much history and such beautiful buildings on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève.