The Pantheon.
About half a mile distant from the island of the Seine upon which Notre Dame stands, on an eminence south of the river, is located the Pantheon, or church of St. Genevieve. This building cost $6,000,000. The six fluted columns of its portico are 6 feet in diameter and 60 feet high. The whole number of Corinthian columns in and about this superb edifice is 258. The arched ceilings of the interior are 80 feet high. The dome is 66 feet in diameter and its height from the pavement to the top is 268 feet. I have seen no other dome in Europe that resembles so closely the dome on the Capitol of the United States, both on account of its fine illumination by natural light, and in its general design. One section of the frescoes in the canopy of the dome on our national capitol, represents the deification of Washington. In the dome of the Pantheon at Paris, Clovis, Charlemagne, St. Louis and Louis XVIII., are represented as rendering homage to Ste. Genevieve, who descends towards them on clouds, and Glory embraces Napoleon. In the heavenly regions are represented, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, Louis XVII. and Madame Elizabeth.
In 1791, Mirabeau was interred here with great pomp, and in the same year took place, the celebrated apotheoses (deifications) of Voltaire and Rousseau. The remains of Mirabeau and of Marat were afterwards depantheonized, and the body of the latter was thrown into a common sewer.
The vaults are under the western nave. In these the "monuments and funeral urns are arranged like the Roman tombs in Pompeii." There are two concentric passages in the center, where small sounds are repeated by loud echoes. A hand holding a torch issues from one side of Rousseau's tomb, meaning that he is a light to the world even after death.