The Panthéon

The Panthéon is a building located in the Latin Quarter in Paris (5th arrodissement) close to the Sorbone and the Lyceum Louis Le grand and Henry IV. It is one of the neoclassic monuments of France. Originally it was intended to be a church dedicated to Saint Geneviève. However, the Church of St. Geneviève was transformed during the Revolution into a temple in honour of Great Men. When Napoleon falls the Panthéon returned to function as a church. This period lasted all the Second Empire. After another stint as a church, the building permanently became a temple upon the burial of Victor Hugo.
It has a façade modeled on the Agripa Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a small dome inspired in the London San Pablo cathedral. Both of them owe some of its character to "Tempietto".

In 1851 physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the Earth and the existence of the Coriolis strength by his experiment conducted in the Panthéon, by constructing Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. Looking at the Pendulum is one of the best curiosities of the Pantheón.
It houses a crypt where are to be found the tombs of some of France's most illustrious literary figures such as: Voltaire, Rousseau, Marat, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, Marie Curie, Louis Braille and Soufflot, its architect. On 30 November 2002 the coffin of Alexandre Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers, was carried to the Panthéon.