A Who's Who of the Panthéon

Description

"To great men, the grateful nation." This inscription appears on the pediment of one of Paris's most famous monuments, the Panthéon-a temple of the nation, standing atop the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève and, until the end of the 19th century, the highest point in the capital.

The Panthéon's crypt has nearly 300 spaces, with 75 personalities currently interred. But who are these great figures whom the nation shelters for eternity beneath this magnificent dome? The most famous are well known-Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola, and more recently Jean Moulin, André Malraux, and Aimé Césaire, who entered in 2011-but less so the many individuals who were admitted during the First Empire, a regime nonetheless the most prolific in the history of panthéonizations.

At a time when four new personalities-Germaine Tillion, Geneviève de Gaulle, Pierre Brossolette, and Jean Zay-enter the sanctuary of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, this small book aims to answer that question by providing the complete list of the monument's distinguished occupants, their biographies, and the period of French political life during which they were admitted-and thus chosen.

A strong sign of the French people's attachment to this symbolic monument, the online consultation set up by the CMN to inform the relevant authorities in their selection of personalities gathered more than 30,000 responses between September 2 and September 22, 2013.*