Panthéon
By the time the construction was finished, the French Revolution had started, and the National Constituent Assembly voted in 1791 to transform the Church of Saint Genevieve into a mausoleum for the remains of distinguished French citizens, modelled on the Pantheon in Rome which had been used in this way since the 16th century. The first panthéonisé was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, although his remains were removed from the place a few years later. The building was twice restored to church usage in the course of the 19th century—although Soufflot's remains were transferred inside it in 1829—until the French Third Republic finally decreed its exclusive use as a mausoleum in 1881; the placement of Victor Hugo's remains in the crypt in 1885 was the first one in over fifty years.
Panthéon-2