Among the circumstances which have attracted notice in the remarkable
events of the present French revolution, the restoration of the
_Panthéon_ to its primitive ecclesiastical name and destination has been
specially adverted to, and certainly not without reason from its
implied--indeed, its obvious purpose,--that of propitiating the feelings
and courting the adhesion at least of the agricultural population of the
country to the new order of things; for, indifferent as Paris, with
other cities, may be to religious sentiments or practice, the
unsophisticated inhabitants of the provinces still conscientiously
pursue the forms and exercise the duties of their long-established
worship. No surer means of obtaining their suffrages could have been
adopted by the French President than by gaining the favour of the parish
priests, whose influence is necessarily paramount on such occasions over
their flocks.
In the accounts which have appeared in our journals of the Pantheon and
its varied fate, several errors and deficiencies having struck me, I beg
leave briefly to correct and supply both, with your permission, by a
general history of the beautiful edifice.
The church dedicated to St. Geneviève, patroness of Paris, originally
begun by Clovis, and finished by his widow, St. Clotilda, in the sixth
century (see Butler's _Lives of Saints_, January 3rd, and June 3rd), had
fallen into decay, when Louis XV. determined to construct one near it,
upon a large and magnificent scale. Designs presented by the eminent
architect Soufflot were adopted, and on the 6th of September, 1764, the
king, as stated by Galignani and others, laid the first stone. But
scarcely had it emerged from the foundation, when the wide-spreading
impiety of the age made it probable that it would eventually be diverted
to uses wholly at variance with its destined purpose, and so the
following lines foretold so long since as 1777; and never has prediction
been more literally in many respects, and for a considerable time more
completely, fulfilled:--
"Templum augustum, ingens, reginâ assurgit in urbe,
Urbe et patronâ virgine digna domus,
Tarda nimis pietas vanos moliris honores!
Non sunt hæc, Virgo, factis digna tuis.
Ante Deo summâ quam templum extruxeris urbe,
Impietas templis tollet et urbe Deum."