| The most visible of Paris's many domes graces the hulk of the Panthéon (daily: April–Sept 10am–6.30pm; Oct–March 10am–6pm; €7; RER Luxembourg/M° Cardinal-Lemoine), which tops the Montagne Ste-Geneviève. The present structure was built by Louis XV, ostensibly as thanks to Ste Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, for curing him of illness, but also as part of a grand plan to emphasize the unity of the church and state, troubled at the time by growing divisions between Jesuits and Jansenists: not only did the original church at this spot entomb Geneviève, it had been founded by Clovis, France's first Christian king. The building was only completed in 1789, whereupon the Revolution promptly transformed it into a mausoleum, adding the words "Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante" ("The nation honours its great men") underneath the pediment of the giant portico. The remains of French cultural giants such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo and Zola are now entombed in the vast, barrel-vaulted crypt below, along with more recent arrivals: Marie Curie (the only woman) and Alexandre Dumas, the last to be "panthéonized" here, in 2002, with much fanfare. The Panthéon's interior is well worth a visit for its oddly secular frescoes and sculptures, and monumental design, originally conceived as a combination of the virtues of Classical Greek and Gothic construction. You can also see a working model of Foucault's Pendulum swinging from the dome (the original is under glass at the Musée des Arts et Métiers). The French physicist Léon Foucault devised the experiment, conducted at the Panthéon in 1851, to demonstrate vividly the rotation of the earth. While the pendulum appeared to rotate over a 24-hour period, it was in fact the earth beneath it turning. The demonstration wowed the scientific establishment and the public alike, with huge crowds turning up to watch the ground move beneath their feet. Sloping gently downhill from the main portico of the Panthéon, broad rue Soufflot entices you west towards the Luxembourg gardens. On the east side of the Panthéon, however, peeping over the walls of the Lycée Henri IV, look out for the lone Gothic tower which is all that remains of the earlier church of Ste-Geneviève. Ste-Geneviève's remains, and those of two seventeenth-century literary giants who didn't make the Panthéon, Pascal and Racine, lie close at hand in the church of St-Étienne-du-Mont, on the corner of rue Clovis. The church's facade is a bit of a hotch-potch, but it conceals a stunning and highly unexpected interior. The transition from Flamboyant Gothic choir to sixteenth-century nave would be startling if the eye wasn't distracted by a strange high-level catwalk which springs from pillar to pillar before transforming itself into a rood screen which arches across the width of the nave. This last feature is highly unusual in itself; most French rood screens fell victim to Protestant iconoclasts, reformers or revolutionaries. Exceptionally tall windows flood the church with light, and the cloister has some good seventeenth-century stained glass. Further down rue Clovis, a huge piece of Philippe-Auguste's twelfth-century city walls emerges from among the houses. Alternate spellings:: Panthéon, pathenon, pantheon, paris
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