The Pantheon in Paris

FRENCH President François Hollande suggested earlier this year that in the interest of equality more women should be among the 74 celebrated figures buried in the crypt of the famous Panthéon in Paris. So far only two women are buried there: Marie Curie and Sophie Berthelot, who is there on the merits of her husband, the chemist Marcellin Berthelot. A feminist group Osez le Féminisme (Dare To Be a Feminist) has been pressing the cause and a poll is being held to decide on women who qualify, with the favored candidates including Simone de Beauvoir and Olympe de Gouge, an advocate of women’s rights during the French Revolution.

Those who say there should be more women in the necropolis have a point. Many of the men buried in the Panthéon, which dates to the early years of the French Revolution, were revolutionary figures. Voltaire, Rousseau, and Marat (who was later disinterred)  are among those who were buried there. (See a full list here.) Famous feminists such as De Beauvoir and De Gouge fit in with the spirit of the mausoleum.

The irony is that none of the women candidates for interment today had the enormous power and influence of the immortal female figure who stands behind the Panthéon: Saint Genevieve, (422-512), the patron saint of Paris. The Panthéon, in the Latin Quarter, was originally intended by Louis XV to be a church dedicated to the saint, replacing a former abbey in her name. The king vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from illness he would replace the Abbey of St. Genevieve with a magnificent edifice. He did recover, and chose Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny to begin the project. Jacques-Germain Soufflot was selected in 1755 to design the church and construction on the enormous neoclassical domed structure began two years later. In 1791, the National Constituent Assembly ordered that the building become a mausoleum, not a church, for the burial of honored Frenchmen. In the meantime, it has been reconsecrated as a church more than once, but today is a secular necropolis.

Genevieve was a simple peasant girl from Nanterre who attracted the attention of bishops and later became famous for saving Paris in 451 from destruction by the Huns under Attila. She was well known for her sanctity and holy works in Paris when the barbarian raiders approached the city. She advised citizens not to flee and to remain in the city in a state of prayer. As a result of the presence of large numbers in the city, Attila is said to have diverted his warriors to Orléans.

According to the late Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira,

[St. Genevieve] rose up like a cedar of Lebanon and scented the panorama with her presence. She bloomed like a flower in the center of the West. There was no press, no radio, no television – o what happiness! Nonetheless her fame flew.

None of the female candidates for the Panthéon can approach the glory and inspiration of Genevieve. If her story is true, if by the sheer force of her character, holiness and love of God, she was able to help save Paris then all of feminism is false.

St. Genevieve

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