The Panthéon stands in Paris’ Latin Quarter, a few blocks from the Sorbonne.  It was erected in the late 18th Century as a church to honor Sainte Geneviève, patron saint of Paris.   Puvis de Chavannes illustrated the saint's legend in dramatic interior wall frescoes.
           Probably it is superfluous for me to state that the architectural model for the structure was the Panthéon in Rome.  The French Panthéon had not yet been consecrated as a church before the Revolution of 1789.  The anticlerical Revolutionary authorities recast the Panthéon as a secular monument  to the history of La France.  Within its circular precincts are murals, statuary and memorials to those who have contributed notably to France’s glory.  These include military leaders, statesmen, writers, scientists and philosophers.  Some of them are interred in the Panthéon's crypt.

To demonstrate the Earth’s rotation, in 1851 Léon Foucault suspended a brass sphere on a steel cable from the top of the Panthéon's dome.  The mechanism there today is a replica of the original Foucault’s Pendulum.

The dome crowns the highly decorated geometry of the  Panthéon.
 

The 18th Century essayist, playwright and philosopher Voltaire, a proponent of The Enlightenment, was a prestigious presence in the crypt.

Outside the  Panthéon was a Sunday street market, where a bewildering variety of used merchandise was for sale.  The market’s bustle made quite a contrast to the symmetrical solemnity of the national shrine.