Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-03-29
PANTHEON"
Sp>ciaI Correspondence OF The Star.

PARIS. March Is. 1908.
y OF might call IT Ten Years
~ After" 1t ends in the solemn
" Pantheon o. France.
1t began with bloody riots in
the streets Of Paris. In Janu-
any, 1905. the richest and most popular
French novelist wrote a short article or
3.oOO words tia: won HIM hatred in his
land a years prison, exile. the sale OF
his household goods. with SANDER. loss
~ friends and strife heyoud expression.
He wrote it out of conscience. because
French captain had been unfairly tried
and imprisoned on a charge Of treason.
refer to Emile lola and the Dreyfus
affair lola saw his article u accuse"
tear France asunder. estrange families,
set the world on fire with generous en-
thusiasm. But after years Of obstruction
he did not see the true Towering Of his
effort He died accidentally in 1902 by
euftocation from stove-coal gas. Only four
years later did the court Of cessation pro-
claim reduced to nothingness' the
charges against Notwithstanding Of
them all remains standing
July H. 1908. the highest court 0. France
gave this decision.
July 49, 1906. when the army commits
mont Of Picauart and Dreyfus. the
French parliament decreed that Zola's
body should be transferred TO the Pan
theon.
SO many writer's will tell You Of Zola
that wish to tell about the monument
Of supreme honor where he Is heEceeoTth
to sleep between Jean Jacques Rousseau
and Victor Hugo.
That the spot is already chosen is due
to the tender insistence OF Nine. Zola
II accept with gratitude the dazzling
honor to my husbands memory" she
said last week. "As to the ceremony.
II is the right of the government to de-
eide all i have but one request to make.
, 1t Is essential. l beg that the sepulcher
In the CRYPT OF the Pantheon be absolute
~ ready before April ,, the date Of the
transfer.
lola explained. eff the coffin should have
TO be placed temporarily on the crypt fGor.
Berthel and his wife waited a year.
Victor Hugo remained on the crypt floor
six months before his great sepulcher
was ready lola sleeps TRANQUILITY In the
cemetery OF Montmartre. ] beg that he
be transported direct to his Pantheon
sepulcher.
Most tourists go down to the crypt. All
see the Pantheon.
II is one Of the most striking sights and
spots OF Paris The streets slope down
from IT. Ancient Paris had called 1t
'Ihe mountain where once stood a
Clovis built a church to the apostles on
IT, Then around the year 5D0. lived
wonderful old maid in Paris-Genevieve.
a suburban farmers daughter. When the
barbarian hordes OF Attila We're before
the gates this Geneveve. a girl of twenty.
went out alone and persuaded Attia to
pass
She became a parsonage by piety and
charity Once in a famine she brous ut
ooatloads of food down the river to the
starving and demoralized Parisians.
Kings and queens consulted her and
when she died her body was loid in the
Church OF the Apostles, on the hill that
took her name-the first great citizen
20 sleep in what is row the Pantheon
The building was destroyed by Norman
pirates 1t was replaced by an abbey of
ste Genevieve. whose bell tower only
now remains in the High School Henri
".
The actual building of the Pantheon
thus dates from Louis XIV only: and
when the French revolution swung round
The idea of using II for the sleep of great
,:itizens' had only the old memory of
Genevieve for basis-after some 1870
years.
II was a splendid pile that Louis XIV
had built there. the successive work of
.wo great architects, SOuff1ot and Ronde-
let. It's form is a Greek cross. Its front is
II mighty portico of twenty-five Corin-
1hian columns. sixty-fve feet high. re-
posing on a perron of twelve steps. Their
pertinent Is carved by David d Anglers. I
Inside sixteen windows are followed !
round by thirty-two Corintbian columns. |
Above, in the center, is dome so high |
that every few years it is used for the |
strange pendulum experiment that proves |
III. earth revoves. wire pendulum |
30 feet high swings ever back and /
forth in the same line. II never stops all /
day the momentum of the vast swing !
being so considerable. Yet, while In the |
morning 1t swings straight TO the front |
,ioor and back. by afternoon ii swings !
Onward the fifty windows. AS the pendu- t
,um has not changed direction, the earth |
must have changed beneath it.
The first inhabitsnt of what now be- |
anne the Pantheon was Mirabeau-"the !