Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/270

232 Another venerable building is close by,—the famous Pantheon, dedicated to the Great men of France! The noble height of its dome; and the magnificence of its structure seem to mark the veneration in which Frenchmen hold their great men! The dome is 272 feet high, and is the most conspicuous object on the south side of the Seine, next only to the gilded dome of the Invalides.

The interior of this noble structure is simple and majestic. The walls and the dome are ornamented by fine paintings and frescoes. The graves of the great men are down below in the underground vaults,—and it is here that the visitor is disappointed. Unlike the Westminster Abbey of England where the visitor strolls among the thick graves and mounmentsmonuments [sic] of thinkers and writers, kings, warriors and statesmen, and is absorbed in the noble associations of past greatness, the Pantheon has few graves of great men to shew, and shews them to the least advantage. The visitor is conducted in the midst of a crowd by a conductor through dark vaults in which he can see next to nothing, and is shewn some graves of men about whom he knows little, as a rule. The most important tombs are those of Voltaire and Rousseau, but the remains of those great men are not here, but were removed elsewhere by impious hands in revenge of the desecration of the Royal tombs under the convention!

Victor Hugo the greatest of French poets has recently been buried here, and his tomb is ever loaded with fresh wreaths brought by a grateful people.

Further east from the Pantheon, and on the south