By Grant Allen


[Footnote: From "Paris."]



The medieval church of Ste. Genevieve, having fallen into decay in the
middle of the eighteenth century, Louis XV. determined to replace it by a
sumptuous domed edifice in the style of the period. This building,
designed by Soufflot, was not completed till the Revolution, when it was
immediately secularized as the Pantheon, under circumstances to be
mentioned later. The remains of Ste. Genevieve, which had lain temporarily
meanwhile in a sumptuous chapel of St. Etienne-du-Mont (the subsidiary
church of the monastery) were taken out by the Revolutionists; the
medieval shrine, or reliquary (which replaced St. Eloy's), was ruthlessly
broken up; and the body of the patroness and preserver of Paris was
publicly burned in the Place de Greve.

This, however, strange to say, was not quite the end of Ste. Genevieve. A
few of her relics were said to have been preserved: some bones, together
with a lock of the holy shepherdess's hair, were afterward recovered, and
replaced in the sarcophagus they had once occupied. Such at least is the
official story; and these relics, now once more enclosed in a costly
shrine, still attract thousands of votaries to the chapel of the saint in
St. Etienne-du-Mont.

The Pantheon, standing in front of the original church, is now a secular
burial-place for the great men of France. The remains of Ste. Genevieve