still repose at St. Etienne. Thus it is impossible to dissociate the two
buildings, which should be visited together; and thus too it happens that
the patroness of Paris has now no church in her own city. Local saints are
always the most important; this hill and Montmartre are still the holiest
places in Paris.

Proceed, as far as the garden of the Thermes, as on the excursion to
Cluny. Then continue straight up the Boulevard St. Michel. The large
edifice visible on the right of the Rue des Ecoles to your left, is the
new building of the Sorbonne, or University. Further up, at the Place du
Sorbonne, the domed church of the same name stands before you. It is the
University church, and is noticeable as the earliest true dome erected in
Paris. The next corner shows one, right, the Luxembourg garden, and left,
the Rue Soufflot, leading up to the Pantheon.

The colossal domed temple which replaces the ancient church of Ste.
Genevieve was begun by Soufflot, under Louis XV., in imitation of St.
Peter's, at Rome. Like all architects of his time, Soufflot sought merely
to produce an effect of pagan or "classical" grandeur, peculiarly out of
place in the shrine of the shepherdess of Nanterre. Secularized almost
immediately on its completion, during the Revolution, the building was
destined as the national monument to the great men of France, and the
inscription, "Aux Grands Hommes la Patrie Reconnaissante," which it still
bears, was then first placed under the sculptures of the pediment.

Restored to worship by the Restoration, it was again secularized under the
Third Republic in order to admit the burial of Victor Hugo. The building
itself, a vast bare barn of the pseudo-classical type, very cold and
formal, is worthy of notice merely on account of its immense size and its
historic position; but it may be visited to this day with pleasure, not