History :
Seriously sick in Metz in 1744, Louis XV makes the wish that in case of recovery; he will replace the abbey of Saint-Genevieve falling in ruin by a new votive church.
Re-established, he holds the word in 1754. Therefore this wish marks the beginning of the Pantheon history. The architect designated for this ambitious project realization wasn’t Jacques Ange Gabriel, king’s First Architect, but Jacques German Soufflot, imposed by Marigny, director of the king's Buildings. Cultivated spirit, Italy fine connoisseur, also he was signalled by his interest for the medieval architecture. The first Soufflot projects date to 1757.
Louis XV, accompanied by the Dauphin, put the first stone in 1764, during a great ceremony.
At the time of the strengthened basement, the church was hardly finished when exploded the French Revolution. The Constituent decided to allocate the church to a necropolis of the Great capable Men, by their real or supposed virtue, to edify the people and their new masters.
The first who has buried is Mirabeau, not for a long period besides because three years later he was elsewhere (réinhumé).
Shortly after, the Voltaire and Rousseau spoils take place in the vast dome. They rest always there.
In 1791, the Constituent load Antoine Quatremere of Quincy to delete all religious attributes and to wall up 38 of the 47 windows to accentuate the "sepulchral effect": one sees the outside traces. Also the two bell-towers of the bedhead and the dome lantern were vanishing. Indeed, since the entry, we notices that the walls are blind; the inside is illuminated artificially by some windows situated in the superior part.