Amid bursts of applause, surrounded by loving friends and loyal adherents, he was stricken down and passed out into the Unknown.  Happy fate! to die before the fickle populace had taken up a new idol; to step in an instant beyond the reach of malice—­to leave behind the self-seekers that pursue, the hungry horde that follows, the zealots who defame; to escape the dagger-thrust of calumny and receive only the glittering steel that at the same time wrote his name indelibly on the roll of honor.

Carnot, thrice happy thou!  Thy name is secure on history’s page, and thy dust now resting beneath the dome of the Pantheon is bedewed with the tears of thy countrymen.

Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, died in Five Hundred Twelve.  She was buried on a hilltop, the highest point in Paris, on the left bank of the Seine.  Over the grave was erected a chapel which for many years was a shrine for the faithful.  This chapel with its additions remained until Seventeen Hundred Fifty, when a church was designed which in beauty of style and solidity of structure has rarely been equaled.  The object of the architect was to make the most enduring edifice possible, and still not sacrifice proportion.

Louis the Fifteenth laid the cornerstone of this church in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-four, and in Seventeen Hundred Ninety the edifice was dedicated by the Roman Catholics with great pomp.  But the spirit of revolution was at work; and in one year after, a mob sacked this beautiful building, burned its pews, destroyed its altar, and wrought havoc with its ecclesiastical furniture.

The Convention converted the structure into a memorial temple, inscribing on its front the words, “Aux grandes Hommes la patrie reconnaisante,” and they named the building the Pantheon.

In Eighteen Hundred Six, the Catholics had gotten such influence with the government that the building was restored to them.  After the revolution of Eighteen Hundred Thirty, the church of Saint Genevieve was again taken from the priests.  It was held until Eighteen Hundred Fifty-one, when the Romanists in the Assembly succeeded in having it again reconsecrated.  In the meantime, many of the great men of France had been buried there.

The first interment in the Pantheon was Mirabeau.  Next came Marat—­stabbed while in the bath by Charlotte Corday.  Both bodies were removed by order of the Convention when the church was given back to Rome.

In the Pantheon, the visitor now sees the elaborate tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau.  In the dim twilight he reads the glowing inscriptions, and from the tomb of Rousseau he sees the hand thrust forth bearing a torch—­but the bones of these men are not here.

While robed priests chanted the litany, as the great organ pealed, and swinging censers gave off their perfume, visitors came, bringing children, and they stopped at the arches where Rousseau and Voltaire slept side by side, and they said, “It is here.”  And so the dust of infidel greatness seemed to interfere with the rites.  A change was made.  Let Victor Hugo tell: