Tomb of Victor Hugo at the Pantheon in Paris
The Pantheon in Paris is turning out to be a rather interesting place. I know now that it is not a cathedral but a mausoleum dedicated to the heroes of the French revolution. There are statues and paintings of figures from the revolution as you might normally expect from a cathedral. Much like a cathedral, there are also catacombs here. I don’t know if this was intentional since cathedrals would have catacombs too, but putting instead the heroes of the French revolution would have been a great idea to continue its similarity to the practice done in cathedrals.
Tomb of Alexandre Dumas at the Pantheon in Paris
The catacombs are actually open to the public. The individual tombs are kept in rooms and you can visit them individually. I thought it was a bit eerie to be visiting such a place but there were a lot of people milling about so it wasn’t as creepy. There would be the odd room which just so happen to not have a visitor but for the most part, there would be someone there. The tombs are all labelled properly. I was surprised to see some names which were familiar to me. The first name I saw was that of Alexandre Dumas. From my recollection, he was a writer and most known for his work on The Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo. Apparently, he participated in the French revolution and his body is laid to rest here. Another big name here is Victor Hugo, who is also a writer, he is probably best known for the Hunchback of Notre Dame and of course, Les Miserables. With just these two names, I was already satisfies that at least I know some of these people who are buried here.
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