It was at 9 bis rue Jean-de-Beauvais, within the premises of the former Collège de Lisieux, whose only remaining vestige is its chapel after it was converted into a Romanian Orthodox church in 1892, where the section’s revolutionary committee held meetings. Did the Panthéon’s great men inspire the sans-culottes from the same neighborhood? During the Revolution, the streets that surrounded the Panthéon were part of the Panthéon-Français section, one of the most zealous neighborhood assemblies in Paris. This “terrifying section,” as the beloved orator Julian de Carantan called it, was one of the most determined to defend direct democracy and demand Louis XVI’s indictment after the storming of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792.
Panthéon-Français Section, French Revolution, brass seal
Laurent Guyot, Civic Oath in the Saint-Etienne-du-Mont District
In February 1790, inhabitants from the Sainte-Geneviève neighborhood demonstrated that a person needed to be fully committed to the Revolution. Consequently, on the Place Sainte-Geneviève, in the shadow of the dome of the Sainte-Geneviève church (now the Panthéon), hundreds of arms were lifted in solidarity. Men, women, children and students had come to take an oath together and publicly to the Nation, the Law and the King, “amidst a religious silence,” as the journalists from the time period noted. However, one could still hear cries of “Long Live the King!”
