Tag: Louis XV

The Paris Panthéon

Foucault's pendulum at the Paris Pantheon. Photo credit: M. Ciavardini.

Worshipping the Republic at an Almost Church Like the Pantheon in Rome, the Paris Panthéon has a mixed history, although not one that takes it from paganism to Christianity. Rather, the former Ste. Geneviève Church became, not long after the…

Marie-Antoinette’s Life of Contrasts

Marie-Antoinette led a life of contrasts at Versailles.

As a little girl, I had somehow managed to pick up a sufficient amount of European history to know that Marie-Antoinette had been a gray-haired queen of France. When I learned that the real name of my great-grandmother, whom I…