Return To The Pantheon, 2025

I visited the Pantheon in 2014 and posted two items, here, and here, to which I must refer the reader who seeks a more comprehensive view of the place. Seriously, take a look. In 2025, with our Passion Monuments pass, Vicki wanted to have a look also. If you're into French history, this place is a must when you're in Paris. If you're not so knowledgeable, or not French, maybe something else. I wanted to see the newest addition, Josephine Baker, and Vicki wanted to see the first female inductee, Madame Curie. I'll just include a few other items not treated in the aforementioned 2014 posts.

One of Paris' largest buildings, almost certainly its largest "church"

Nave view, as it were

Helpful model #12,857; also a model of where Gil got picked up by
the 1928 Peugeot taxi and taken to the party for Jean Cocteau...

Re-creation of Foucault's Pendulum (not there in 2014); he tried
it out in many places...more height, greater accuracy...

Artsy-fartsy model shot

Extremely helpful cut-away model #12,858

Now in the crypt, Voltaire

This space available: petition the National Assembly

Madame Curie; still the only person to have won two Nobel prizes in
two separate scientific disciplines; and her husband

Josephine Baker...her remains remain in Monaco...Princess Grace was
an admirer and close personal buddess

Does not do her justice, this descendant of an American slave,
who transformed herself from dancer to innovative dancer,
to sex goddess, to singer, to the first African-descendent film
star, to Resistance operative, to civil rights champion...but we
should be glad of her recognition here, if not in the US

Return To The Jardin des Plantes, 2025

Our first acquaintance with the Jardin des Plantes was in 1993, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, staying in a hotel nearby. Whereas Luxembourg is more a pleasure park, the Jardin des Plantes is organized around more scientific and educational aims. On the grounds are assorted natural history museums and humongous greenhouses. The plant collections are all over the map, sometimes historical, sometimes scientific, sometimes taxonomical. Not your typical garden. But interesting and edifying nonetheless. And we have been back many times.

What our neolithic ancestors gathered

Moving right along, grains

Iron age, definitely grains

OK, I get off-script now and then...coriander

Not knee-high, not the 4th of July

Arthur E. Choke

Kiwi; at this point I think we are all off-script

Canadian Thistle?

Bugs; not pictured, the large division on medicinal plants

Moving right along...center field is lined with poppies of every imaginable
variety...all of them painstakingly labeled...

Thus (one of the several museums in the background)

Finally, a rose bush

Didn't get the name of the rose

Smelling the roses

One of the greenhouses

Art deco

Another huge specialized garden: botanical taxonomy...it's a long
story, as the sign says...

A portion thereof; interestingly, to me, while much of the Jardin des
Plantes is about evolution, the taxonomy section here is largely 
morphological, not evolutionary...hmmm...

Very large, old tree (Oriental Plane, planted 1785), among
France's Arbres Remarquables; seen as we were leaving the jardin

We walked back home via the Rue des Ecoles; above, one the the ecoles 

Unusual dorsal view of the Cluny Museum

Eurovision, 2025

So Eurovision 2025 was in Basel, but Paris thoughtfully produced a big screen broadcast of it all at the Place Bastille. Thousands were expected for the big outdoor songfest/party, and, of course, we did not want to miss out. Below are pix from the spectacle. We stayed for all of two acts, and did not see the winner, JJ, from Vienna, but, we were there. Oldest people there, too.

What would Delacroix have thought?

17th-19th Century French Sculpture At The Louvre

Our normal habit at the great museums is to look at the paintings. We do look at sculptures, especially the really great ones, but, mostly, it's the paintings. We bring more understanding to the paintings and rather less to the sculptures. I'm sure I toured the National Gallery of Art (London) a dozen times before it occurred to me there were no sculptures. So on May 17th, we began to remedy this defect, vowing to stick to the sculpture halls, starting with French sculpture from the 17th century. We got through several halls and rooms in the Richeliu, then tired, and resolved to come back for more at a later date. At least the sculpture halls are not as crowded as the painting galleries. Quite a few people were sleeping peacefully on the benches until the cruel guards woke them. The guards are very woke. Alas, I was unable to get any pix to document all this wokeness. Next time. Anyhow, we tried. 

Pierre Puget, Alexander and Diogenes, Carrara marble,
1671-1689; a relief depicting the moment, according to
Plutarch, when the philosopher says to the conqueror
"You're blocking my sun"; intended for Versailles; an
odd compliment to Louis XIV

Claude Bertin, Cleopatra Dying, 1697; don't play 
with snakes

Michel Monier, Why Are Pedicures So Expensive in Paris?, 1672

Desjardins, Four Captives, 1679-1685, originally gilded; celebrating
Louis XIV's victories over Spain, the Dutch Republic, Brandenburg,
and the Holy Roman Empire; huge, larger than life

Puget, Milo of Croton, 1671-1682; "don't bite my ass!"

Antoine Coysevox, Crouching Venus [riding a tortoise], 

1686; "yeah, he's slow, but he gets me where I want to go"

Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, Not Until You've Showered, 1760

Jean-Baptiste Theodin, Is Anyone Else
Cold In Here?", 1730

Antoine Coysevox, Not Me, 1683

Mezzanine floor view of the Four Captives; really impressive

Francois Rude, Jeanne D'Arc, Listening to Her Voices, 1852:
"go home...clean the guns...raise an army..."

Hippolyte Maindron, Velleda, 1871: "not so sure about that girl"

Francois Rude, Napoleon Awakening to Immortality, 1846; note, 
eagle attribute is not awakening

Francois Frederic Lemot, Napoleon in Triumph, 1808;
one of many, many statues of Napoleon...

Edme Bouchardon, Full Body Tan, 1726

Rene Ssance, No, no, no...you put your left foot in/
you take your left foot out, 1727

Louis Petitot, Always Wear High Ankle Boots in the Woods,
1741; maybe some clothes too

Seriously impressive: Antoine-Denis Chaudet and Louis-
Jean-Baptiste Cheret, Peace, 1803, silver, gold, bronze;
huge, larger than life; placed in Napoleon's apartments by
the Senate; peace didn't last long...

Even more impressive...Francesco Belloni, Minerva, Peace, and Abundance,
1810, gigantic mosaic; Napoleon apparently didn't get the memo

Now in the Hall of Great Men (still looking for the
Great Women): Claude Michel aka Clodion, Montesquieu,
1783; the great American experiment in Democracy, now
paused, owes much to this guy, and Locke, and Voltaire, et al.

Jean Jacque Caffieri, Moliere, 1787

Louis Simon Boizot, Racine, 1787

Augustin Pajou, Pascal, 1786; looking at the Gaming News

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Voltaire, 1777; a classical pose?!

Francois Joseph Bosio, Hercule, 1824: "This Bud's not for you"