Behind Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, there is a nook almost unknown to Parisians: a little cloister close to the apse of the church, and containing some admirable painted glass windows by Pinaigrier, the great artist, who, in 1568, charged for the "Parable of the Guests," a three-compartment window painting, which masterpiece now adorns the chapel of the Crucifix, "92 livres 10 sols, including the leading and iron trellis." [Illustration: THE RUE DE LA MONTAGNE-SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE IN 1866 _Drawn by A. Maignan_] It is one of the retreats for poetry and devotion so common in Paris, and yet ofttimes so unsuspected amid the city's noise; and one never forgets the impression produced when leaving the Latin Quarter, with its laughter and songs, and plunging suddenly into this deserted cloister full of dream and melancholy, though so close to the sunny, busy square of the Panthéon, where, on the 27th of July 1830, to the shouts of the people and the army, an actor at the Odéon Theatre, Eric Besnard, replaced once more the inscription: "_To her great men the grateful mother country_" on the fine temple built by Soufflot, which the Restoration had consecrated to the worship of Sainte-Geneviève. [Illustration: THE PANTHÉON, IN BUILDING] The Panthéon is certainly the one Parisian building which has been most often baptized and re-baptized. Constructed in consequence of a vow made by Louis XV. when ill at Metz, on the gardens belonging to the original Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, the money that paid for it was derived from a portion of the funds raised by three lotteries drawn every month in Paris. Soufflot, whose grandiose plans had been accepted, set to work in 1755. Towards 1764, the edifice began to assume shape, and the Parisians in enthusiasm admired the magnificent forms that modified the ancient outlines of their city. But cracks and fissures and sinkings-in occurred; a mad terror succeeded to the wonder: "The building will tumble, and its fall will involve a part of the old quarter of the Sorbonne," people said. Works of shoring up, embanking and strengthening were carried out. Paris breathed again; but poor Soufflot, in despair, could not survive so many tragic emotions. He died in 1781 without finishing his undertaking. In 1791, the constituent Assembly set apart for the "Honouring of Great Men" the church primitively dedicated to Sainte-Geneviève; and Mirabeau's body was conveyed thither in triumph "to the sounds of trombone and gong, whose notes, by the intensity with which they were produced, tore the bowels and harrowed the heart," says a chronicle of the time. [Illustration: PROCESSION IN FRONT OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE _Meunier, fecit_ (Carnavalet Museum)]