Famous faces around the Pantheon

A couple of months ago, a street artist, “C215” (his real name is Christian Guémy), portrayed a number of illustrious people, all to be found around the Pantheon (see previous posts). There has been some mapping of where to find his paintings, but, as some more portraits have been added later, I made my own map, which you can find at the bottom of the post.

I think it should also be mentioned that “C215” was the artist who had portrayed Simone Veil - survivor from concentration camps, lawyer, minister, member of the French Academy… especially known for having pushed forward the law legalising abortion in France – on some yellow mailboxes. The portraits were then covered by swastikas. Fortunately the swastikas have been wiped off … and “C215” has repainted the boxes.  

Coming back to the "illustrious people": I will just make a list with the names and give you the links to Wikipedia. Probably like you all, I know something about most of the names, but not of all and not everything, so here is a good opportunity to learn something.

So, we start with Pierre Brossolette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire) and André Malraux…

… and continue with Jean Moulin, Marie Curie (who covers a wall of the Curie Institute – see previous post), Jean Jaurès and Emile Zola…

… Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti de Mirabeau (see also top picture), Jean Zay, Germaine Tillion…

… Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Painlevé (I believe that the portrait must have been here ?), Aimé Césaire…

… Louis Braille, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, René Cassin.

I had some difficulties to find the next one, who should be René Descartes. It should normally be found on the Rue Descartes, but… Then I found a bistro, called “La Méthode”, which makes you think of Descartes’ “Discourse on the Method” with the famous “I think, therefore I am”. I had a glass of red wine and asked… and then I was showed how they had had his portrait hidden behind plywood, after that someone had tried to steal it. 

So, now I can show…

… René Descartes, Paul Langevin, Alexandre Dumas Père…

… Gaspard Monge, Toussaint Louverture, Jean Lannes, Henri Bergson…

… Berty Albrecht, Victor Hugo, Marcellin Berthelot, Victor Schoelcher and, at last, Denis Diderot.