Ok, I want to start with a disclaimer, I’m not a gothic guy. I know that Notre-Dame is great and I feel a little guilty that I don’t like it better, but… …the Panthéon, a Neoclassical Church dedicated to Secular Humanism, now that’s a Church. And, under the Church, in a vast Crypt area – simple and unadorned – the National Intellectual Heros are buried; the people who made France, France. This is so Civilized, so French, it brings me to tears and a big smile at the same time. We came to see Émile Zola, my family’s personal intellectual saint, and there he was, honorably laid to rest in the same room as Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo. As an aside, this year, Simone Veil, who died on June 30, 2017, had just been interned with her husband (the first person since 2015). Her picture, with her husband, dominated the Pantheon and her life story wrapped around the outside, one panel that stood out for me, said: A woman, Jewish, and a former deportee, Simone Veil’s presidency [the first presidency of the European Union] was much more than a strong symbol. It was a message of hope on which the values of Europe were built; democracy, human rights, freedom, and solidarity. End aside.   

As another aside, wouldn’t it be great if we had a National Pantheon? I would like to see FDR and Leonard Bernstein in it along with Washington and Jefferson. Any suggestions? End aside.