When I visited the Pantheon last week, I learned about the patron saint of Paris, Sainte Genevieve, who lived here from 422 to 500. You might remember that she was awarded this honor because she convinced the people of Paris to use prayer to resist the attack by Attila the Hun. The city was miraculously saved. And when famine loomed some time afterwards, she provided a convoy of wheat to feed the besieged. She was buried in 512 on the site of the future Pantheon, the building which King Louis XV ordered to replace her ruined church. 
Yesterday I visited this beautiful church which stands off to the side and a little bit back from the Pantheon. Built in both a Gothic and Franco-Italian style, it was built in the 13th century to replace an old abbey that had outgrown its number of worshippers. Inside, there’s a chapel dedicated to Sainte Genevieve with her sarcophagus enclosed in a copper case. Her relics were solemnly burned and therefore, scattered in 1793 in the place de Greve (now the square in front of the Hotel de Ville) during the revolutionary fury. I read that a single knuckle is preserved here—true or not, the Parisians say that her “relics are buried in this sarcophagus.”
Probably the most impressive sight in this church is the white rood loft with spiral staircases that crosses over the nave. It was built between 1521 and 1545, a one-of-a-kind architectural masterpiece in the city of Paris. Evidently, it did not please the parishioners because they required that it be destroyed in 1735. Fortunately, as you can see, this request failed to succeed. 
The cult of Sainte Genevieve still flourishes today and she is worshiped here at the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont (on the hill) in…the place Sainte-Genevieve, of course.
