Sorbonne Grand amphitheatre

The Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne features a massive mural by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes titled The Sacred Grove. This immense hall serves as the ceremonial heart of the University of Paris, hosting state funerals and doctoral defenses under a ceiling adorned with golden fleurs-de-lis. When Victor Hugo died in eighteen eighty-five, his body lay in state here before the procession to the Pantheon. Students and dignitaries gathered in this space to mourn the writer who defined the nineteenth-century French imagination.