Jules Élie Delaunay's "The Life of Saint Geneviève"

This mural is The Life of Saint Geneviève by Jules Élie Delaunay, a leading nineteenth-century French neoclassical painter who worked mainly on murals.

It tells the story of Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris. In the painting on the left as you face it, Attila, king of the Huns, rides at the head of his army toward Paris. In the central scene, Parisians who have heard the news are preparing to flee. Geneviève, who was then living as a nun in Paris, tells them the city will be safe if they pray to God. She's the woman in white pointing to the sky. But the crowd isn't easily convinced; they throw stones at her, saying it makes no sense.

Yet just as Geneviève said, Attila never entered Paris and turned his horse in another direction. Only then did people begin to believe her.

Later, when the king of the Franks occupied Paris, she handed out food to Parisians on the brink of starvation and negotiated with the enemy for the release of captives. Because she always stepped in to help whenever the city was in danger, she was made Paris's patron saint.

The Panthéon, where we're standing, was originally the Church of Sainte-Geneviève. This painting honors the church from which the Panthéon grew. Geneviève's relics were once kept here, but they are now said to be kept inside the rooster-shaped sculpture at the top of Notre-Dame Cathedral's spire.