Loud acclamations followed this speech, and the proposal was adopted by 415 votes to 3.
The news of the poet's death excited as much emotion in the French provinces as in the capital. The Municipal Councils of Lyons, Marseilles, and Toulon closed their sittings as a mark of grief, after having appointed delegates to represent them at the funeral. The Municipal Council of Besançon sent the following address to the Hugo family:--'The native town of Victor Hugo, through the Council, places at the feet of the departed its sentiments of profound grief. The glory of the greatest of her children will for ever irradiate her and the whole world. By his genius he was foremost among men of letters and poets. By his love of his country and of liberty he was the enemy of usurpers and despots, and the power of his heart and his zeal for the welfare of humanity place him at the head of the protectors of the oppressed, the humble, and the weak.' The Mayor of Nancy addressed the following letter to M. Lockroy:--'The town of Nancy has always felt proud of having been the birthplace of General Hugo, the father of the man of genius for whom France mourns. She claimed as a glory for the blood of Lorraine, which ran in his veins, the renown of the great poet. I am an inadequate but sincere interpreter of the general grief.' At Algiers the Municipal Council closed its sittings, and from London, Vienna, and St. Petersburg messages of sympathy were despatched. On the day following the poet's death it was computed that at least ten thousand letters and messages of condolence reached the Avenue Victor Hugo.
A desire having been expressed that Victor Hugo should be buried in the Panthéon, the feeling spread rapidly through almost all classes. In pursuance of this wish, M. Anatole de la Forge moved in the Chamber of Deputies that the Panthéon, known as the Church of St. Geneviève, should be secularized, in order that Victor Hugo's remains might be buried there. Urgency was voted for the motion by 229 against 114 votes, but the Minister of the Interior requested the House to postpone the vote upon it until the next sitting.
It may be here stated that the Panthéon was commenced in 1764 as a church, completed in 1790 as a Walhalla, was a church from 1822 to 1830, and again from 1851 until 1885. The interments in it of Mirabeau, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Marat are matters of history, as are also the expulsions which followed. Mirabeau's body was publicly expelled by the Terrorists; Marat's by the Anti-Terrorists; and Voltaire's and Rousseau's clandestinely by the Legitimists. In 1881 the last French Chamber passed a Bill secularizing it; but this did not pass through the Senate.