The library of Étienne Pagès: the development and use of a collection in the 18th and 19th centuries

The thesis concerns the library formed by the abbe ttienne Pages at Lyons in the early 19th century. Just as Pages's life straddled the Revolution, so the study follows the body of books that he assembled in its passage from the 18th to the 19th century at Lyons, a city conscious of a long secular and Christian cultural tradition. The varieties of institutional, public and private libraries in 18th century Lyons are considered, in particular the private collections formed by priests. The Revolution at Lyons is outlined in its effect upon local libraries, together with the salient features of library reconstruction. Into this context is set the life and career of the Pages, who after a decade as an emigre, settled at Lyons in the early years of the 19th century, and from 1809 was professor in the state faculty of theology. The study examines in detail his building up of a library quarried in large part from pre-Revolutionary Lyons book resources, the methods employed, and books acquired, and the uses made of them. It then recounts how the library passed to the Society of Mary, and traces the scale and focus of the Marists' aims and enterprises. Their interest in studies is assessed, and the usefulness to them of the resource represented by the Pages library. The thesis concludes by relating their general purposes and book needs to a particular case: the mission to Western Oceania which they launched from a city with,a deeply ingrained tradition of international and missionary interest.