Jeanne Lagarde-Guéret was devoted to theatre and poetry, which in her case means decades of purchases, commissioned bindings and closely followed sales. Five thousand volumes are not gathered by chance or without method. In 1936 she gave the whole to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, the library where one looks for what can be found nowhere else. Her date of death remains unknown.
The story
Born in 1867, Jeanne Guéret married a Lagarde and remained in history under that double name. Devoted to theatre and poetry, she spent her life buying books, having them bound, following the sales. One does not gather five thousand five hundred volumes by accident, nor without knowing very precisely what one is looking for.
In 1936 she gave her collection to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal: more than 5,500 books and issues of newspapers and reviews. The moment could not have been better chosen. Eleven years earlier the Arsenal had taken in the theatrical library of Auguste Rondel, eight hundred thousand items gathered by a banker mad about the stage; the year before, in 1935, the Arsenal had been attached to the Bibliothèque nationale. Jeanne Lagarde-Guéret poured her books into the house that had just become the great French library of the theatre.
The gift is the more remarkable in that it covers issues of newspapers and reviews as much as books. That was the material libraries preserved worst: the theatrical press, the playbills, the periodicals that lasted a single season — everything thrown out once the curtain comes down. Those pieces of no market value are what makes the collection precious today: they say what no book says, the price of the seats, the make-up of the bills, the quarrels of the critics and the mood of the house.
The chapel in Division 93 carries a bronze statue by Eugène Bénet cast by Alexis Rudier — Rodin's own founder — and holds five marble medallions inside. Three names are cut on it: Toussaint Guéret (1848-1904), Marie Ghislaine de Laubespin and her own. Beneath hers the mason cut 1867, the year of her birth, and nothing more: not even the date of her death. Her name reads more surely today in the Arsenal's catalogue than on her own stone.
On site, do not miss
A chapel flagged as being of interest, and an inscription that gives only one year for her — 1867, that of her birth. Her date of death remains unknown.
Visitors' questions
Where is Jeanne Lagarde-Guéret's grave?
In Division 93 of Père-Lachaise, in a family chapel that the Friends of the cemetery single out as worth a look. It also holds Toussaint Guéret (1848-1904) and Marie Ghislaine de Laubespin.
Robert PlanquetteWhat did she give to the Arsenal?
More than 5,500 books and part-issues of newspapers and journals, in 1936. The Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal is the library of French theatre and letters: a holding of that size enters it as a named collection.
Auguste VituWhy does the gift matter?
Because it is made up as much of part-issues of newspapers and journals as of books — the very material libraries keep worst: programmes, theatre press, short-lived periodicals, everything that gets thrown away.
Jean Noël MonrocqWhen did she die?
On her stone, her name is followed by a single year, 1867, the year of her birth. She was sixty-nine when she gave her five thousand five hundred volumes to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, in 1936.
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