"Evangelize France": The Protestant bibles in rural France, 1814-1870 (Examining the autonomous "Sacy Bible" as antipapist polemic in rural French revivalist culture and society)

After 1830, biblical societies decided to "evanglize France". Their agents tried to convince the rural population to read the Bible, or at least the G ospels. They met with a hostile Catholic Church opposed to an uncontrolled reading of the holy books. The Sacy Bible, sold by the revivalists, togethe r with numerous polemic tracts, was used as an antipapist tract. These evan gelists practiced an individualist approach to the Bible which met with suc cess, mainly among the elite of the village artisans and petty civil servan ts, who aspired to religious independence at the same time as they acquired , after 1848, their political autonomy.