Popular reading, or middle-class reading ? The reading-rooms under the Restauration.

The development of the reading-rooms under the Restauration always seemed to be the beginning of a popular reading network. F. Parent-Lardeur's study, focusing on the reading-rooms in Paris, reveals a different picture : not only by their geographical position but also by the quality of their collections, these reading-rooms were used by various social groups including, above all, those related to the growing middle-class. The reading-rooms in fact seem to have been acting as a political weapon in the fight carried by the middle class against the constitutional government.
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