GUÉRIN, PAUL. - French hagiographer and theologian of the 19th century, born in Buzançais in 1830, died in Châteauroux on 23 June 1908. He taught philosophy (1855–63) at the Collège of St-Dizier and translated Milton’s Paradise Lost into French (Paris 1857).
He published various historical-theological studies, such as Catéchisme politique (2 vols., Paris 1889); Conciles généraux et particuliers (3 vols., Bar-le-Duc 1868–69); Concile oecuménique du Vatican (ibid. 1871). He is best known, however, for a series of hagiographical publications in which he drew on earlier works and which, though of limited scholarly value, were widely circulated and helped popularize hagiographical knowledge. Among the most notable are: Les petits Bollandistes (17 vols., 17 editions between 1858 and 1882 in Bar-le-Duc); Le palmier séraphique ou vie des saints et des hommes et femmes illustres des Ordres de St François (12 vols., ibid. 1872–74). He also contributed to general culture with the encyclopedia Dictionnaire des dictionnaires (6 vols., Paris 1886–89) and the Nouveau dictionnaire universel illustré (Tours 1892).