ABSTRACT
Pierre Louis Napolon Lig was born on 22 June 1921 at Coiffy-le-Bas, a poor, rural village in the Haute-Marne. His father Louis was a horse dealer, his mother, Suzanne, the schoolmistress. Lig's labourer brother Jacques was electrocuted, aged 42, mending a friend's washing machine and their younger brother Jean also died young. Lig started at the local school, moving first to the Lyce Diderot in Langres, then the Lyce Cuvier in Montbliard. After his novitiate year in Amiens, Lig moved to the couvent d'Etiolles, le Saulchoir where he took the name Pierre-Andr at his temporary profession on 23 September 1939. Lig's total bibliography as painstakingly researched and compiled by Grard Reynal comprises 433 entries. Once a term Lig gave a lecture linking pastoral theology and preaching. In 1950 the Sulpician, Franois Coudreau, was asked to create a new chair in catechetics at the Institut Catholique in Paris. Lig judged this to be a momentous event and offered to join him.
