| Summary: | National heritage is traditionally associated with the values of unicity, rarity or even exceptionality. Such values have been suffering a strong relativisation in the working process of the “Inventaire”: the “typicum” has been introduced beside the “unicum”, and criteria of beauty have been partly dismissed in favour of criteria of authenticity. But what happens when a researcher is confronted to objects which are numerous, unsigned, having no rarity at all and no aesthetic ambition? This is the case with artefacts sustaining popular devotion, such as ex-voto or the many “curé d’Ars” statues, which are particularly difficult to deal with in the selection process. This article addresses those problems, relying on a survey in the sociology of values conducted in 2004-2005 upon the “Inventaire” researchers.
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