His family initially wanted him to become a Catholic priest and for a time he attended the seminary at the Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet.

[1] La Fage eventually entered the Paris Conservatoire where he was a pupil of Alexandre-Étienne Choron and François-Louis Perne in the subjects of harmony, counterpoint, and music history.

In 1828 he was awarded a grant by Charles X of France which enabled him to pursue further studies with Giuseppe Baini in Italy.

However, his time in Italy was productive as he wrote Essais de diphtérographie musicale [2] (published posthumously in 1864), a major work on the history and theory of ancient music.

He made several further trips to Italy, as well as to Germany, England and Spain, during which he studied and copied many manuscripts.