Indeed my dear, you can see in what sort of illusion we are living in France, when we believe to be at the pinacle of intellectual civilisation.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 408 to 410 (in French)
October 8th, 1850

Three months before his death, Frédéric Bastiat travelled through Italy in the vain hope to cure his tuberculosis. This letter sent from Pisa reveals a few considerations. One of them is about some bigoted ladies back at home, of whom Frédéric Bastiat exposes the hypocrisy. He thinks that they are easily content with a few daily prayers in order to be absolved from their sins!

Another one is brought forward through some sort of introspection allowed by his travel and the close observation of foreigners. Indeed, Frédéric Bastiat notes that the French version of the Economic Harmonies sold more copies in Turin “than in Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyon, Rouen, Lille altogether”. He is sorry that, because of his disease, he is not able to have a social life and discover the Italian society more closely. My own observations 150 years later reinforce this idea that the Frenchman, whom the foreigners often criticise for being arrogant, has often indeed a very French view of the world we live in when he has not been an expatriate for a few years, accompanied by some pride that may not always be sensible.