When expressed through great meticulous details, devotions forget the true morals.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 410 to 412 (in French)
November …, 1850

This letter written less than a month before his death (Guillaumin believes that it was written on November 28th) is the last one sent to Bernard Domenger. One the one hand, he expresses his physical suffering and his wishes to see Mugron again and on the other, he expresses his optimism (which will prove to have been misplaced) towards political developments in France where he sees the legitimists abandon their attacks against the republic.

Today’s quote is part of an apology to the bigoted ladies he had mentionned in his previous letter. His fundamental idea according to which religion is sometimes too convenient to appease the conscience of those who should rather work on their own actions remains valid. However, while he had been accusing some ladies back home of such a type of hypocrisy, he withdraws his opinion on them, which he attributes to his observations in Pisa that he would have transposed on them a bit too hastily.