Having my conscience clear that I have performed my duty, a failure could be upsetting at first. I shall get over it quickly, I hope.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 394 to 396 (in French)
March 25th, 1849

This letter pertains to the coming general elections during which Frédéric Bastiat will be a candidate (and reelected). He expresses his wish to see a parliament not much different from the constitutive assembly that is disappearing because he considers its achievements to be fairly positive given the circumstances.

Today’s quote pertains to the possibility that he may not be reelected (which eventually remained an invalidated hypothesis indeed). We can see here that Frédéric Bastiat was proud of his work at the constitutive assembly and that, as a human being, he anticipated to be disappointed by a failure he considered he did not deserve. However, he is proving remarkably dispassionate towards political function – it was clearly a duty and not a sinecure. If his works had not been recognised at their face value, it would have been the sign that the seat belonged to somebody else and that he should do something else himself.