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Subject Area: Political Theory
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178.: Letter to Prosper Paillottet - Frédéric Bastiat, The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 1: The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics [2011]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 1: The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics, translated from the French by Jane and Michel Willems, with an introduction by Jacques de Guenin and Jean-Claude Paul-Dejean. Annotations and Glossaries by Jacques de Guenin, Jean-Claude Paul-Dejean, and David M. Hart. Translation editor Dennis O’Keeffe (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011).

Part of: The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, in 6 Vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


178.

Letter to Prosper Paillottet

Les Eaux-Bonnes, 28 June 1850

[vol. 7, p. 441]

. . . Here is the first part of the pamphlet entitled The Law.340 I have added nothing to it. I suppose that the other part is on the way. This is very serious for a pamphlet. However, the experience has taught me that what you count on the least is sometimes the most successful and that the mind is harmful to the idea.

I wanted to send you What Is Seen341 but I do not think it is very successful. I ought to have adopted a lighter tone instead of resorting to a serious tone and, what is worse, a geometric form.342

I will be delighted to receive Michel Chevalier’s work.343 While he does me the honor of borrowing a few points of view, he provides me with a great many facts and examples; this is free trade. Our manifesto is in sore need of his pen.

[340 ](Paillottet’s note) No longer in manuscript form but as a printed proof.

[341 ]What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.

[342 ](Paillottet’s note) See the note on page 336 of vol. 5. [Paillottet is referring to a footnote he wrote to What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen in which he describes how Bastiat lost the original manuscript in a house move and had to rewrite it. See also the Glossary of Subjects and Terms, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.]

[343 ]Bastiat could be referring to one of several books that Chevalier published in 1850: Les Questions politiques et sociales; Cours d’économie politique fait au Collège de France: La Monnaie; or Lettres sur l’organisation du travail.