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23.: The Three Pieces of Advice - Frédéric Bastiat, The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 1: The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics [2011]

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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.


23.

The Three Pieces of Advice

[vol. 7, p. 361. According to Paillottet, this
outline was published in L’Économiste belge,
3 June 1860. Based on internal evidence in the
text, it was probably written in early 1850.]

“When the country is in danger, each individual owes it the tribute of what he may have acquired of enlightenment and experience.”

This is how every giver of advice begins. A tax on advice! Is there any tax more abundant or more spontaneous?

I also wish to pay this tax, as well as all the others, in order not to be in debt in any way to my country.

Although the millions and millions of pieces of advice it receives differ from one another, they do have a point in common. Each has the pretension of saving society and those who give advice limit themselves to saying, “This is my approach; everything would be marvelous if everyone thought as I do.” All this means that if we all agreed, we would come to an agreement.

“Let us all enter a phalanstery,”55 says one, “and all our disputes will stop.” “That’s all very well, but 9,999 out of 10,000 Frenchmen have a horror of phalansteries.” “Let us organize a social workshop in unanimous concert,” says another, “and society will run like clockwork.” “Doubtless, but those whom we are aiming at would sooner go to jail.” “Let us bow down to the constitution,” cries a third; “even if it is bad, if everyone carries it out it will be good.” There is no truer word and I believe that this is the wisest and most plausible solution. But how do we persuade those who, although they detest the constitution, submit to it when anarchy threatens them and threaten it as soon as order raises their morale?

Some people say, “Evil arises as a result of the extinction of faith. Let us be good Catholics and social wounds will heal over.” “You say this because you yourself are a Catholic . . . and yet. But what do we do to make those who are not become Catholic?”

Others, depending on their tastes, will repeat, “Let us all unite with the republic!” “Let us all rally to the monarchy!” “Let us all by common accord return to the past!” “Let us all go forward with courage toward the future!”

In the end, everyone follows his own advice, nothing is more natural, and proclaims that the world will be saved if it is followed, and nothing is more certain.

But none of these wins the day nor can any of them triumph, for all these efforts cancel each other out and the status quo remains.

Among these myriads of doctrines, there is a single one—I do not need to say that it is mine—which would have the right to generate common agreement. Why is it the only one with this privilege? Because it is the doctrine of liberty, because it is tolerant and just toward all the others. Found a phalanstery if that is what you want, form a group in a social workshop if that pleases you, discuss the constitution as much as you want, demonstrate your preference for the republic or monarchy openly, go to confession if your heart so dictates, in a word make use of all the rights of the individual; provided that you acknowledge these same rights in others, I will be satisfied and, such is my conviction, society, in order to be just, ordered, and progressive, asks nothing else of you.

But I do not presume now to develop this approach which ought, in my view, be adopted as soon as it is put forward. Is there anything more reasonable? We cannot agree on the doctrines, well then, let each of us retain and put forward our own and agree to banish all oppression and violence from among us.

Adopting the point of view that facts are as they are and the situation is as events have made it, let us suppose, as I must, that I am addressing people who above all want France to be at peace and happy. In which case I would like to issue three pieces of practical advice, one to the president of the Republic,56 the second to the majority in the Chamber, and the third to the minority.

I would like the president of the Republic to go before the National Assembly and make the following solemn speech:

Citizen representatives,

The greatest plague at the present time in our country is the uncertainty of the future. Insofar as this uncertainty may concern my projects and my views, my duty is to eliminate it and this is also my wish.

People ask, “What will happen in two years’ time? Before my country, under the eye of God, and by the name I carry, I swear that on —— May 1852, I will relinquish the chair of president.

I have received a mandate from the people by virtue of the constitution. I will hand this mandate back to the people in accordance with the constitution.

There are some who say, “But what if the people choose you again?” To this I reply, “The people will not do me the injury of electing me against my wishes, and if a few citizens forget their duty to this extent, I will in advance consider null and void the votes that bear my name at the next election.”

Others, considering themselves to be much wiser, think that my presidency can be prolonged by changing the constitution in accordance with the forms it has itself established.

It is not up to me to impose limits on the legal exercise of the rights of the Assembly. However, if it is the mistress of its regular resolutions, I am master of mine, and I formally declare that, should the constitution be modified, my first presidency would not immediately be followed by a second.

I have thought about this and this is the basis of my opinion:

The rule governing our action is contained in these words, France before all. What ails France? Uncertainty. If this is the case, citizens, is calling everything into question a way of removing uncertainty? Good God! The constitution is just one year old and already you would hurl this burning question, do we need to draw up a new constitution? If your reply is negative, will the passions outside be calmed? If it is affirmative, another constitution will need to be convoked, the foundations of our national existence will once more be disturbed, we will rush headlong into a new unknown and, in a few months, undergo three general elections.

This extreme option appears to me to be the height of folly. I have no right to oppose it other than by declaring in the most decisive manner that it will not profit my followers, since, I repeat, I will not accept the presidency in whatever form or in whatever manner it happens to me.

This is my first resolution. I have taken it out of duty; I proclaim it with joy since it may contribute to the tranquillity of our country. I will be sufficiently rewarded if it provides me with a successor who is an honest republican who brings to the first function of the state neither bitterness nor utopia nor commitment to the political parties.

I now have a second resolution to put before you. Through the will of the people I must carry out executive power for two years more.

I understand the meaning of the words executive power and I am resolved to restrict myself to it absolutely.

The nation has handed down two delegations. On its representatives it has conferred the right to make laws. To me, it has entrusted the mission of having them executed.

Representatives, make the laws you consider to be the best, the most just, and the most useful to the country. Whatever they are, I will carry them out to the letter.

If they are good, their execution will prove this; if they are bad, their execution will reveal their faults and you will reform them. I have not the right and do not accept the responsibility of judging them.

I say all this in accordance with the faculty attributed to me by Article —— of the constitution.

I will execute your decrees, therefore, without distinction. There are some, however, to which I consider myself to be bound, by national wish, to give particular attention. These concern the repression of misdemeanors and crimes, order in the streets, respect for persons and property, using this word property in its widest meaning, which includes both the free exercise of faculties and labor and the peaceful enjoyment of acquired wealth.

So, representatives, make laws. Let citizens discuss all the political and social questions in meetings and in the newspapers. But let no one disturb the order reigning in the city, peace within families, and the security of industry. At the first sign of revolt or uprising, I will be there. I will be there together with all good citizens and with the true republicans. I will be there with the brave Republican Guard and with our admirable army.

Some people say, “Can we count on the zeal of the National Guard and on the loyalty of the army?”

Yes, in the path I have just traced we can count on them. I trust them as I trust myself, and no one has the right to insult our armed forces by believing that they would take sides with the disturbers of public peace.

I wish, and I have the right to wish, since the people have given me this express mission, and my will in this is the same as theirs, I wish order and security to be respected everywhere. I want this and it shall be so. I am surrounded by loyal soldiers and tested officers. I have on my side force, the law and public common sense, and if I did not fear to wound the just susceptibilities of those of whose assistance I am assured by appearing to doubt them, I would say that even defection would not make me hesitate. Legal order will reign, if it costs me the presidency and my life.

This, citizens, is my second resolution. And here is the third.

I wonder what is the cause of these incessant and passionate conflicts between the nation and the government it gave itself.

Perhaps it should be attributed to the ingrained habit of opposition. Combating power is to give oneself a role considered to be heroic because in the past it might have been glorious and dangerous. I know that there is no other remedy for this than time. But, as these perpetual conflicts and the language of hate and exaggeration that they generate are one of the great plagues of our Republic, I have had to examine whether they had causes other than irrational tradition, in order to eliminate any cause over which I had any power.

I sincerely believe that the legislative and executive powers mix up and confuse their roles too much.

I am resolved to limit myself to mine, which is to see that the laws you have voted are executed. In this way, I would have only a restricted responsibility, even in the eyes of the most susceptible. If the nation is badly governed, they will not be able to blame me, provided that I execute the laws. The government and I will be blameless in the debates in the tribune and in the press.

I will choose my ministers outside the Assembly. In this way there will be a logical separation between the two powers. In this way, I will put an end to the alliances and portfolio wars within the Chamber which are so disastrous to the country.

My ministers will be my direct agents. They will come to the Assembly only when they are called, in order to answer questions asked in advance by means of regular messages.

In this way, you will be perfectly free and enjoy perfectly impartial conditions in which to draft laws. My government will not exercise any influence on you in this respect. For your part, you will have none over their execution. You will doubtless have to check them, but their execution as such is my responsibility.

This being so, citizens, is it possible to imagine a collision? Would you not have the greatest interest in seeing that only good laws result from your deliberations? Could I have any other interest than ensuring their proper execution?

In two years the nation will be called upon to elect another president. Its choice will doubtless fall upon the most worthy, and we will not fear any attack on freedom and the laws from him. In any case, I will have the satisfaction of leaving him precedents that will bind him. When the presidency is not set on the name of Napoléon, on the person elected by seven million votes, is there anyone in France who is able to dream of a coup d’état in his favor and aspire to empire?57

Let us therefore banish vain fears. We will live through a first, second, and third presidency free from danger. . . .

Glossary of Persons

Abd el-Kader (1808-83). Algerian poet, diplomat, and soldier who directed the revolt against the French from 1832. He gave himself up in 1847, was imprisoned in France, and was freed in 1852.

Affre, Romain. Close friend of Bastiat’s and son-in-law of Mme Marsan (Marie-Julienne Badbedat).

Alfieri, Vittorio (1749-1803). Italian playwright who also wrote a short treatise, De la tyrannie (1802).

Anisson-Duperron, Alexandre (1776-1852). French politician and director of the Royal Printing House.

Arago, François (1786-1853). French astronomer and physicist. Elected deputy from 1830 to 1852. In 1848 he was a member of the executive commission and the provisional government.

Arnault, Lucien (1787-1863). Diplomat and civil servant during the First Empire; the restoration put an end to his career. He later became a playwright, writing several tragedies, but is largely forgotten today. He was appointed a prefect during the July Monarchy (1830-48).

Arrivabene, Giovanni, count (1787-1881). Italian aristocrat. He was forced to flee the Piedmont revolution of 1821 and was condemned to death in absentia for his role in the uprising. He settled in Belgium and wrote extensively on the conditions of the working class in such books as Sur la condition des laboureurs et des ouvriers belges (1845). He also translated works by James Mill and Nassau Senior into French.

Ashworth, Henry. Head of a successful manufacturing family in Bolton and one of Richard Cobden’s closest personal friends.

Augier, Émile (1820-84). Poet and novelist.

Badbedat, Marie-Julienne (Mme Marsan) [dates unknown]. The only known woman with whom Bastiat fell in love. There was gossip that they had had an affair, but Bastiat denied it very strongly and indignantly.

Baines, Edward (1774-1848). A leading radical journalist who owned the Leeds Mercury newspaper in England. He was active in numerous reform issues, such as antislavery, Catholic emancipation, the disestablishment of the Church of England, and the removal of the Corn Laws. Although he was a close ally of Richard Cobden over the Corn Laws, he split with him over the question of compulsory education. Baines was a strict voluntaryist on the matter.

Barbeyrac, Jean (1674-1744). French eighteenth-century writer on natural law; he also annotated and translated works by Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, which were much used by French jurists and lawyers.

Bastiat, Justine. Frédéric’s aunt. She raised him after his parents’ death and was responsible for ensuring that he received an excellent education.

Bastide, Jules (1800-1879). French minister of foreign affairs and editor of the newspaper Le National.

Benoist d’Azy, Paul (1824-98). Industrialist in the metallurgical field who favored protectionism.

Béranger, Pierre-Jean (1780-1857). French poet and author of patriotic and liberal songs.

Berryer, Pierre Antoine (1790-1868). French lawyer and liberal politician.

Bertin, Edouard (1797-1871). Artist. Son of François Bertin, founder of Le Journal des débats. He took over the paper after the death of his brother.

Billault, Adolphe (1805-63). Lawyer, mayor of Nantes, France. Deputy and twice minister under Napoléon III.

Blaise, Adolphe Gustave (1811-86). A regular contributor to Le Journal des économistes and other periodicals. With Joseph Garnier he edited a series of lectures by Blanqui, Cours d’économie industrielle (1837-39), which Blanqui had given at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers.

Blanc, Louis (1811-82). French journalist and historian active in the socialist movement. Blanc founded the journal Revue du progrès, publishing articles that later became the influential pamphlet Organisation du travail (1840). During the 1848 revolution he became a member of the temporary government, promoted the national workshops, and debated Adolphe Thiers on the merits of the right to work in Le Socialisme; droit au travail, réponse à M. Thiers (1848).

Blanqui, Jérôme Adolphe (1798-1854). Liberal economist and brother of the revolutionary socialist Auguste Blanqui. Blanqui became director of the prestigious École supérieure de commerce de Paris and succeeded Jean-Baptiste Say to the chair of political economy at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. He was elected deputy, representing the Gironde from 1846 to 1848. Among Blanqui’s many works on political economy and sociology are the Encyclopédie du commerçant (1839-41), Précis élementaire d’économie politique (1842), and Les Classes ouvrières en France (1848).

Bonaparte, Louis-Napoléon (1808-73). Nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte, he was raised in Italy and became active in liberal Carbonari circles. Louis-Napoléon returned to France in 1836 and 1840 to head the Bonapartist groups seeking to install him on the throne. On both occasions he was unsuccessful. In 1848 he was elected president of the Second Republic. In 1851 he dissolved the Assembly and won a plebiscite that made him emperor of the Second Empire. Louis-Napoléon was popular for his economic reforms, which were a mixture of popularism and liberalism. A free-trade treaty with England was signed in 1860 during his reign by Cobden and Chevalier. A socialist uprising in 1870 and a disastrous war with Prussia in 1871 led to the ignominious collapse of his regime.

Boyer-Fonfrède, Henri (1788-1841). Liberal publicist, economic journalist, and supporter of the July Monarchy. He founded the L’Indicateur and wrote Questions d’économie politique (1846).

Bright, John (1811-89). Manufacturer from Lancashire and leading member of the Anti-Corn Law League. Elected to the Commons in 1843, he pleaded for the equality of religions under the law, criticized the privileges of the Church of England, supported the separation of church and state, and asked for the right for Jews and atheists to swear a non-Christian oath and to be allowed to be elected to Parliament. Later, in 1869, he became minister of the Board of Trade in the Gladstone Cabinet.

Broglie, Victor, duc de (1785-1870). Prime minister in 1835 and 1836 and son of an aristocrat guillotined during the Revolution. He negotiated an agreement with Britain to abolish slavery and another with the United States to compensate the United States for losses during Napoléon’s continental blockade.

Buffet, Louis Joseph (1818-98). Lawyer, deputy, and minister of agriculture and commerce from December 1848 to October 1849.

Bugeaud, Thomas, marquess de Piconnerie, duc d’Isly (1784-1849). Governor of Algeria, marshall of France, and deputy.

Buloz, François (1802-77). Editor of La Revue des deux mondes, which covered arts, literature, politics, and society.

Bulwer, Henry (1801-72). British ambassador to Spain 1843-48.

Bursotti, Giovanni [dates unknown]. Italian economist and author of Biblioteca di commercio (1841-42) and Esposizione della tariffa doganale per lo regno delle Due Sicilie (1854).

Cabet, Etienne (1788-1856). Lawyer, historian, journalist, and author of the book Voyage in Icarie, in which he expounded communist theories tinged with spiritualism. He left for the United States in February 1848, where he tried without success to found a communist community, first in Texas, then in Illinois. He came back to France in 1851 but in 1852 returned to the United States, where he spent the rest of his life.

Calmètes, Victor-Adrien (1800-1871). Born in Spain of French parents, he established a friendship with Bastiat at the Sorèze School. After Sorèze, he practiced law. In 1827 he joined the society Aide toi, le ciel t’aidera (“help yourself, heaven will help you”), led by Adolphe Thiers. Calmètes became a judge in Montpellier in 1830 and later president of the court. He was elected a general councillor in 1840 and deputy in 1869.

Canning, George (1770-1827). British politician who inspired a group of young Tory members of Parliament eager for reforms (the Canningites).

Carey, Henry C. (1793-1879). American economist who argued that national economic development should be promoted by extensive government subsidies and high tariff protection. The proofs of his book The Harmony of Interests, Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial (1851) were sent to Bastiat in November 1850, before the book appeared in print. After the publication of Bastiat’s Economic Harmonies (1851), Carey accused him of plagiarism; and a bitter debate in Le Journal des économistes ensued.

Castagnède [first name and dates unknown]. A local notable and colleague of Bastiat in the General Council.

Caussidière, Marc (1801-61). Deputy and former worker, he was active in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. He was accused, with Louis Blanc, of being an agitator in the “conspiracy” of 15 May.

Cavaignac, Eugène (1802-57). French general, deputy, minister of war, head of the executive. He crushed the workers’ uprising of June 1848. He was a candidate in the presidential election of 10 December 1848 but obtained only 1,448,000 votes against 5,434,000 for Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.

Changarnier, Nicolas Anne Theodule (1793-1877). French general who had a meteoric rise in the French army, with successes in various military campaigns in North Africa. During the revolution he assisted the provisional government in restoring order in Paris, was elected to the General Assembly to represent the Seine département, and was placed in command of the National Guard in Paris. For his opposition to Louis-Napoléon he was arrested and banished.

Chantelauze, V. (1787-1850). Magistrate, deputy, and minister of justice during part of the last government of Charles X. He prepared the ordinances that triggered the three revolutionary days of July 1830 and the proclamation of Louis-Philippe (duc d’Orléans) as “king of the French.”

Charles Albert (1798-1849). King of Sardinia (1831-49).

Chateaubriand, François René, vicomte de (1768-1848). Novelist, philosopher, and supporter of Charles X. Minister of foreign affairs from December 1822 to June 1824. Defender of freedom of the press and Greek independence, Chateaubriand refused to take the oath to King Louis-Philippe after 1830. He spent his retirement writing Mémoires d’outre-tombe (1849-50).

Chatel, Ferdinand (1795-1857). Ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1821, he served as a military chaplain. Chatel professed liberal and Gallican ideas, which led to his exclusion from the church. In 1830 he founded the French Catholic Church, a dissident church that adopted French for the liturgy and eliminated confession, fasting, and celibacy for priests. The church was closed by the police in 1842.

Chénier, André (1762-94). French poet and revolutionary. He was guillotined for protesting the excesses of the Terror.

Cheuvreux, Hortense (née Girard) (1808-93). Married Casimir Cheuvreux, a wealthy merchant, in 1826. M. and Mme Cheuvreux and their daughter Louise became good friends of Bastiat’s. In 1877 Mme Cheuvreux published Bastiat’s letters to her family in Lettres d’un habitant des Landes. (The sister of Casimir, Anne Cheuvreaux, had married Jean-Baptiste Say’s son Horace in 1822, thus making the Cheuvreaux family part of the Say family.)

Cheuvreux, Louise. Daughter of Casimir and Hortense Cheuvreux.

Chevalier, Michel (1806-87). Liberal economist and alumnus of the École polytechnique. Minister of Napoléon III. Initially a Saint-Simonist, he was imprisoned for two years (1832-33) in France. After a trip to the United States, he published Lettres sur l’Amérique du Nord (1836), Histoire et description des voies de communications aux États-Unis et des travaux d’art qui en dependent (1840-41), and Cours d’économie politique (1845-55). He was appointed to the chair of political economy at the Collège de France in 1840 and became senator in 1860. An admirer of Bastiat and Cobden, Chevalier played a decisive role in the 1860 treaty on free trade between France and England (Chevalier was the signatory for France, and Cobden the signatory for England).

Clarkson, Thomas (1760-1846). With William Wilberforce he was one of the leading figures in the campaign to abolish the slave trade (1807) and slavery itself (1833).

Clément, Ambroise (1805-86). Economist and secretary to the mayor of Saint-Étienne for many years. Clément was able to travel to Paris frequently to participate in political economy circles. In the mid-1840s he began writing on economic matters and so impressed the publisher Gilbert-Urbain Guillaumin that the latter asked him to assume the task of directing the publication of the important and influential Dictionnaire de l’économie politique in 1850. Clément was a member of the Société d’économie politique from 1848, was a regular writer and reviewer for Le Journal des économistes, and was made a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1872. He wrote the following works: Recherches sur les causes de l’indigence (1846), Des nouvelles idées de réforme industrielle et en particulier du projet d’organisation du travail de M. Louis Blanc (1846), and La Crise économique et sociale en France et en Europe (1886), as well as an early review of Bastiat’s Economic Harmonies for Le Journal des économistes (1850), in which he praised Bastiat’s style but criticized his position on population and the theory of value.

Cobden, Richard (1804-65). Founder of the Anti-Corn Law League. Born into a poor farmer’s family in Sussex, he was trained by an uncle to be a clerk in his warehouse. At twenty-one, he became a traveling salesman and was so successful that he was able to set up his own business by acquiring a factory making printed cloth. Thanks to his vision of the market and his sense of organization, his company became very prosperous. Nevertheless, at the age of thirty, he left the management of the company to his brother in order to travel. He wrote influential articles in which he defended two great causes: pacifism, in the form of nonintervention in foreign affairs; and free exchange. From 1839 he devoted himself exclusively to the Anti-Corn Law League and was elected member of Parliament for Stockport in 1841. Toward the end of the 1850s, he was asked by the government to negotiate a free-trade treaty with France; his French counterpart was Michel Chevalier (see above).

Coburg, Frederick of Saxe-Coburg (1737-1815). General in the Austrian army, who symbolized in the eyes of Frenchmen the first coalition in the war against the French Revolution.

Comte, Charles (1782-1837). Lawyer, liberal critic of Napoléon and then of the restored monarchy, son-in-law of Jean-Baptiste Say. One of the leading liberal theorists before the 1848 revolution, he founded, with Charles Dunoyer, the journal Le Censeur in 1814 and Le Censeur européen in 1817 and was prosecuted many times for challenging the press censorship laws and criticizing the government. He encountered the ideas of Say in 1817 and discussed them at length in Le Censeur européen. After having spent some time in prison he escaped to Switzerland, where he was offered the Chair of Natural Law at the University of Lausanne before he was obliged to move to England. In 1826 he published the first part of his magnum opus, the four-volume Traité de législation, which very much influenced the thought of Bastiat, and in 1834 he published the second part, Traité de la propriété. Comte was secretary of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques and was elected a deputy representing La Sarthe after the 1830 revolution.

Considerant, Victor Prosper (1808-93). Follower of the socialist Fourier and advocate of the “right to work” program, which so enraged Bastiat. He was author of Principes du socialisme: Manifeste de la démocratie au XIXe siècle (1847).

Constant, Benjamin (1767-1830). Novelist, politician, and political theorist. Born in Lausanne, Constant was a close friend of Germaine de Staël and accompanied her to Paris in 1795. He was a supporter of the Directory and a member of the Tribunat but came to oppose the loss of political liberty under Napoléon. He became a staunch opponent of Napoléon, but in spite of this he was approached by him during the Hundred Days (period between Napoléon’s return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815) to draw up a constitution for a more liberal, constitutional empire. Constant became a deputy in 1819 and continued to defend constitutional freedoms until his death. He is best known for his novel Adolphe (1807) and for Principes de politique applicables à tous les gouvernements (1815); De l’esprit de conquête et de l’usurpation, dans leurs rapports à la civilisation européen (1814); and Cours de politique constitutionelle (1820).

Corcelle, Claude Tinguy de (1802-92). A Liberal, he held the post of deputy several times between 1839 and 1873. Corcelle was also a friend of Tocqueville’s. His wife’s grandfather was La Fayette, whose memoirs he published.

Coudroy, Félix (1801-74). Son of a doctor from Mugron. He read law in Toulouse and Paris; however, a long illness prevented him from practicing. He lived in Mugron and established a strong and lasting friendship with Bastiat. He published a number of brochures and articles in La Chalosse, Le Mémorial bordelais, and Le Journal des économistes.

Cousin, Victor (1792-1867). Philosopher and politician who at the time of the restoration sided with the liberal Doctrinaire party. He was also the leader of a spiritualist school of thought (l’école spiritualiste éclectique).

Custine, Astolphe, marquis de (1790-1857). French aristocrat known mostly for his perceptive writings about his travels, most notably to Russia.

Daire, Eugene (1798-1847). A tax collector who revived interest in the heritage of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century free-market economics. He came to Paris in 1839, met Gilbert-Urbain Guillaumin, discovered the works of Jean-Baptiste Say, and began editing the fifteen-volume Collection des principaux économistes (1840-48). It included works on eighteenth-century finance, the physiocrats, Turgot, Adam Smith, Malthus, Jean-Baptiste Say, and Ricardo.

Dampierre, Roger de (1813-96). Landowner from the Landes. An unsuccessful candidate in 1842 and 1846, he was elected deputy in 1848 and 1849.

Darblay, Aimé-Stanislas (1794-1878). French industrialist, active in the grain trade. He introduced the cultivation of oil-producing plants into the Brie region and set up one of the first factories for the extraction of seed oil.

David, Félicien (1810-76). Composer from Aix-en-Provence. He moved to Paris in 1830, where he came under the influence of the Saint-Simonians.

Decazes, Elie, duc de Glücksberg (1780-1860). Minister of the interior between 1815 and 1820. He was appointed prime minister in November 1819 but had to resign in 1820, following the murder of the duc de Berri, heir to the throne. However, Louis XVIII made him a peer and sent him to London as ambassador. In 1826 he created an important mining and metallurgical company modeled after those he had seen in Britain.

Decazes, Louis Charles, duc de Glücksberg (1819-86). Son of Elie Decazes. Diplomat and minister of foreign affairs under the Third Republic.

Delavigne, Casimir (1793-1843). French dramatist who was fashionable during his life but is largely forgotten today.

Destutt de Tracy, Antoine (1754-1836). Tracy was one of the leading intellectuals of the 1790s and early 1800s and a member of the ideologues (a philosophical movement not unlike the objectivists, who professed that the origin of ideas was material—not spiritual). In his writings on Montesquieu, Tracy defended the institutions of the American Republic, and in his writings on political economy he defended laissez-faire. During the French Revolution he joined the third estate and renounced his aristocratic title. During the Terror he was arrested and nearly executed. Tracy continued agitating for liberal reforms as a senator during Napoléon’s regime. One of his most influential works was the four-volume Éléments d’idéologie (first published in 1801-15) (Tracy coined the term ideology). He also wrote Commentaire sur l’ésprit des lois (1819), which Thomas Jefferson translated and brought to the United States. In 1823 he published his Traité d’économie politique, much admired by Jefferson and Bastiat.

Dombasle, Joseph Alexandre Mathieu de (1777-1843). An agronomist, he wrote a number of works dealing with agriculture, especially the sugar-beet industry, including De l’impôt sur le sucre indigène: Nouvelles considerations (1837). Inspired by British agriculture, he introduced the practice of triennial crop rotation (cereals, forage, vegetables), which Bastiat tried in vain to carry out in his own sharecropping farms.

Domenger, Bernard (1785-1865). Mayor of Mugron (1834) and friend of Bastiat’s.

Donato, Nicolò (1705-65). Venetian diplomat and author of Uomo de Governo (The Statesman), which was translated into French.

Droz, Joseph (1773-1850). Moral philosopher, economist, literary critic, and father-in-law of Michel Chevalier. Some of his notable publications include Lois relatives au progrès de l’industrie (1801); Économie politique, ou, Principes de la science des richesses (1829); and Applications de la morale à la politique (1825). He was appointed to the Académie française in 1813 and to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1833.

Duchâtel, Charles Tanneguy (1803-67). Liberal writer, author of several books, and minister of the interior.

Dudon, J. F. (1778-1857). Magistrate and deputy. He served as minister of state in the last government of Charles X.

Dufaure, Armand (1798-1881). A lawyer, he was elected deputy in 1834 and became minister of public works in 1839. Twice minister of the interior under the Second Republic, he resigned after the coup of Louis-Napoléon. He returned to politics in 1871 and became prime minister in 1876.

Duffour-Dubergier, Martin (1797-1860). Mayor of Bordeaux and defender of liberal ideas.

Dumas, Jean-Baptiste André (1800-1884). Chemist, professor at the Sorbonne and at the École polytechnique, and minister of agriculture and commerce from 31 October 1849 to 9 January 1851.

Dunoyer, Barthélémy-Pierre-Joseph-Charles (1786-1862). Dunoyer was a journalist; an academic (a professor of political economy); a politician; the author of numerous works on politics, political economy, and history; a founding member of the Société d’économie politique (1842); and a key figure in the French classical liberal movement of the first half of the nineteenth century, along with Jean-Baptiste Say, Benjamin Constant, Charles Comte, Augustin Thierry, and Alexis de Tocqueville. He collaborated with Comte on the journals Le Censeur and Le Censeur européen during the end of the Napoleonic empire and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Dunoyer (and Comte) combined the political liberalism of Constant (constitutional limits on the power of the state, representative government); the economic liberalism of Say (laissez-faire, free trade); and the sociological approach to history of Thierry, Constant, and Say (class analysis and a theory of historical evolution of society through stages culminating in the laissez-faire market society of “industry”). His major works include L’Industrie et la morale considérées dans leurs rapports avec la liberté (1825), Nouveau traité d’économie sociale (1830), and his three-volume magnum opus De la liberté du travail (1845). After the revolution of 1830 Dunoyer was appointed a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, worked as a government official (he was prefect of L’Allier and La Somme), and eventually became a member of the Council of State in 1837. He resigned his government posts in protest against the coup d’état of Louis-Napoléon in 1851. He died while writing a critique of the authoritarian Second Empire; the work was completed and published by his son Anatole in 1864.

Dupérier [first name and dates unknown]. A colleague of Bastiat’s in the General Council of the Landes.

Dupin, Charles (1784-1873). A deputy, an alumnus of the École polytechnique, a naval engineer, and a professor of mechanics at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (where he taught courses for working people). He is one of the founders of mathematical economics and of the statistical office (Bureau de France).

Duprat, Pascal (1815-85). Deputy from the Landes.

Durrieu, Simon (1775-1862). A French general born in Saint-Sever and a deputy of the Landes (1834-45). He was raised to the peerage in 1845 by Louis-Philippe.

Dussard, Hyppolite (1791-1879). A journalist, essayist, and economist. He was manager of Le Journal des économistes from 1843 to 1845, a collaborator of La Revue encyclopédique, and prefect of La Seine-Inférieure after the 1848 revolution.

Duval [first name unknown] (1807-93). Magistrate who married the daughter of Jean-Baptiste Say in 1830. He was elected senator in 1871.

Eichthal, Gustave, baron d’ (1804-86). Member of the Saint-Simonian socialist group, which also included Olinde Rodriguez, Prosper Enfantin, Auguste Comte, and Michel Chevalier. There was some contact between Comte and Saint-Simon and the liberal group of Charles Comte (no relation), Charles Dunoyer, and Augustin Thierry in the 1820s. Both groups were interested in the impact that “industry” (see Note on the Translation, pp. xvi-xvii) would have on the progress of society. The socialist group believed the state could and should assist in the development of industry. The liberal group rejected that view.

Elliot, Ebenezer (1781-1849). Elliot was known as the “free-trade rhymer.” He played an important role in the propaganda efforts of the Anti-Corn Law League. His ideas are reflected in his Corn Law Rhymes (1830) and The Splendid Village (1844). The following comes from The Ranter (1830). The “bread tax” is a reference to the corn laws:

  • In haste she turns, and climbs the narrow stair,
  • To wake her eldest born, but, pausing, stands
  • Bent o’er his bed; for on his forehead bare,
  • Like jewels ring’d on sleeping beauty’s hands,
  • Tired labour’s gems are set in beaded bands;
  • And none, none, none, like bread-tax’d labour know’th
  • How more than grateful are his slumbers brief.
  • Thou dost not know, thou pamper’d son of sloth!
  • Thou canst not tell, thou bread-tax-eating thief!
  • How sweet is rest to bread-tax’d toil and grief!

Evans, William [dates unknown]. Chairman of the Emancipation Society and one of the pallbearers at Richard Cobden’s funeral.

Falloux du Coudray, Alfred Pierre (1811-86). Deputy and minister of education (20 December 1848-31 October 1849). Author of a bill on freedom of education.

Faucher, Léon (1803-54). Journalist, writer, and deputy for the Marne. He was twice appointed minister of the interior. During the July Monarchy he became an active journalist, writing for Le Constitutionnel and Le Courrier français, and was one of the editors of La Revue des deux mondes and Le Journal des économistes. Faucher was appointed to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1849 and was active in the Association pour la liberté des échanges. He wrote on prison reform, gold and silver currency, socialism, and taxation. One of his better-known works was Études sur l’Angleterre (1856).

Faurie, François (1785-1854). Merchant from Bayonne. Elected deputy of Bayonne from 1831 to 1837, he then gave up all political activity after two election failures.

Feutrier, François-Jean-Hyacinthe (1785-1830). An ecclesiastic who, as minister of ecclesiastic affairs, took a deep interest in educational matters. He became bishop of Beauvais in 1826.

Fix, Theodore (1800-1846). Swiss by birth, he came to France to work as a land surveyor and soon moved to Paris to work as a translator of German texts. After becoming interested in economics, he and Sismondi began in 1833 a short-lived journal, La Revue mensuelle d’économie politique, which lasted only three years. One of the notable aspects of Fix’s works was his fluency in both German and English, which allowed him to write with authority for a French-speaking audience on the economics works published in those languages. In the course of his work Fix met many well-respected French political economists, such as Rossi and Blanqui; wrote several articles for Le Journal des économistes; and became the chief economics writer for the periodical Le Constitutionnel. Before he died at a young age from heart disease, he published one book, Observations sur l’état des classes ouvrières (1846).

Fontenay, Anne Paul Gabriel Roger de (1809-91). Economist and devoted disciple of Bastiat. He wrote the preface to the Guillaumin edition of Bastiat’s works.

Fonteyraud, Henri Alcide (1822-49). Fonteyraud was born in Mauritius and became professor of history, geography, and political economy at the École supérieure de commerce de Paris. He was a member of the Société d’économie politique and one of the founders of the Association pour la liberté des échanges. Because of his knowledge of English, he went to England in 1845 to study at first hand the progress of the Anti-Corn Law League. During the 1848 revolution he campaigned against socialist ideas with his activity in Le Club de la liberté du travail and, along with Bastiat, Coquelin, and Molinari, by writing and handing out in the streets of Paris copies of the broadside pamphlet Jacques Bonhomme. Sadly, he died very young during the cholera epidemic of 1849. He wrote articles in La Revue britannique and Le Journal des économistes, and he edited and annotated the works of Ricardo in the multivolume Collection des principaux économistes. His collected works were published posthumously as Mélanges d’économie politique, edited by J. Garnier (1853).

Forbes, Charles, comte de Montalembert (1810-70). Journalist and politician. He was the leader of the liberal Catholics.

Fourier, François-Marie-Charles (1772-1837). Socialist and founder of the phalansterian school (Fourierism). Fourierism consisted of a utopian, communistic system for the reorganization of society. The population was to be grouped in “phalansteries” of about eighteen hundred persons, who would live together as one family and hold property in common.

Fox, William Johnson (1786-1864). Journalist and renowned orator, one of the founders of the Westminster Review. He became one of the most popular speakers of the Anti-Corn Law League and delivered courses to the workers on Sunday evenings. He served in Parliament from 1847 to 1863.

Frayssinous, Denis (1765-1841). A member of the French Academy and appointed a grand master (1822-24). He became minister of state education and religious worship (1824-28) under the French restoration.

Ganneron, Auguste (1792-1842). Manufacturer, banker, and deputy of Paris.

Garnier, Joseph (1813-81). Garnier was a professor, journalist, politician, and activist for free trade and peace. He traveled to Paris in 1830 and came under the influence of Adolphe Blanqui, who introduced him to economics and eventually became his father-in-law. Garnier was a pupil, professor, and then director of the École supérieure de commerce de Paris, before being appointed the first professor of political economy at the École des Ponts et caussées in 1846. Garnier played a central role in the burgeoning free-market school of thought in the 1840s in Paris. He was one of the founders of the Association pour la liberté des échanges and the chief editor of its journal, Le Libre échange; he also was active in the Congrès de la paix. A founder, along with Guillaumin, of Le Journal des économistes, he became chief editor in 1846. Additionally he was one of the founders of the Société d’économie politique, along with being its perpetual secretary, and he was one of the founders of the 1848 liberal broadsheet Jacques Bonhomme. Garnier was acknowledged for his considerable achievements by being nominated to join the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1873 and to become a senator in 1876. He authored numerous books and articles, including Introduction à l’étude de l’économie politique (1843), Richard Cobden, les ligueurs et la ligue (1846), and Congrès des amis de la paix universelle réunis à Paris en 1849 (1850). He edited Malthus’s Essai sur le principe de population (1845), Du principe de population (1857), and Traité d’économie politique sociale ou industrielle (1863).

Gauguier, Joseph (1793-1855). Industrialist and deputy (1831-42). He unsuccessfully proposed a parliamentary reform in 1832 and 1834.

Gay, J. B., comte de Martignac (1778-1832). Minister of the interior from 1828 to 1829.

Gérard, Etienne (1773-1852). Volunteer in the French revolutionary wars in 1792; appointed general in 1812 and field marshal in 1830. He was elected deputy in 1822 and served as prime minister (18 July-29 October 1834).

Gioberti, Vincenzo (1801-52). Italian philosopher and politician.

Girard, Edouard [dates unknown]. Brother of Mme (Hortense) Cheuvreux.

Girard, Mme [first name and dates unknown]. Mother of Mme (Hortense) Cheuvreux.

Glücksberg, duc de. See Decazes, Elie, and Decazes, Louis Charles.

Grivel, Jean-Baptiste (1778-?). Vice admiral, nominated deputy peer of France in 1845 after a distinguished military career. Senator during the Second Empire.

Guillaumin, Gilbert-Urbain (1801-64). Orphaned at the age of five, Guillaumin was brought up by his uncle. He arrived in Paris in 1819 and worked in a bookstore before eventually founding his own publishing firm in 1835. He was active in liberal politics during the 1830 revolution and made contact with the economists Adolphe Blanqui and Joseph Garnier. In 1835 he became a publisher in order to popularize and promote classical liberal economic ideas, and the firm of Guillaumin eventually became the major publishing house for liberal ideas in the mid-nineteenth century. Guillaumin helped found Le Journal des économistes in 1841 with Horace Say (Jean-Baptiste’s son) and Joseph Garnier. The following year he helped found the Société d’économie politique. His firm published scores of books on economic issues, making its catalog a virtual who’s who of the liberal movement in France; it included works by Bastiat. Guillaumin also published the following key journals, collections, and encyclopedias: Journal des économistes (1842-1940), L’Annuaire de l’économie politique (1844-99), the multivolume Collection des principaux économistes (1840-48), Bibliothèques des sciences morales et politiques (1857- ), Dictionnaire d’économie politique (1852) (coedited with Charles Coquelin), and Dictionnaire universel théorique et practique du commerce et de la navigation (1859-61).

Guinard, Auguste (1799-1874). Political agitator for the republican cause. Elected deputy in 1848 but not in 1849.

Guizot, François (1787-1874). A successful academic and politician whose career spanned many decades, he was born to a Protestant family in Nîmes. His father was guillotined during the Terror. As a law student in Paris, the young Guizot was a vocal opponent of the Napoleonic empire. After the restoration of the monarchy Guizot was part of the “doctrinaires,” a group of conservative and moderate liberals. He was professor of history at the Sorbonne from 1812 to 1830, publishing Essai sur l’histoire de France (1824), Histoire de la revolution d’Angleterre (1826-27), Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe (1828), and Histoire de la civilisation en France (1829-32). In 1829 he was elected deputy and became very active in French politics after the 1830 revolution, supporting constitutional monarchy and a limited franchise. He served as minister of the interior, minister of education (1832-37), ambassador to England in 1840, and then foreign minister and prime minister, becoming in practice the leader of the government from 1840 to 1848. He promoted peace abroad and liberal conservatism at home, but his regime, weakened by corruption and economic difficulties, collapsed with the monarchy in 1848. He retired to Normandy to spend the rest of his days writing history and his memoires such as Histoire parlementaire de France (1863-64) and Histoire des origines du gouvernement représentif en Europe (1851).

Halévy, Jacques (1799-1862). Parisian composer, mostly of opera and ballet.

Harcourt, François-Eugène, duc d’ (1786-1865). Liberal politician, president of the Association pour la liberté des échanges in Brussels in 1841, and ambassador to Rome. He wrote Discours en faveur de la liberté du commerce (1846).

Haussez, Charles d’ (1771-1854). Prefect, counsellor of state, and deputy. He became minister of the navy in August 1829.

Hickin, Joseph. Secretary of the Anti-Corn Law League.

Humann, Georges (1780-1842). Businessman and liberal politician. Twice minister of finance.

Huskisson, William (1770-1830). President of the Board of Trade (1823-27). He reformed the Navigation Act, reduced duties on manufactured goods, and repealed some quarantine duties.

Jobard, Jean-Baptiste-Ambroise-Marcellin (1792-1861). He wrote Nouvelle économie sociale and coined the phrase Le Monautopole (meaning “monopoly of oneself”), which referred to the natural right of an inventor to be the sole disposer of his or her own work.

Joinville, François-Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Marie d’Orléans, prince de (1818-1900). A son of Louis-Philippe.

Jouy, Victor Etienne de (1764-1846). French playwright and author of librettos.

Knatchbull, Sir Edward (1781-1849). Member of Parliament for the county of Kent and author of The Speech of Sir E. Knatchbull (1829).

Lacave-Laplagne, Jean-Pierre (1795-1849). French politician and deputy from 1834 to 1849. Minister of finance from 1837 to 1839 and again from 1842 to 1847.

Lafarelle, Félix de (1800-1872). French lawyer and economist. He was deputy of La Garde de 1842 in the revolution of 1848 and correspondent of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1846. He was author of Du progrès social au profit des classes populaires nonindigentes (1847).

La Fayette, Marie Joseph, marquis de (1757-1834). A French aristocrat, he was a general in the American War of Independence. After the war La Fayette returned to France and played an important role in the early phases of the French Revolution. He served in the Estates General, and later the National Constituent Assembly. He attempted to guide the Revolution along a more moderate course, joining the Feuillants, who wanted France to become a constitutional monarchy. Ultimately, overwhelmed by the excesses of the Terror, he fled France in 1792 and was considered a traitor for his efforts to save the constitutional monarchy. Imprisoned in Prussia for five years as a “revolutionary,” he returned to France and lived in semiretirement on an estate belonging to his wife. Elected deputy in 1818, he reentered the political scene to fight for individual liberties.

Laffitte, Jacques (1767-1844). Born in Bayonne. Banker, entrepreneur, and friend of the Bastiat family. He was elected deputy in 1816 and served as prime minister from 1831 until March 1832.

Lamarque, Jean-Maxilien (1770-1832). French general under Napoléon. Exiled in 1815 for three years, he translated the ten-thousand-odd verses of the Ossian Poems, by James Macpherson, into French. In the Landes, he showed a great interest in agricultural methods and in means of communication. He was elected deputy of the Landes in 1828 and 1830. In parliament, he was an influential speaker. He died of cholera in Paris and was given a national funeral, during which a popular uprising against the monarchy was repressed by General Lobau. The event is described by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables.

Lamartine, Alphonse de (1790-1869). Poet and statesman. As an immensely popular romantic poet, he used his talent to promote liberal ideas. He was a member of the provisional government and minister of foreign affairs in June 1848. After he lost the presidential election of December 1848 to Louis-Napoléon, he retired from political life and returned to writing.

Lamennais, Félicité, abbé de (1782-1854). Priest, deputy, and journalist; known for his four-volume Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion (1821-23). Lamennais was a strong critic of the Gallican Church and an ardent defender of the pope. By 1832, he resented the lack of encouragement from the Vatican in the face of violent attacks from Gallicanism and progressively distanced himself from Rome. He became active in journalism and, like Bastiat, was elected to the legislative assembly of 1848.

Larnac, Marie Gustave (1793-1868). Tutor to Louis-Philippe’s son, the duc de Nemours. Larnac later became the duke’s secrétaire des commandements (head of the private cabinet). As the candidate sponsored by the government, Larnac was elected deputy of the district of Saint-Sever in 1845 and reelected in 1846, defeating Bastiat. He gave up political life after the revolution of 1848.

Laromiguière, Pierre (1756-1837). Member of the doctrinaires (see Guizot, François). He taught humanities and philosophy while pursuing medical studies. His Ph.D. dissertation on property rights and taxation, “Le Droit de propriété est violé toutes les fois que les impôts sont levés arbitrairement,” was a criticism of the ancien régime. He left the clergy in 1792 to become professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne. His Leçons de philosophie; ou, Essai sur les facultés de l’âme (1815), which had six consecutive editions between 1815 and 1844, greatly influenced Bastiat as well as generations of students.

Latour-Maubourg, Mme de [first name and dates not known]. Wife of Victor Nicolas de Fay, vicomte de Latour-Maubourg (1768-1850) and former minister of war.

Laurence, A. M. Colleague of Bastiat’s in the General Council of the Landes.

Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre (1790-1874). Lawyer, deputy (1841-49), owner of the newspaper La Réforme, minister of the interior of the provisional government of February 1848, and then member of the executive commission. He had to yield his powers to General Cavaignac in June 1848. In 1849 Ledru-Rollin organized a demonstration against the foreign policy of Louis-Napoléon, the new president of the republic. He was exiled and came back to France only in 1870.

Lefranc, Victor (1809-83). Lawyer and deputy from the Landes.

Leopold I (1790-1865), king of Belgium (1831-65). He was elected king by the Belgian National Congress.

Leroux, Pierre (1798-1871). Prominent member of the Saint-Simonian group of socialists. Like Bastiat, he was a journalist during the 1840s and was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1848 and to the Legislative Assembly in 1849. His most developed exposition of his ideas can be found in De l’humanité (1840) and also in De la ploutocratie, ou, Du gouvernement des riches (1848).

Lherbette, Armand (1791-1864). Lawyer and attorney of the king. Elected deputy in 1831.

Lobeau [Lobau], Georges Mouton, comte de (1770-1838). Bastiat’s spelling is wrong; the correct spelling is “Lobau.” Volunteer in 1792, general in 1805. Elected liberal deputy in 1828. Nominated Maréchal de France by Louis-Philippe in 1831. Lobau repressed the uprising that followed the funeral of Jean-Maxilien Lamarque.

Louis, Joseph-Dominique, baron (1755-1837). Politician and diplomat. He was minister of finance under the two restorations and the July Monarchy and made a peer of France in 1832.

Louis-Philippe, duc d’Orléans (1773-1850). Louis-Philippe was the last French king during the July Monarchy (1830-48), abdicating on 24 February 1848. He served in the French army before going into exile in 1793. His exile lasted until 1815, when he was able to return to France under the restoration of the monarchy (King Louis XVIII was his cousin). During his exile he visited Switzerland, Scandinavia, the United States, and Cuba before settling in England. When the July revolution overthrew King Charles X in 1830, Louis-Philippe was proclaimed the new “king of the French.” Initially, he enjoyed considerable support from the middle class for his liberal policies, but he became increasingly conservative and was ousted in the February 1848 revolution.

Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766-1858). Malthus is best known for his writings on population, in which he asserted that population growth (increasing at a geometric rate) would outstrip the growth in food production (growing at a slower arithmetic rate). Malthus studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, before becoming a professor of political economy at the East India Company College (Haileybury). His ideas were influential among nineteenth-century political economists. His principal work was An Essay on the Principle of Population (1st ed., 1798; rev. 3rd ed., 1826).

Manuel, Jacques Antoine (1775-1827). Liberal deputy (1815-27) in the Chamber that followed Napoléon’s abdication. Manuel formed an alliance with Constant and La Fayette.

Marmont, Auguste de (1774-1852). Appointed field marshall and duke of Ragusa by Napoléon, whom he betrayed. His defection in 1814 made Napoléon’s abdication inevitable.

Marsan, Julie [dates unknown]. Daughter of Marie-Julienne Marsan (née Badbedat). See Badbedat, Marie-Julienne.

Mauguin, François (1785-1852). Lawyer and deputy (1848 and 1849).

Mendizabal, Juan (1790-1853). Prime minister (13 June 1835-15 March 1836), later minister of finance of Spain.

Mignet, François-Auguste-Alexis (1796-1884). Liberal lawyer, journalist, historian, and an editor of Le Courrier français and Le National (edited by Mignet, Thiers, Carrel, and Passy). In 1830 he joined other journalists in protesting the restrictive press laws. He secured a job as director of the Archives of the Foreign Ministry, from which position he was able to publish many historical works. He lost his job as a result of the 1848 revolution and took early retirement to continue writing works of history. He became a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1832, assuming the post of permanent secretary in 1837, and became a member of the Académie française in 1836. His main works were Histoire de la Révolution française (1824), Histoire de Marie Stuart (1852), and Notices et mémoires historiques (1843), which contains many eulogies of important political economists and historians.

Mill, John Stuart (1806-73). English philosopher, political theorist, and economist who became one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century. He worked for the East India Company before becoming a member of the British Parliament (1865-68), where he introduced many proposals for reform legislation, such as women’s suffrage. Mill went to France in 1820 and met many of the leading liberal figures of the day, such as Jean-Baptiste Say. He had a great interest in French politics and history and wrote many essays and reviews on these topics. His best-known books include System of Deductive and Inductive Logic (1843), Principles of Political Economy (1848), On Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1861), and The Subjection of Women (1869).

Millevoye, Charles Hubert (1782-1816). French poet, author of the poem The Fall of the Leaves.

Molé, Louis Mathieu, comte de (1781-1855). Former prefect and minister of justice under Napoléon and under Louis XVIII. Rallying to Louis-Philippe, he was head of the government and minister of foreign affairs in 1836. Accused by some deputies of being little more than a spokesman for the king, he resigned in 1839 and led a moderate opposition against Guizot. He served as deputy in 1848 and 1849 but quit political life after the coup of 1851.

Molesworth, William, Sir (1810-55). British politician and member of the Anti-Corn Law League.

Molinari, Gustave de (1819-1912). Born in Belgium but spent most of his working life in Paris, where he became the leading representative of the laissez-faire school of classical liberalism in France in the second half of the nineteenth century. His liberalism was based on the theory of natural rights (especially the right to property and individual liberty), and he advocated complete laissez-faire in economic policy and an ultraminimal state in politics. In the 1840s he joined the Société d’économie politique and was active in the Association pour la liberté des échanges. During the 1848 revolution he vigorously opposed the rise of socialism and published shortly thereafter two rigorous defenses of individual liberty in which he pushed to its ultimate limits his opposition to all state intervention in the economy, including the state’s monopoly of security. During the 1850s he contributed a number of significant articles on free trade, peace, colonization, and slavery to the Dictionnaire de l’économie politique (1852-53) before going into exile in his native Belgium to escape the authoritarian regime of Napoléon III. He became a professor of political economy at the Musée royale de l’industrie belge and published a significant treatise on political economy (Cours d’économie politique, 1855) and a number of articles opposing state education. In the 1860s Molinari returned to Paris to work on the Journal des debats, becoming editor from 1871 to 1876. Toward the end of his long life, Molinari was appointed editor of the leading journal of political economy in France, Le Journal des économistes (1881-1909). Molinari’s more important works include Les Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare (1849), L’Évolution économique du dix-neuvième siècle: Théorie du progrès (1880), and L’Évolution politique et la révolution (1884).

Monclar, Eugène de (1800-1882). Priest and first cousin of Bastiat. Like Bastiat, he worked in the family commercial firm, which he left to study law. Shortly after becoming a lawyer, he studied for the priesthood. Once ordained, he became a member of the Company of Priests of Saint-Suplice, devoted to the education of ecclesiastics, and taught in different cities. He traveled to Italy and while in Naples learned that his cousin Bastiat was in Rome and was able to be with him in his final hours.

Monjean, Maurice (1818-?). A member of the editorial board of Le Journal des économistes from 1841 to 1845. He also edited Malthus’s Principles of Population and Definitions of Political Economy in the series Collection des principaux économistes (1846).

O’Connell, Daniel (1775-1847). Irish campaigner, member of Parliament, mayor of Dublin.

Odier, Antoine (1766-1853). Businessman, deputy (1827-37), then pair de France (a peer of the realm). Member of the liberal opposition. Father-in-law of General Cavaignac.

Orléans, duc d’. See Louis-Philippe.

Ortolan, Joseph (1802-73). Professor of law.

Paillottet, Prosper. Political writer and the editor, friend, and legal executor of Bastiat. (See also the General Editor’s Note and the General Introduction.)

Palmerston, Henry John Temple, third viscount (1784-1865). Whig leader and minister of foreign affairs (1830-41 and 1846-50). Palmerston was prime minister of Britain during the Crimean War and a liberal interventionist. He worked to limit French influence in world affairs.

Passy, Frédéric (1822-1912). Nephew of Hippolyte Passy. He was a supporter of free trade and the ideas of Richard Cobden and Bastiat. Passy was a cabinet minister and then professor of political economy at the University of Montpellier in France. He wrote an introduction to one of the Guillaumin editions of the works of Bastiat. Active in the French peace movement, he helped found the Ligue internationale et permanente de la paix. For his efforts he received the first Nobel Peace Prize (1901, with Henri Dunant, one of the founders of the Red Cross). He wrote many books on economics and peace, including Notice biographique sur Frédéric Bastiat (1857), Pour la paix: notes et documents (1909), and La Démocratie et l’instruction: Discours d’ouverture des cours publics de Nice.

Passy, Hippolyte (1793-1880). Cavalry officer in Napoléon’s army and French economist. After the restoration of the monarchy, Passy traveled to the United States and there discovered the works of Adam Smith. Upon his return to France, he wrote for several opposition papers, such as the liberal National (with Adolphe Thiers and François-Auguste Mignet), and published a book, De l’aristocracie considérée dans ses rapports avec les progrès de la civilization (1826). Passy was elected as a deputy from 1830 on, serving as minister of finance in 1834, 1839-40, and 1848-49. In 1838 he became a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, in which he served for some forty years, and was particularly active in developing political economy. He criticized the colonization of Algeria and advocated free trade. He cofounded the Société d’économie politique (1842), wrote numerous articles in Le Journal des économistes, and authored several books, including Des systèmes de culture et de leur influence sur l’économie sociale (1848) and Des causes de l’inégalité des richesses (1848).

Paulton, Abraham. Free-trade lecturer and radical journalist recruited by Richard Cobden for the Anti-Corn Law League.

Pavée de Vandœuvre, baron de (1808-?). Minister of Louis XVIII and president of the General Council of the département of l’Aube. Peer of France.

Peel, Sir Robert (1788-1850). Leader of the Tories and former minister in the government of the Duke of Wellington. In 1841 he became prime minister and took measures aimed at alleviating the most severe poverty, thus giving some satisfaction to the free traders while at the same time trying to broaden the outlook of the aristocracy. He accomplished the repeal of the Corn Laws on 26 May 1846 by obtaining a composite majority, but not without adverse consequences. The Tory Party was irreparably divided, and on that same evening, Peel lost a vote of confidence on his Irish policy and had to resign.

Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista (1710-36). Neapolitan composer.

Périer, Casimir (1777-1832). French entrepreneur, deputy, and influential member of the liberal opposition. Prime minister from March 1831 until his death.

Petitti, Carlo Ilarione, conte di Roreto (1790-1850). Italian economist, academic, counsellor of state, and senator. Petitti wrote numerous works, including Saggio sul buon governo della mendicità, degli istituti di beneficenza e delle carceri (1837), Delle strade ferrate italiane e del miglior ordinamento di esse: Cinque discorsi Capolago (1845), and Considerazioni sopra la necessità di una riforma de’ tributi con alcuni cenni su certe spese dello Stato (1850).

Peupin, Henri (1809-72). French clockmaker. Wrote liberal articles in workers’ magazines.

Pitt, William (the Younger) (1759-1806). British politician. Son of prime minister William Pitt the Elder, he was himself twice prime minister (1783-1801 and 1804-6). A Tory and a strong opponent of the French Revolution.

Pius IX (Cardinal Giovanni Ferretti) (1792-1878). Pope from 1846 to 1878. He started out as a liberal but became more conservative after the 1848 revolution. He took refuge in Gaeta, in the kingdom of Naples, for a brief time in 1848 and lost the papal states permanently to Italy in 1870.

Polignac, Auguste-Jules-Armand-Marie, prince de (1780-1847). Childhood friend, then prime minister, of Charles X. Polignac was an ultraroyalist politician who served in various capacities during the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after 1815. He was appointed ambassador to England in 1823, minister of foreign affairs in 1829, and prime minister by Charles X just prior to the outbreak of the July revolution in 1830. He was responsible for issuing the Four Ordinances (designed to weaken the constitution), which was the immediate trigger for the outbreak of the revolution. After the revolution he was imprisoned at Ham, amnestied in 1836, and finally exiled from the country. During his imprisonment he wrote Considérations politiques sur l’époque actuelle (1832).

Prince-Smith, John (1809-74). Liberal economist, born in London, where he worked as a parliamentary reporter before moving to Hamburg in 1828 to write for an English-language newspaper there. He was an ardent supporter of Bastiat. In 1831 he was employed as an English teacher at a local gymnasium. While in Hamburg Prince-Smith discovered economics and began writing about British economic developments for his German readers. In 1846 he settled in Berlin, where he published John Prince-Smith über die englische Tarifreform und ihre materiellen, sozialen und politischen Folgen für Europa, a small book on tariff reform in Britain and its likely impact on Europe, a work that reflected his interest in Cobden, Bastiat, and the Anti-Corn Law League. He also published works on banking and currency issues. In 1846 he founded a German free-trade association and was elected deputy representing Stettin in the Prussian parliament. Between 1870 and 1874 he was head of the Congress of German Economists. His collected works, published shortly after his death, were titled John Prince-Smith’s Gesammelte Schriften (1877-80).

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph (1809-65). French political theorist, considered to be the father of anarchism. Proudhon spent many years as a printer and published numerous pamphlets on social and economic issues, often running afoul of the censors. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1848 representing La Seine. In 1848 he became editor in chief of several periodicals, such as Le Peuple and La Voix du peuple, in which he wrote articles critical of the government. These views got him into trouble again with the censors, for which he spent three years in prison, between 1849 and 1852. He is best known for Qu’est-ce que la propriété? Ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement (1841), Système des contradictions économiques (1846), and several articles published in Le Journal des économistes. His controversy with Bastiat on the subject of capital and interest appears in the form of letters between Bastiat and Proudhon (OC, vol. 5, p. 94, “Gratuité du crédit”).

Puyravault, Audry de (1773-1852). French businessman and deputy (1822-37).

Quesnay, François (1694-1774). Surgeon and economist. He taught at the Paris School of Surgery and was personal doctor to Madame Pompadour. As an economist he is best known as one of the founders of the physiocratic school, writing the articles “Fermiers” and “Grains” for Diderot’s Encylopédie (1756). Quesnay also wrote Le Tableau économique (1762) and Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle de gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain (1768).

Quijano, Garcia. Member of the Société d’économie politique and occasional contributor to Le Journal des économistes.

Raspail, François (1794-1878). A self-taught French botanist, chemist, and hygienist who made major contributions to cell theory and pioneered the use of the microscope in the study of cell tissue. He turned to radical politics after the 1830 revolution and was jailed for his role as president of the Society of the Rights of Man. During the 1848 revolution he was imprisoned for participating in the demonstration of 15 May 1848 but was later released from prison by Napoléon III only to spend the years until 1863 in foreign exile. Raspail unsuccessfully stood for president in the 1848 election. He was elected a deputy from Lyon in 1869. During the Third Republic he was an outspoken and popular republican deputy.

Renouard, Augustin-Charles (1794-1878). French lawyer with an interest in elementary school education. He was secretary general of the minister of justice and an elected deputy. He also was vice-president of the Société d’économie politique and wrote or edited a number of works on economic and educational matters, including Mélanges de morale, d’économie et de politique extraits des ouvrages de Franklin, et précédés d’une notice sur sa vie (1824); and “L’Éducation doit-elle être libre?” in Revue encyclopédique (1828).

Reybaud, Louis (1798-1879). French businessman, journalist, novelist, fervent antisocialist, politician, and writer on economic and social issues. In 1846 he was elected deputy representing Marseilles, but his strong opposition to Napoléon III and the empire forced him to retire to devote himself to political economy. He became a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1850. His writings include the prizewinning critique of socialists, Études sur les réformateurs et socialistes modernes: Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen (1840); the satirical novel Jérôme Paturot à la recherché d’une position sociale (1843); and Économistes contemporains (1861). Reybaud also wrote many articles for Le Journal des économistes and the Dictionnaire de l’économie politique (1852).

Ricardo, David (1772-1823). English political economist, born in London of Dutch-Jewish parents. Ricardo joined his father’s stockbroking business at a young age and made a considerable fortune on the London Stock Exchange. In 1799 he read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) and developed an interest in economic theory. He met James Mill and the Philosophic Radicals in 1807, was elected to Parliament in 1819, and was active politically in trying to widen the franchise and to abolish the restrictive Corn Laws. He wrote a number of works, including The High Price of Bullion (1810), on the bullion controversy; and the treatise On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817).

Ridolfi, Cosimo (1794-1865). Descendant of a very wealthy and learned Florentine family who distinguished himself in chemistry and agronomy. In 1841 he chaired the Congress of Italian Scientists, which took place in Florence.

Rossi, Pellegrino (1787-1848). Italian politician. Born in Tuscany, Rossi lived in Geneva, Paris, and Rome. He was a professor of law and political economy, as well as a poet, ending his days as a diplomat for the French government. He moved to Switzerland after the defeat of Napoléon, where he met Germaine de Staël and the duc de Broglie. He founded, with Sismondi and Etienne Dumont, Les Annales de législation et des jurisprudences. After the death of Jean-Baptiste Say, Rossi was appointed professor of political economy at the Collège de France in 1833, and in 1836 he became a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. In 1847 he was appointed ambassador of France to the Vatican but was assassinated in 1848 in Rome. He wrote Cours d’économie politique (1840) and numerous articles in Le Journal des économistes.

Rumilly, Louis Gauthier de (1792-1884). French lawyer and deputy (1830-34 and 1837-40). Unsuccessfully presented a project for parliamentary reform in 1840.

Russell, John, first Earl Russell (1792-1878). English Whig and liberal member of Parliament. He was prime minister twice, in 1846-52 and in 1865-66. As leader of the opposition in 1845, Russell favored the repeal of the Corn Laws and advised the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, to take a similar stance.

Saint-Chamans, Auguste, vicomte de (1777-1860). Deputy (1824-27) and mercantilist economist.

Saint-Cricq, Pierre de (1772-1854). French politician, deputy, general manager of customs, and president of the Trade Council. Favorable to protectionism.

Saint-Hilaire, Jules Barthélemy (1805-95). French businessman, journalist, and writer. Professor of Greek and Latin philosophy at the Collège de France. Elected senator for life in 1875.

Salvandy, Narcisse Achille de (1795-1856). Former soldier of Napoléon, he became active in politics from 1830. He was the French ambassador in Madrid and Turin and author of novels and political writings.

Say, Horace Émile (1794-1860). Son of Jean-Baptiste Say. Married Anne Cheuvreux, sister of Casimir Cheuvreux, whose family were friends of Bastiat’s. Say was a businessman and traveled in 1813 to the United States and Brazil. A result of his trip was Histoire des relations commercialesentre la France et le Brésil (1839). He became president of the Chamber of Commerce of Paris in 1834, was a counsellor of state (1849-51), and headed an important inquiry into the state of industry in the Paris region (1848-51). Say was also very active in liberal circles: he participated in the foundation of the Société d’économie politique, the Guillaumin publishing firm, Le Journal des économistes, and Le Journal du commerce; and he was an important collaborator in the creation of the Dictionnaire de l’économie politique and the Dictionnaire du commerce et des marchandises. In 1857 he was nominated to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques but died before he could formally join.

Say, Jean-Baptiste (1767-1832). The leading French political economist in the first third of the nineteenth century. Before becoming an academic political economist late in life, Say apprenticed in a commercial office, working for a life insurance company; he also worked as a journalist, soldier, politician, cotton manufacturer, and writer. During the Revolution he worked on the journal of the idéologues, La Décade philosophique, littéraire, et politique, for which he wrote articles on political economy from 1794 to 1799. In 1814 he was asked by the government to travel to England on a fact-finding mission to discover the secret of English economic growth and to report on the impact of the revolutionary wars on the British economy. His book De l’Angleterre et des Anglais (1815) was the result. After the defeat of Napoléon and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, Say was appointed to teach economics in Paris, first at the Athénée, then as a chair in “industrial economics” at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, and finally as the first chair in political economy at the Collège de France. He is best known for his Traité d’économie politique (1803), which went through many editions (and revisions) during his lifetime. One of his last major works, the Cours complet d’économie politique pratique (1828-33), was an attempt to broaden the scope of political economy away from the preoccupation with the production of wealth, by examining the moral, political, and sociological requirements of a free society and how they interrelated with the study of political economy.

Say, Léon (1826-96). Grandson of Jean-Baptiste Say and son of Horace Say. He had a career as a banker and administrator of the Chemin de fer du nord. Say wrote a number of articles for Le Journal des débats and was a prominent popularizer of free trade and other economic issues. After 1871 he had a distinguished political career as a deputy for La Seine and then as minister of finance in the Third Republic, where he pursued policies of reducing taxation, deregulating internal trade, and opposing the Méline Tariff. In 1880 he was appointed ambassador to England. Say was elected to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques and also to the Académie française. He was a key editor of and contributor to the Nouveau dictionnaire d’économie politique (1891-92). Many of his writings on finance can be found in Les Finances de la France sous la troisième république (1898-1901).

Schwabe. The Schwabes were English friends of the Cheuvreux family and of Bastiat. Their daughter, Mrs. Salis-Schwabe, a writer, was married to a Frenchman. She wrote Richard Cobden: Notes sur ses voyages, correspondences, et souvenirs (1879).

Scialoja, Antonio (1817-77). Italian economist and professor of political economy at the University of Turin. He was imprisoned and exiled during the 1848 revolution. His major economic works were I principi della economia sociale esposti in ordine ideologico (1840), later translated into French as Les Principes de l’économie exposé selon des idées (1844); Trattato elementare di economia sociale (1848); and Lezioni di economia politica (1846-54). He also wrote many works on law.

Scribe, Eugène (1791-1861). French dramatist and author of opera libretti.

Senior, Nassau William (1790-1864). British economist who became a professor of political economy at Oxford University in 1826. In 1832 he was asked to investigate the condition of the poor and, with Edwin Chadwick, wrote the Poor Law Commissioners’ Report of 1834. In 1843 he was appointed a correspondent of the Institut de France. He returned to Oxford University in 1847. During his lifetime he wrote many articles for such review journals as the Quarterly Review, the Edinburgh Review, and the London Review. His books include Lectures on Political Economy (1826) and Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1834).

Simon, Richard (1638-1712). Oratorian monk. In 1678 he published Une Histoire critique de l’Ancien Testament, which was condemned by the French bishop Bossuet and destroyed. He was excluded from his order.

Smith, Adam (1723-90). Scottish moral philosopher and a leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He was one of the founders of modern economic thought with his work The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith studied at the University of Glasgow where one of his teachers was the philosopher Francis Hutcheson. In the late 1740s Smith lectured at the University of Edinburgh on rhetoric, belles-lettres, and jurisprudence; those lectures are available to us because of detailed notes taken by one of his students. In 1751 he moved to Glasgow, where he was a professor of logic and then moral philosophy. His Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759, translated into French in 1774) was a product of this period of his life. Between 1764 and 1766 he traveled to France as tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch. While in France, Smith met many of the physiocrats and visited Voltaire in Geneva. As a result of a generous pension from the duke, Smith was able to retire to Kirkaldy to work on his magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776 (French edition in 1788). Smith was appointed in 1778 as commissioner of customs and was based in Edinburgh, where he spent the remainder of his life. An important French edition of the Wealth of Nations was published in 1843 by Gilbert-Urbain Guillaumin, with notes and commentary by leading French economists such as Blanqui, Garnier, Sismondi, and Say.

Smith, John Benjamin (d. 1879). Member of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and a supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League.

Soult, Nicolas, duc de Dalmatie (1769-1851). Field marshall under Napoléon. After the empire fell, he went into business and then into politics during the July Monarchy. He was minister of war and thrice prime minister.

Soustra [first name and dates unknown]. Member of the Bayonne city council.

Staël, Anne-Louise-Germaine de (1766-1817). Née Germaine Necker, the daughter of the Swiss-born financier Jacques Necker, who served as controller-general under Louis XVI from 1776 to 1781 and again from 1788 to July 1789. She married the Baron de Staël-Holstein (1766-1817). Staël is best known today as a writer of novels, such as Corinne, ou l’Itale (1807), and for her analysis of German literature and character in De l’Allemagne (suppressed by Napoléon so that it did not appear until 1813). She also played an important role in developing a liberal movement around the exiles and enemies of Napoléon, first in a salon in Paris and then at her residence, Coppet, on the shores of Lake Geneva. In 1794 she started a long-lasting though stormy liaison with Benjamin Constant. Her book Considérations sur les principaux événements de la Révolution française (1818) was one of the first major histories of the French Revolution and the economic policies of her father, whose attempts to reform French finances on the eve of the Revolution failed.

Stanhope, Philip, Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773). English aristocrat, politician, and writer. Member of the Commons (1718-26) and later a member of the House of Lords. His Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to His Son (1774) was translated into French in 1877, long after Bastiat’s death.

Thiers, Adolphe (1797-1877). French lawyer, historian, politician, and journalist. While Thiers was a lawyer he contributed articles to the liberal journal Le Constitutionnel and published one of his most famous works, the ten-volume Histoire de la révolution française (1823-27). He was instrumental in supporting Louis-Philippe in July 1830 and was the main opponent of Guizot. Thiers defended the idea of a constitutional monarchy in journals like Le National. After 1813 he became successively a deputy, undersecretary of state, minister of agriculture, and minister of the interior. He was briefly prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in 1836 and 1840, when he resisted democratization and promoted restrictions on the freedom of the press. During the 1840s he worked on the twenty-volume Histoire de consulat et de l’empire, which appeared between 1845 and 1862. After the 1848 revolution and the creation of the Second Empire he was elected deputy representing Rouen in the Constituent Assembly. Thiers was a strong opponent of Napoléon III’s foreign policies and after his defeat was appointed head of the provisional government by the National Assembly. He then became president of the Third Republic until 1873. Thiers wrote essays on economic matters for Le Journal des économistes, but his protectionist sympathies did not endear him to the economists.

Thompson, Thomas (1783-1869). English political writer and owner of the Westminster Review. He was an active member of the Anti-Corn Law League. In 1811 he became governor of Sierra Leone, where he fought slavery.

Tracy.See Destutt de Tracy, Antoine.

Trélat, Ulysse (1795-1879). French physician and liberal politician. He was minister of public works between 12 May and 19 June 1848.

Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, baron de L’Aulne (1727-81). Economist of the physiocratic school, politician, reformist bureaucrat, and writer. During the mid-1750s Turgot came into contact with the physiocrats, such as Quesnay, Dupont de Nemours, and Vincent de Gournay (who was the free-market intendant for commerce). Turgot had two opportunities to put free-market reforms into practice: when he was appointed Intendant of Limoges in 1761-74; and when Louis XVI made him minister of finance between 1774 and 1776, at which time Turgot issued his six edicts to reduce regulations and taxation. His works include Eloge de Gournay (1759), Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (1766), and Lettres sur la liberté du commerce des grains (1770).

Turpin, Etienne (1802-73). French landowner and deputy.

Vernes, Charles (1786-1858). Founder of the Banque Vernes. Sousgouverneur of the Bank of France (1832-58) and author of a report on the Algerian war.

Villèle, Jean-Baptiste, comte de (1773-1854). French statesman and leader of the ultralegitimists. He became prime minister in 1822 but had to resign after the victory of the liberals in 1828.

Villermé, Louis René (1782-1863). French military surgeon, then civilian doctor. He was a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. He wrote on public-health issues such as prisons, mortality rates, population growth, and the condition of workers. On the latter he wrote Tableau de l’état physique et moral des ouvriers employés dans les manufactures de coton, de laine, et de soie (1840), which became a basis for labor regulations.

Villiers, George, Earl of Clarendon (1800-1870). Diplomat and politician. Succeeded his father in the House of Lords. Influential member of the Whig opposition to Robert Peel. Advocate of the repeal of the Corn Laws. His brother, a member of Parliament since 1835 and an active member of the League, presented a motion at each session of Parliament aimed at repealing the Corn Laws.

Vincens Saint-Laurent, Marc-Antoine (1764-1860). French high-ranking civil servant. He wrote several books that were praised in Le Journal des économistes.

Vivien, Alexandre (1799-1854). French high-ranking civil servant, deputy (from 1833), minister of justice under Thiers. Minister of public works under Cavaignac, he resigned from all positions after the coup of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.

Walpole, Robert, Earl of Oxford (1676-1745). One of the leaders of the Whigs and twice chancellor of the exchequer. He controlled the country’s politics between 1715 and 1742 and laid the foundations for the parliamentary regime of the United Kingdom.

Wilberforce, William (1759-1833). British politician. One of the leading figures in the campaign to abolish the slave trade (1807) and slavery itself (1833).

Wilson, George (1808-70). British businessman whose main business interests were the management of railways and telegraphs. He had a long involvement in the liberal politics of Manchester and later became chairman of the Anti-Corn Law League.

Wilson, James (1805-60). Born in Scotland, he founded the Economist in 1843 and was elected a member of Parliament in 1847. His books include Influence of the Corn Laws (1839) and Capital, Currency, and Banking (1847), which was a collection of his articles from the Economist.

Wolowski, Louis (1810-76). Lawyer, politician, and economist of Polish origin. His interests lay in industrial and labor economics, free trade, and bimetallism. He was a professor of industrial law at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques from 1855, serving as its president in 1866-67, and a member and president of the Société d’économie politique. His political career started in 1848, when he represented La Seine in the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies. During the 1848 revolution he was an ardent opponent of the socialist Louis Blanc and his plans for labor organization. Wolowski continued his career as a politician in the Third Republic, where he served as a member of the Assembly and took an interest in budgetary matters. He edited La Revue de droit français et échange and wrote articles for Le Journal des économistes. Among his books are Cours de législation industrielle: De l’organisation du travail (1844) and Études d’économie politique et de statistique (1848), La question des banques (1864), La Banque d’Angleterre et les banques d’Ecosse (1867), La Liberté commerciale et les résultats du traité de commerce de 1860 (1869), and L’Or et l’argent (1870).

Glossary of Places

Adour. A river flowing through the Landes. It allowed the transportation of goods from the Chalosse, the part of the département in which Bastiat lived, to the port of Bayonne, from which they could be exported. Eventually, sand deposits made navigation on this river more and more difficult.

Les Bagnères. Spas in the Pyrenees. Bastiat went to these spas as often as he could in order to cure an affliction of the throat, an illness that would eventually kill him.

Le Butard (The Butard Wood). A former hunting lodge of Louis XIV, located in the woods west of Versailles, close to the Château de la Jonchère. Owned by the state, it was rented by a M. Pescatore, a friend of the Cheuvreux family and an admirer of Bastiat. Pescatore made it available to Bastiat whenever he wanted to use it in order to rest from the hustle and bustle of Paris. In this solitary, charming place, the writer composed the first chapters of Economic Harmonies.

Chalosse. The part of the Landes in which Bastiat had his home. It covers several counties.

Croissy. A small town near Paris.

Les Eaux-Bonnes.See Les Bagnères.

Garonne. A river in southwest France.

Landes. A French département in southwest France, where Bastiat spent most of his life.

Mugron. A small town in the Landes overlooking the Adour River, where Bastiat lived from 1825 to 1845. At the time it was a significant commercial center, with a port on the Adour River and about two thousand inhabitants (fifteen hundred now). Today, Mugron has a street, a square, and a plaza named after Bastiat.

Pau. A town in southwest France.

Véfour. A famous Parisian restaurant, still in existence. The members of the Société d’économie politique held a monthly meeting there.

Glossary of Subjects and Terms

Académie des sciences morales et politiques. One of the five académies that compose the Institut de France (see Institut de France).

Anti-Corn Law League. The Anti-Corn Law League, Corn League, or League, was founded in 1838 by Richard Cobden and John Bright in Manchester. Their initial aim was to repeal the law restricting the import of grain (Corn Laws), but they soon called for the unilateral ending of all agricultural and industrial restrictions on the free movement of goods between Britain and the rest of the world. For seven years they organized rallies, meetings, public lectures, and debates from one end of Britain to the other and managed to have proponents of free trade elected to Parliament. The Tory government resisted for many years but eventually yielded on 25 June 1846, when unilateral free trade became the law of Great Britain.

Association pour la liberté des échanges. Founded in February 1846 in Bordeaux. Bastiat was the secretary of the board, presided over by François d’Harcourt and having among its members Michel Chevalier, Auguste Blanqui, Joseph Garnier, Gustave de Molinari, and Horace Say.

Capital and Rent (OC, vol. 5, p. 23, “Capital et rente”). This pamphlet first appeared in February 1849 and was a reply to the socialists Proudhon and Thoré.

Le Censeur. A journal founded by Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer. From 1814 to 1815 its full name was Le Censeur, ou examen des actes et des ouvrages qui tendent à détruire ou à consolider la constitution de l’État; later, from 1817 to 1819, it was called Le Censeur européen ou Examen de diverses questions de droit public et de divers ouvrages littéraires et scientifiques, considérés dans leurs rapports avec le progrès de la civilisation. The journal was devoted to political and economic matters and was a constant thorn in the side of first Napoléon’s empire and then the restored monarchy. It was threatened with closure by the authorities on several occasions and finally was forced to close in 1815. During this period of enforced leisure Comte and Dunoyer discovered the economic writings of Jean-Baptiste Say, and when the journal reopened, it tilted toward economic and social matters as a result. It was one of the most important journals of liberal thought in the early nineteenth century.

Le Censeur européen. See Le Censeur.

La Chalosse. A weekly journal of the district of Saint-Sever.

Charter.See Constitutional Charter.

Cobden and the League (OC, vol. 3: Cobden et la ligue: ou, L’Agitation anglaise pour la liberté du commerce). First published in 1845 by Guillaumin as a separate book before it was reissued in Bastiat’s Œuvres complètes. Bastiat was so impressed with the organization and tactics of the Anti-Corn Law League in Britain that he wished to emulate it in France. He was ultimately largely unsuccessful. As part of his efforts to inspire the French people to pressure the government for tariff reform he put together this collection of translations of many of the League’s public speeches, newspaper reports of their meetings, and other documents of the campaign. He prefaced the book with a long introduction in which he outlined the League’s goals and beliefs (see OC, vol. 3, p. 1, “Introduction”).

Collège de France. An institution created under François I in 1529 to deliver advanced teaching not yet available at the universities.

Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. A public institution of higher education created by Abbé Grégoire in 1794. It was intended for people already engaged in professional life.

Constituent Assembly (Assemblée constituante). A body elected by universal suffrage to prepare a constitution. Its motions were prepared by two commissions and fifteen committees.

Constitutional Charter. Promulgated by Louis XVIII on 4 June 1814. It was a compromise between the principles of the ancien régime and the reforms brought about by the French Revolution.

Corn Laws. Legislation introduced by Parliament in the seventeenth century to maintain a high price for corn (in the British context this meant grain, especially wheat) by preventing the importation of cheaper foreign grain altogether or by imposing a duty on it in order to protect domestic producers from competition. The laws were revised in 1815 following the collapse of wheat prices at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The artificially high prices which resulted led to rioting in London and Manchester. The laws were again amended in 1828 and 1842 to introduce a more flexible sliding scale of duties which would be imposed when the domestic price of wheat fell below a set amount. The high price caused by protection led to the formation of opposition groups, such as the Anti-Corn Law League in 1838, and to the founding of the Economist magazine in 1843. Pressure for repeal came from within Parliament by members of Parliament, such as Richard Cobden (elected in 1841), and from without by a number of factors: the well-organized public campaigning by the Anti-Corn Law League; the writings of classical economists who were nearly universally in favor of free trade; the writings of popular authors such as Harriet Martineau, Jane Marcet, and Thomas Hodgskin; and the pressure of crop failures in Ireland in 1845. The Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel announced the repeal of the Corn Laws on 27 January 1846, to take effect on 1 February 1849 after a period of gradual reduction in the level of the duty. The act was passed by the House of Commons on 15 May and approved by the House of Lords on 25 June, thus bringing to an end centuries of agricultural protection in England.

Council of State. A French institution giving advice on draft bills and acting as a court of final appeal on administrative matters. Its members were appointed by the king.

Le Courrier français. A daily paper, with a mildly Catholic, leftist, and monarchic slant. It ran from 1819 to 1851.

Damned Money (OC, vol. 5, p. 64, “Maudit argent”). The pamphlet Maudit argent first appeared in the April 1849 edition of the Journal des économistes and was written in response to a criticism of money expressed by an economist on the government’s finance committee.

La Démocratie pacifique: Journal des intérêts des gouvernements et des peuples. A Fourrierist journal, launched by Victor Considérant, advocating the creation of “harmonious communities.” It ran from 1843 to 1851.

Département. France is divided into ninety-five départements, which are the equivalent of counties and which enjoy a certain administrative autonomy.

Deputy. A member of the French parliament.

Economic Harmonies (OC, vol. 6: Harmonies économiques). “Social Harmonies” was the original title Bastiat gave to what was eventually published as Economic Harmonies. The idea that all voluntary economic exchanges are “harmonious,” mutually beneficial to both parties to the exchange, and conducive to social peace and order is a key insight of Bastiat and one that preoccupied him as he was dying. His chef d’œuvre and the only book-length work he ever wrote but left unfinished at his death was Harmonies économiques. It was published posthumously in a more complete version by his friends in Paris in 1851.

Economic Sophisms (OC, vol. 4: Sophismes économiques). Bastiat published two collections of essays under the general title Economic Sophisms. Originally published in Le Journal des économistes in 1845 and 1847, these essays were designed to refute common misconceptions about the free market, which Bastiat termed “sophisms.” A first collection was published by Guillaumin in book form in 1846 as Sophismes économiques. Guillaumin also published further editions in 1847 and 1848. Very popular, they went through many editions and were quickly translated into Spanish, Italian, German, and English.

Économiste. See Les Économistes.

Les Économistes. In Bastiat’s lifetime Les Économistes was the term used to refer to the free-trade school of economic thought.

February Revolution.See Revolution of 1848.

Fourierism.See glossary of names: Fourier, François-Marie Charles.

General Council. A chamber in each French département that deliberates on subjects concerning the département. It has one representative per county (28 at the time for the Landes département, 31 today), elected for nine years then (six years today). Its functions have varied over time. Bastiat was elected general councillor in 1833 for the county of Mugron, a post he held until his death. At that time, the council deliberations had to be approved by the prefect.

Harmonies. See Economic Harmonies.

L’Indicateur. Newspaper with a very liberal perspective.

Individualism and Fraternity (Individualisme et fraternité). The unpublished sketch “Individualisme et fraternité” was written to refute the socialist interpretation of the first French Revolution that was expressed by Louis Blanc in his Histoire de la révolution française, the first volume of which appeared in 1847.

Institut de France. Academic institution covering the five académies (arts, literature, sciences, history and archaeology, and moral and political sciences).

Jacques Bonhomme. A short-lived biweekly paper that seems to have lasted for only four issues (June-July 1848). It was founded and largely written by Bastiat, Alcide Fonteyraud, Charles Coquelin, and Gustave de Molinari. Its purpose was to counter socialist ideas during the 1848 revolution, and it was handed out in the streets of Paris.

Le Journal des débats. A journal founded in 1789 by the Bertin family and managed for almost forty years by Louis-François Bertin. The journal went through several title changes and after 1814 became Le Journal des débats politiques et littéraires. The journal likewise underwent several changes of political positions: it was against Napoléon during the First Empire; under the second restoration it became conservative rather than reactionary; and under Charles X it was in support of the liberal stance espoused by the doctrinaires. It ceased publication in 1944.

Le Journal des économistes.Le Journal des économistes: revue mensuelle de l’économie politique, des questions agricoles, manufacturières et commerciales was the journal of the Société d’économie politique and appeared from December 1841 until the fall of France in 1940. It was published by the firm of Guillaumin, which also published the writings of most of the liberals of the period. Le Journal des économistes was the leading journal of the free-market economists (known as Les Économistes) in France in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was edited by Adolphe Blanqui (1841-42), Hippolyte Dussard (1843-45), Joseph Garnier (1845-55), Henri Baudrillart (1855-65), Joseph Garnier (1865-81), Gustave de Molinari (1881-1909), and Yves Guyot (1910-?). Many of Bastiat’s articles for the journal were later published as pamphlets and books, and his works were all reviewed there. There are fifty-eight entries under Bastiat’s name in the table of contents of the journal for the period 1841 to 1865.

Le Journal du commerce. A business daily that appeared from 1795 through 1837 under various titles.

July Monarchy.See Revolution of 1848.

July Revolution.See Revolution of 1848.

Justice and Fraternity (OC, vol. 4, p. 298, “Justice et fraternité”). This essay first appeared in Le Journal des économistes on 15 June 1848 and was one of several essays Bastiat wrote during the 1848 revolution to counter socialist ideas. In this essay, Bastiat takes aim at socialists such as Fourier, Cabet, Owen, Proudhon, and Louis Blanc, who wished to use the law in order to bring about by force their ideal of fraternity. Bastiat contrasts this with the aim of political economists like himself, who saw the function of the law as one of achieving universal justice by protecting each individual’s life, liberty, and property.

The Law (OC, vol. 4, p. 342, “La Loi”). Bastiat wrote two pieces titled “La Loi”: the first was published as a pamphlet, La Loi (1850); the second was his only entry, “Lois,” in the Dictionnaire de l’économie politique (1852), vol. 2, pp. 93-100, published posthumously. The Law is quite well known to English readers because it was quickly translated in 1853 and has been kept in print since 1950 by the Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York.

League.See Anti-Corn Law League.

Le Libre échange. The weekly journal of the Association pour la liberté des échanges. It began in 1846 as Le Libre-échange: Journal du travail agricole, industriel et commercial but changed its name to the simpler Libre échange at the start of its second year of publication. It closed in 1848 as a result of the revolution. The first fifty-two issues were published as a book by the Guillaumin publishing firm under the title Le Libre-échange, journal de l’association pour la liberté des échanges (1847). The first sixty-four issues were published by Bastiat, the editor in chief, and Joseph Garnier; the last eight issues were published by Charles Coquelin. The journal’s editorial board included Anisson-Dupéron (pair de France), Bastiat, Blanqui, Gustave Brunet (assistant to the mayor of Bordeaux), Campan (secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of Bordeaux), Michel Chevalier, Coquelin, Dunoyer, Faucher, Fonteyraud, Garnier, Louis Leclerc, Molinari, Paillottet, Horace Say, and Wolowski.

Le Mémorial bordelais. A newspaper that represented several political perspectives.

Le Moniteur. See Le Moniteur industriel.

Le Moniteur industriel. A periodical created in July 1835. It became the stronghold of protectionists and Bastiat’s bête noire.

Montagnard Manifesto.See La Montagne.

Montagnards.See La Montagne.

La Montagne (The Mountain). La Montagne comprised a group of deputies (Montagnards) favorable to a “democratic and social republic.” The Montagnard Manifesto expressed their ideas. The name comes from the first general assemblies of the Revolution, in which the deputies professing these ideas sat in the highest part of the assembly, “the mountain.”

Le National. Liberal paper founded in 1830 by Adolphe Thiers to fight the ultrareactionary politics of the prince de Polignac. It played a decisive role during the “three glorious days” and contributed to the success of Louis-Philippe. Its readership considerably exceeded the number of its subscribers (around three thousand).

National Guard. A militia created in 1789, recruited mainly from among the bourgeoisie. It was responsible for keeping order jointly with the army. Dissolved in 1827, it was reestablished in July 1830. La Fayette took command of it, as he had forty years earlier, in 1789. It played an essential role under Louis-Philippe, and its desertion in 1848 marked the end of that regime.

Navigation Act. The act prevented merchandise from being imported into Britain if it was not transported by British ships or ships from the producer countries. The first act, adopted in 1651, applied to commerce within Europe and generated a war with Holland (1652-54). Extended to colonies in 1660 and 1663, it generated a second war with Holland (1665-67). It was repealed in 1849.

La Patrie. A political journal of no fixed political opinions.

Plunder and Law (OC, vol. 5, p. 1, “Spoliation et loi”). The pamphlet Spoliation et loi, published by Le Journal des économistes on 15 May 1850.

Prefect. A representative of the executive branch in a département (see Glossary of Places: département). The prefecture is the location of the office of the prefect. In large départements, there are also administrative subdivisions called sous prefectures, which are headed by sous préfêts.

La Presse. A widely distributed daily newspaper, created in 1836 by the journalist, businessman, and politician Émile de Girardin (1806-81). Girardin was one of the creators of the modern press and author of, among many works, the brochure Le Socialisme et l’impôt (1849), in which he advocated a single tax on capital and revenue.

Property and Law (OC, vol. 4, p. 275, “Propriété et loi”). The pamphlet Propriété et loi appeared in the May 1848 edition of Le Journal des économistes and was written to defend a natural law theory of property.

Property and Plunder (OC, vol. 4, p. 394, “Propriété et spoliation”). During the 1848 revolution Bastiat wrote an important pamphlet in the July 1848 edition of Le Journal des débats. It was a reply to socialist critics of property, such as Louis Blanc, Proudhon, and Considérant, especially the latter’s Théorie du droit de propriété et du droit au travail. A key to understanding the social and economic ideas of the French économistes in general, and Bastiat in particular, is the contrasting notions of “property” and “plunder” (or “spoliation” in French). According to this view, there are two contrasting ways of acquiring and owning property. On the one hand there is “property” justly acquired through one’s own hard work or by the peaceful exchange with other property owners on the free market. On the other hand there is “spoliation,” or plunder, by which one uses violence oneself or uses the power of the state to act on one’s behalf to take the justly acquired property of others through legislation, subsidies, tariffs, taxation, or other state-enforced means.

Protectionism and Communism (OC, vol. 4, p. 504, “Protectionisme et communisme”). The pamphlet Protectionisme et communisme was written in response to a work by Thiers, De la propriété.

La Quotidienne. A royalist journal, organ of the legitimists during the July Monarchy.

La République française. A newspaper launched by Bastiat, which lasted only a few days. The circumstances are explained in the letter to Félix Coudroy of 13 February 1848 (see Letter 89).

Revolution of 1848 (also called the February Revolution). Because France went through so many revolutions between 1789 and 1870, they are often distinguished by reference to the month in which they occurred. Thus, we have the “July Monarchy” (of 1830) (also called the revolution of 1830), when the restored Bourbon monarchy of 1815 was overthrown in order to create a more liberal and constitutional monarchy under Louis-Philippe; the “February Revolution” (of 1848), when the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe was overthrown and the Second Republic was formed; the “June Days” (of 1848), when a rebellion by workers in Paris who were protesting the closure of the government-subsidized National Workshops work-relief program was bloodily put down by General Cavaignac; and the “18 Brumaire of Louis-Napoléon,” which refers to the coup d’état that brought Louis-Napoléon (Napoléon Bonaparte’s nephew) to power on 2 December 1851 and which ushered in the creation of the Second Empire—the phrase was coined by Karl Marx and refers to another date, 18 Brumaire in the revolutionary calendar, or 9 November 1799, when Napoléon Bonaparte declared himself dictator in another coup d’état. Bastiat was an active participant in the 1848 revolution, being elected to the Constituent Assembly on 23 April 1848 and then to the Legislative Assembly on 13 May 1849.

Revolution of 1830. See Revolution of 1848.

La Revue britannique. A monthly review founded in 1825 by Sébastien-Louis Saulnier (1790-1835), which contained many articles on economic matters. Its full title read Revue britannique. Receuil international. Choix d’articles extraits des meilleurs écrits périodiques da la Grande-Bretagne et de l’Amérique, complété sur des articles originaux. The issue of the 6th series, vol. 1, in 1846, contained a long essay on the Anti-Corn Law League, by Alcide Fonteyraud, “La Ligue anglaise,” which was based on Bastiat’s book Cobden and the League (1845). The Revue ceased publication in 1901.

La Revue des deux mondes. A review founded in 1829 by François Buloz that published essays on arts, literature, politics, and society. Its name was a reflection of its aim, namely, to bring France and the United States closer together. It ceased publication in 1944.

La Revue encyclopédique. A review founded in 1819 by M. A. Julien. During the restoration period it was quite liberal, with many articles and book reviews on economists such as Say, Dunoyer, and MacCulloch. It changed direction in 1831, when the son of the founder took it in a markedly Saint-Simonian direction. It ceased publication in 1835.

September Laws. Laws restricting liberties promulgated in September 1835, following an attempt against the life of Louis-Philippe.

Social Harmonies. See Economic Harmonies.

Société d’économie politique (Society of Political Economy) was founded in 1842, with the name Réunion des économistes, and began meeting regularly in October 1842. Summaries of the meetings were published by Joseph Garnier, the permanent secretary and vice president of the society, in Le Journal des économistes. The articles “Adresse au président de la ligue anglaise son adhésion sympathique aux principes de cette association,” vol. 13 (December-March 1846), p. 19; “Réponse de M. Cobden au nom de la Ligue,” vol. 14 (April-July 1846), p. 60; and “Banquet offert à M. Cobden,” vol. 15 (August-November 1846), p. 89, show the very great interest the society had in Cobden’s activities in England.

Sophisms. See Economic Sophisms.

The State (OC, vol. 4, p. 327, “L’État”). Originally published in Le Journal des débats in September 1848, “The State” was one of several essays which Bastiat wrote during the 1848 revolution in order to counter socialist ideas and proposals for increased economic interventionism. His criticism and sarcasm in this piece was directed toward the Montagnard faction (see La Montagne) in the Chamber. This group was promising the moon to French citizens and was urging massive increases in the function of the state to achieve this. In this short essay Bastiat sarcastically offered his own definition of what the state was, namely “the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”

La Voix du peuple. A newspaper launched by Proudhon on 30 September 1849 to replace Le Peuple, a paper that had ceased on 13 June 1849. La Voix du peuple ceased in May 1850.

What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen (OC, vol. 5, p. 336, “Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas ou, l’économie politique en une leçon”). This was the last pamphlet Bastiat wrote, in 1850, before his death. It has a sad story, as Bastiat wanted to refute many of the bad economic arguments he had heard in the National Assembly. According to George de Huszar, the editor of Bastiat’s Selected Essays on Political Economy (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1964), in which this essay appears, Bastiat lost the original manuscript in a house move and so rewrote it. He was unhappy with the result, so he rewrote it again. The expression “what is seen and what is not seen” has become emblematic of Bastiat’s approach to economic problems in that he wants to go beneath the apparent surface of economic phenomena, such as in the parable of the broken window. Some would see the broken window as an opportunity for the glass industry to expand its sales and create more work; others, like Bastiat, would see it as a loss because the old window has been destroyed and what is spent on replacing it might have been used to purchase something else. Bastiat spent the last decade of his life making arguments like this to a popular audience who did not seem to understand.

Wine and Spirits Tax. Eliminated by the revolutionary parliament of 1789, the tax on wine and spirits was progressively reinstated during the empire. It comprised four components: (1) a consumption tax (10 percent of the sale price); (2) a license fee paid by the vendor, depending on the number of inhabitants; (3) a tax on circulation, which depended on the département; and (4) an entry duty for the towns of more than four hundred inhabitants, depending on the sale price and the number of inhabitants. Being from a wine-producing region, Bastiat had always been preoccupied by a law that was very hard on the local farmers.

Appendix

List of the Correspondence by Recipient

    To Victor Calmètes

  • 1. Bayonne, 12 September 1819
  • 2. Bayonne, 5 March 1820
  • 3. Bayonne, 18 March 1820
  • 4. Bayonne, 10 September 1820
  • 5. Bayonne, October 1820
  • 6. Bayonne, 29 April 1821
  • 7. Bayonne, 10 September 1821
  • 8. Bayonne, 8 December 1821
  • 9. Bayonne, 20 October 1822
  • 10. Bayonne, December 1822
  • 15. Mugron, 12 March 1829
  • 16. Mugron, July 1829
  • 19. Bayonne, 22 April 1831
  • 54. Bayonne, 4 March 1846

    To Félix Coudroy

  • 11. Bayonne, 15 December 1824
  • 12. Bayonne, 8 January 1825
  • 13. Bordeaux, 9 April 1827
  • 14. Bayonne, 3 December 1827
  • 17. Bayonne, 4 August 1830
  • 18. Bayonne, 5 August 1830
  • 20. Bordeaux, 2 March 1834
  • 21. Bayonne, 16 June 1840
  • 22. Madrid, 6 July 1840
  • 23. Madrid, 16 July 1840
  • 24. Madrid, 17 August 1840
  • 25. Lisbon, 24 October 1840
  • 26. Lisbon, 7 November 1840
  • 27. Paris, 2 January 1841
  • 28. Paris, 11 January 1841
  • 29. Bagnères, 10 July 1844
  • 30. Eaux-Bonnes, 26 July 1844
  • 37. Paris, May 1845
  • 38. Paris, 23 May 1845
  • 39. Paris, 5 June 1845
  • 40. 16 June 1845
  • 41. 18 . . . [no month or year given]
  • 42. Paris, 3 July 1845
  • 43. London, July 1845
  • 53. Bordeaux, 19 February 1846
  • 56. Paris, 22 March 1846
  • 60. Paris, 18 April 1846
  • 61. Paris, 3 May 1846
  • 62. Paris, 4 May 1846
  • 63. Paris, 24 May 1846
  • 67. Bordeaux, 22 July 1846
  • 77. Paris, 11 March 1847
  • 81. Paris, August 1847
  • 85. Paris, 5 January 1848
  • 87. Paris, 24 January 1848
  • 89. Paris, 13 February 1848
  • 94. Paris, 29 February 1848
  • 101. Paris, 9 June 1848
  • 102. Paris, 24 June 1848
  • 108. Paris, 26 August 1848
  • 110. Paris, 7 September 1848
  • 115. Paris, 26 November 1848
  • 116. Paris, 5 December 1848
  • 120. Paris, 1 January 1849
  • 130. Paris, 15 March 1849
  • 133. Paris, 25 April 1849
  • 142. Paris, 30 July 1849
  • 155. Paris, 13 December 1849
  • 158. Paris, January 1850
  • 189. Paris, 9 September 1850
  • 203. Rome, 11 November 1850

    To A. M. Laurence

  • 31. Mugron, 9 November 1844

    To Richard Cobden

  • 32. Mugron, 24 November 1844
  • 36. Mugron, 8 April 1845
  • 44. London, 8 July 1845
  • 46. Mugron, 2 October 1845
  • 48. Mugron, 13 December 1845
  • 50. Mugron, 13 January 1846
  • 51. Mugron, 9 February 1846
  • 52. Bordeaux, February 1846
  • 55. Paris, 16 March 1846
  • 57. Paris, 25 March 1846
  • 58. Paris, 2 April 1846
  • 59. Paris, 11 April 1846
  • 64. Paris, 25 May 1846
  • 65. Mugron, 25 June 1846
  • 66. Bordeaux, 21 July 1846
  • 68. Paris, 23 September 1846
  • 69. Paris, 29 September 1846
  • 70. Paris, 1 October 1846
  • 71. Paris, 22 October 1846
  • 72. Paris, 22 November 1846
  • 73. Paris, 25 November 1846
  • 74. Paris, 20 December 1846
  • 75. Paris, 25 December 1846
  • 76. Paris, 10 January 1847
  • 78. Paris, 20 March 1847
  • 79. Paris, 20 April 1847
  • 80. Paris, 5 July 1847
  • 83. Paris, 15 October 1847
  • 84. Paris, 9 November 1847
  • 91. Paris, 25 February 1848
  • 92. Paris, 26 February 1848
  • 96. Mugron, 5 April 1848
  • 98. Paris, 11 May 1848
  • 100. Paris, 27 May 1848
  • 103. Paris, 27 June 1848
  • 106. Paris, 7 August 1848
  • 107. Paris, 18 August 1848
  • 151. Paris, 17 October 1849
  • 152. Paris, 24 October 1849
  • 157. Paris, 31 December 1849
  • 185. Paris, 3 August 1850
  • 186. Paris, 17 August 1850
  • 188. Paris, 9 September 1850
  • 199. Pisa, 18 October 1850

    To Horace Say

  • 33. Mugron, 24 November 1844
  • 82. Mugron, Monday, October 1847
  • 97. Mugron, 12 April 1848
  • 146. Mugron, 16 September 1849
  • 172. Mugron, 3 June 1850
  • 182. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 4 July 1850
  • 200. Pisa, 20 October 1850

    To Charles Dunoyer, member of the Institute

  • 34. Mugron, 7 March 1845

    To Alphonse de Lamartine

  • 35. Mugron, 7 March 1845.

    To Mr. Paulton

  • 45. Paris, 29 July 1845

    To [D.] Potonié

  • 47. Mugron, 24 October 1845

    To Alcide Fonteyraud

  • 49. Mugron, 20 December 1845

    To Mrs. Schwabe

  • 86. Paris, 17 January 1848
  • 88. Paris, 27 January 1848
  • 90. Paris, 16 February 1848
  • 99. Paris, 17 May 1848
  • 114. Paris, 14 November 1848
  • 118. Paris, 28 December 1848
  • 129. Paris, 11 March 1849
  • 150. Paris, 14 October 1849

    To Marie-Julienne Badbedat (Mme Marsan)

  • 93. 27 February 1848

    To Bernard Domenger

  • 95. Paris, 4 March 1848
  • 109. Paris, 3 September 1848
  • 122. Paris, 18 January 1849
  • 125. Paris, 3 February 1849
  • 126. Paris, 1849 [no month or day]
  • 127. Paris, 21 March 1849
  • 131. Paris, 25 March 1849
  • 132. Paris, 8 April 1849
  • 134. Paris, 29 April 1849
  • 136. Paris, 1849 [no month or day]
  • 140. Paris, Tuesday, 13 . . . (Summer 1849)
  • 154. Paris, 13 November 1849
  • 156. Paris, 25 December 1849
  • 162. Paris, 18 February 1850
  • 164. Paris, 22 March 1850
  • 196. Pisa, 8 October 1850
  • 205. Rome, 28 November 1850

    To Julie Marsan (Mme Affre)

  • 104. Paris, 29 June 1848

    To Mr. Schwabe

  • 105. Paris, 1 July 1848
  • 111. Dover, 7 October 1848
  • 112. Paris, 25 October 1848

    To Mme Cheuvreux

  • 113. Paris, November 1848
  • 119. Paris, January 1849
  • 123. Paris, February 1849
  • 124. Paris, February 1849
  • 128. Paris, Monday, March 1849
  • 135. Paris, 3 May 1849
  • 137. Brussels, Hôtel de Bellevue, June 1849
  • 138. Brussels, June 1849
  • 139. Antwerp, June 1849
  • 143. Mont-de-Marsan, 30 August 1849
  • 144. Mugron, 12 September 1849
  • 147. Mugron, 18 September 1849
  • 148. Paris, 7 October 1849
  • 149. Paris, 8 October 1849
  • 153. Paris, November 1849
  • 159. Paris, 2 January 1850
  • 160. Paris, January 1850
  • 161. Paris, February 1850
  • 163. Paris, March 1850
  • 165. Paris, Friday, April 1850
  • 166. Bordeaux, May 1850
  • 168. Mugron, 20 May 1850
  • 169. Mugron, 23 May 1850
  • 170. Mugron, 27 May 1850
  • 174. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 15 June 1850
  • 176. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 23 June 1850
  • 177. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 24 June 1850
  • 181. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 4 July 1850
  • 183. Mugron, July 1850
  • 192. Lyons, 14 September 1850
  • 194. Marseilles (on board the Castor), 22 September 1850
  • 195. Pisa, 2 October 1850
  • 198. Pisa, 14 October 1850
  • 202. Pisa, 29 October 1850
  • 207. Rome, 14, 15, and 16 December 1850

    To the Count Arrivabene

  • 117. Paris, 21 December 1848
  • 201. Pisa, 28 October 1850

    To George Wilson, chairman of the Anti-Corn Law League

  • 121. Paris, 15 January 1849

    To Prosper Paillottet

  • 141. Paris, 14 July 1849
  • 167. Mugron, 19 May 1850
  • 171. Mugron, 2 June 1850
  • 175. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 23 June 1850
  • 178. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 28 June 1850
  • 179. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 2 July 1850
  • 190. Lyons, 14 September 1850
  • 197. Pisa, 11 October 1850
  • 204. Rome, 26 November 1850
  • 206. Rome, 8 December 1850

    To M. Cheuvreux

  • 145. Mugron, 16 September 1849
  • 184. Mugron, 14 July 1850
  • 193. Marseilles, 18 September 1850

    To Louise Cheuvreux

  • 173. Mugron, 11 June 1850
  • 191. Lyons, 14 September 1850

    To M. de Fontenay

  • 180. Les Eaux-Bonnes, 3 July 1850

    To the president of the Peace Congress in Frankfurt

  • 187. Paris, 17 August 1850

    From Prosper Paillottet to Mme Cheuvreux

  • 208. Rome, 22 December 1850

    To the Journal des économistes

  • 209. Undated

Bibliography of Primary Sources

Works by Bastiat

The works by Bastiat listed below represent not only the sources used for this translation but also those frequently cited in the text, notes, and glossaries.

[55 ]A Fourier-type commune. See also “Fourier” in the Glossary of Persons.

[56 ]Louis-Napoléon.

[57]The irony is that Louis-Napoléon seized power in a coup d’état in December 1851 and was made emperor in December 1852.