ABSTRACT
Bastiat left a great body of correspondence that is readily accessible and of immense value for the way he describes the tendencies of his age and personalizes them with wisdom. Prosper Paillottet admired those letters and was happy to see in them his mentor and friend, “this beguiling mind and this noble heart”, revealed in his essence.1 From 1819 to 1850 Bastiat kept up a correspondence with friends, colleagues and even adversaries. In it he sets out his thinking on a wide variety of issues. Through his observant pen he introduces us to places, settings and personalities. His talent as a writer lends a particular coloration to the events of the time without in any way distorting them. In his letters we can trace the path of his personal and intellectual development. They lay bare for us the anguish and torment of a man of faith, a man of science, committed to the struggle for liberty. They tell of his first readings, his first friendships, important encounters – in short they describe for us an entire era and a particular intellectual and social circle.2 Bastiat travelled widely, and he wrote from many different places. Bayonne, Mugron, Paris, Madrid, London and Rome, to name but a few, were the mailing points for many of his letters.
