ABSTRACT
The Lettres d'une Peruvienne still fits into it by date, and more importantly by structure. Zilia too will report 'home' about the French. The role assigned to Zilia here is long-established in the literature of the period. A fictional outsider or naif is brought into confrontation with aspects of French society. The visitor reacts to France in terms of the supposed norms of their own society, or those of a universalist Nature or Reason. In either case the incomprehension of cultural practices in the host society arises from what Montesquieu famously calls 'la parfaite ignorance des liaisons'. Centred upon the high civilization of France, and self-ironic, the fictions celebrate the society that they satirize. The 'philosophical' critique of French society has been hailed by recent criticism. It has been rightly perceived as exceptional in the period for its radicalism, and for its composition (real and fictional) by a woman.
