19th-century France vs. the 19th-century US? I have no idea. I was more thinking of the notion of the "pre-modern" as being this place in which everybody knew their place and classes moved smoothly together, which intuitively seems an odd notion for a post-Revolution Frenchman.
--- On Thu, 8/6/09, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> In re: your last paragraph: Are you actually suggesting
> that France is, or
> was in the 19th C, as individualistic a place as the
> US?