Registered: Oct 2001
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This is quite a book. Mier was imprisoned or escaping or on the lam for all but a few years of his life. He was a Mexican before there was such a thing, and he provides a unique perspective on the "barbarians" of Spain and other places in Europe right during and after the time of Napoleon.

On the French:

“Being a foreigner in France is thus the best possible recommendation, so long as one is not Italian, their perfidy being notorious. I have not been in any large city where some Italian has not murdered or robbed his very benefactors. All Frenchmen, contrary to what happens in England and in other nations, invariably side with the foreigner in any dispute that arises involving their own compatriots, they willingly open their houses to him, they make it their duty to look after him; to insult him is a grave offense, and he is permitted to do a thousand things that they would not tolerate from a Frenchman. Hence every foreigner speaks well of France.”


Fray Servando Teresa de Mier y Noriega de Guerre

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