One of the key questions about translation is its role in the constitution of the literary and inellectual spaces of a country. The example of the French translators working between 1885 and 1914 shows first of all that translation, disdained for the most part and reserved for the literary proletariat, was not acutally a distinct activity but one which became meaningful in the context of the importation of literatures, something that was to the field's functioning. Translating was merely the least noble part of an activity that included the production of the reader's expectations, through the preface, the introduction or the commentary; the manufacture of the symbolic value of the foreign texts through criticism and the more or less learned overview; and the construction of socally and symbolically rewarding international networks. The legitimacy of the translated texts or the massive effects of fashion gave the translation of foreign literature a central role in constituting the poles of the French intellectual field, in drawing up its battle lines. It was decisive for the breakthrough of the resolutely internationalist symbolist movement, but also for maintaining the almost state-conferred legitimacy of the academic sphere, itself the epitome in importation of a gallant xenophobia whcih transformed translators and importers into builders as well as crossers of tightly closed cultural borders.