The purpose of this essay is to introduce into Catalan linguistic history of the early 19th century. Focusin on the sociolinguistic context of one of the epoch's most important texts, the catalan grammar of Ballot. I show that the concept of "linguistic conflict" is not an adequate category to discribe the diglossic relation of Catalan and Spanish at this time. In a second part I concretate on some aspects of Ballot's linguistic norm The fact that this norm is not even executed by the author of the recommendation that precedes the second edition of the grammar gives evidence to the lack of linguistic conscience.