The paper adresses the shifting significance of french stereotypes in Thomas Mann’s novel Der Zauberberg (1924). In their hybrid appearance the images of France mark a substantial contrast to Mann’s Essay Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen from 1919. Hans Castorp, the main character of the novel, is loosing his german aspects, as he gets involved with Lodovico Settembrini, the admirer of the French Revolution, and, on the contrary, as he conducts a french conversation with Clawdia Chauchat. In general, the novel plays with spatial concepts and national stereotypes to an extend, that their specific differences tend to disappear.