Benjamin Constant
in full
Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque
born
Oct. 25, 1767, Lausanne, Switz.
died Dec. 8, 1830, Paris
Franco-Swiss novelist and political
writer, the author of Adolphe, a
forerunner of the modern psychological
novel.
The son of a Swiss officer in the Dutch
service, whose family was of French
origin, he studied at Erlangen, Ger.,
briefly at the University of Oxford, and
at Edinburgh. In 1787 he formed, in
Paris, his first liaison, with Madame de
Charrière, 27 years his senior. His
republican opinions in no way suited him
to the office of chamberlain to the duke
of Brunswick, which he held for several
years. In 1794 he chose the side of the
French Revolution, abandoning his office
and divorcing his wife, a lady of the
court. Madame de Staël had much to do
with his decision. Their tumultuous and
passionate relationship lasted until
1806.
After
the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (1799),
Constant was nominated to the tribunate,
but he quickly became, like Madame de
Staël, an opponent of the Bonapartist
regime. Expelled from the tribunate in
1802, he followed her into exile the
year after. Thereafter he spent his time
either at Madame de Staël’s salon at
Coppet, near Geneva, or in Germany,
chiefly at Weimar, where he met Goethe
and Friedrich Schiller. Constant was the
associate of the brothers Friedrich and
August von Schlegel, the pioneers of the
Romantic idea, and with them he inspired
Madame de Staël’s book De l’Allemagne
(“On Germany”).
In 1808
Constant secretly married Charlotte von
Hardenberg. But his intellectual
relationship with Madame de Staël and
the group at Coppet remained unbroken.
As a liberal he was disappointed by the
restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in
1814, and he reconciled himself with the
Napoleonic empire of the Hundred Days
under the influence of Madame Récamier,
the other great love of his life. On his
return to Paris, Constant became one of
the leaders of liberal journalism. He
was elected a deputy in 1819. After the
revolution of July 1830, he was
appointed president of the council of
state but died the same year.
During
his exile, Constant began work on De la
religion considérée dans sa source, ses
formes, et ses développements, 5 vol.
(1824–31; “On Religion Considered in Its
Source, Its Forms, and Its
Developments”), a historical analysis of
religious feeling. He is better known,
however, for his novels. Published in
1816 and written in a lucid and
classical style, the autobiographical
Adolphe (Eng. trans. Adolphe) describes
in minute analytical detail a young
man’s passion for a woman older than
himself. Nearly 150 years after the
publication of Adolphe, another of
Constant’s autobiographical novels,
Cécile, dealing with events between 1793
and 1808, was discovered and first
published. Constant is also known for
his Journaux intimes (“Intimate
Journals”), first published in their
entirety in 1952. They add to the
autobiographical picture of Constant
provided by his Le Cahier rouge (1907;
The Red Notebook).
