Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, or simply Benjamin Constant, was a Swiss-French political activist and writer on politics and religion.
Background
Henri-Benjamin Constant was born on October 25, 1767 in Lausanne to descendants of Huguenot Protestants who had fled from Artois to Switzerland during the Huguenot Wars in the 16th century.
His mother, Henriette de Chandieu, died at his birth; and his father, Juste Arnold de Constant, commanded a regiment in the Dutch service.
Education
After a good private education at Brussels, he was sent to Oxford, and thence to Erlangen; a subsequent residence at Edinburgh and the relations there formed with prominent Whigs profoundly influenced his political views.
Career
He entered into relations with the crown prince of Sweden (Bernadotte), who conferred on him the order of the Polar Star.
In a series of pamphlets he advocated the principles of a Liberal monarchy and the freedom of the press.
At this point began the second great attachment of his life, his unfortunate infatuation for Madame Rccamicr, under whose influence he committed the worst blunder of his political career.
At the beginning of the Hundred Days he had violently asserted in the Journal des debats his resolution not to be a political turncoat, and had left Paris.
Attracted by Madame Recamier, he soon returned, and after an interview with Napoleon on the 10th of April, he became a supporter of his government and drew up the Acte constitu- tionnel.
The return of Louis XVIII drove him into exile.
In London in 1815 he published Adolphe, one of the earliest examples of the psychological novel.
It had been written in 1807, and is intrinsically autobiographical; that Adolphe represents Constant himself there is no dispute, but Ellenore probably owes something both to Madame de Charriere and Madame de Stael.
In 1816 he was again in Paris, advocating Liberal constitutional principles.
In 1819 he was returned to the Chamber of Deputies, and proved so formidable an opponent that the government made a vain attempt to exclude him from the Chamber on the ground of his Swiss birth.
At the outbreak of the revolution of 1830 he was absent from Paris, having undergone an operation, but he returned at the request of Lafayette to take his share in the elevation of Louis Philippe to the throne.
During his later years he had been a cripple in consequence of a fall in the Chamber of Deputies, and he fought the last of his many duels sitting in a chair.
To pay his gambling debts he accepted a gift of 200, 000 francs from Louis Philippe, thus affording a ready handle to his enemies.
His defects as a debater were not compensated entirely by the excellence of his set speeches; but his wide culture and powerful intellect were bound to leave their mark on affairs.
His political inconsistencies were more apparent than real, for there was no break in his advocacy of Liberal principles.
Besides Adolphe, in its way as important as Chateaubriand's Rent, he left two other sketches of novels in MS. , which are apparently lost.
Membership
He was a member of the Council of State
Connections
In Brunswick, he had married Wilhelmina von Cramm, but he divorced her in 1793. In September 1794, he met and became interested in the famous and rich (but married) Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, brought up on the principles of Rousseau. They both admired Jean Lambert Tallien and Talleyrand. Their intellectual collaboration between 1795 and 1811 made them one of the most celebrated intellectual couples of their time.