Constant, Benjamin

Constant, Benjamin (Henri Benjamin Constant de Rebecque) (äNrē` bäNzhämăN` kôNstäN` də rəbĕk`), 1767–1830, French-Swiss political writer and novelist, b. Lausanne. His affair (1794–1811) with Germaine de Staël turned him to political interests. He accompanied her to Paris in 1795 and served (1799–1801) as a tribune under the first consul, Napoleon. When Mme de Stäel was expelled (1802), however, he went into exile with her, spending the following 12 years in Switzerland and Germany. In 1813 he published a pamphlet attacking Napoleon and urging constitutional government and civil liberties. On Napoleon's return from Elba, however, Constant accepted office under him. After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo and the restoration of the Bourbons, Constant continued his political pamphleteering, calling for a constitutional monarchy. He served (1819–22, 1824–30) in the chamber of deputies. Constant gained a great reputation as a liberal publicist, and his funeral (shortly after the July Revolution, 1830, which he had supported) was the occasion for great demonstrations. His most important work, the introspective and semiautobiographical novel, Adolphe (1816, tr. 1959), is highly regarded for its style. Parts of his correspondence and journals have been published, the latter as Le Journal intime (1887–89) and Le Cahier rouge [the red notebook] (1907). The discovery of an unfinished novel, Cécile (1951; tr. 1953), has contributed to a new appreciation of Constant's literary merit.

Bibliography

See studies by H. Nicolson (1949), W. W. Holdheim (1961), and D. Wood (1987).

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Constant (de Rebecque), (Henri-) Benjamin

(born Oct. 25, 1767, Lausanne, Switz.—died Dec. 8, 1830, Paris, France) French-Swiss novelist and political writer. He had a tumultuous 12-year relationship with Germaine de Staël, whose views influenced him to support the French Revolution and subsequently to oppose Napoleon, for which he was exiled (1803–14). He later served in the Chamber of Deputies (1819–30). Adolphe (1816) was a forerunner of the modern psychological novel. Among his other works are the long historical analysis of religious feeling De la Religion, 5 vol. (1824–31) and his revealing journals (first complete publication, 1952).