Editing Benjamin Constant (section)

==Biography==
Henri-Benjamin Constant was born in [[Lausanne]] to the [[Constant de Rebecque]] family, descendants of French [[Huguenot]]s who had fled from [[Artois]] to Switzerland during the [[French Wars of Religion]] in the 16th century. His father, Jules Constant de Rebecque, served as a high-ranking officer in the [[Dutch States Army]], like his grandfather, his uncle and his cousin [[Jean Victor de Constant Rebecque]]. When Constant's mother, Henriette-Pauline de Chandieu-Villars, died soon after his birth, both his grandmothers took care of him. Private tutors educated him in [[Brussels]] (1779) and in the [[Netherlands]] (1780). While at the Protestant [[University of Erlangen]] (1783), he gained access to the court of [[Duchess Sophie Caroline Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel]]. He had to leave after an affair with a girl, and moved to the [[University of Edinburgh]]. There he lived at the home of [[Andrew Duncan, the elder|Andrew Duncan]] and was befriended by [[James Mackintosh]] and [[Malcolm Laing]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BFVdUXEXhDYC&pg=PR23|title=Benjamin Constant: philosophe, historien, romancier, homme d'état|date=26 November 1987 |page=38|publisher=Ardent Media|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/56461/excerpt/9780521856461_excerpt.htm |title=The Cambridge Companion to Constant |publisher=Assets.cambridge.org |access-date=17 September 2013}}</ref> When he left the city, he promised to pay back his gambling debts.

In 1787, Constant returned to continental Europe, travelling on horseback through [[Scotland]] and England. In those years European nobility, with their [[prerogatives]], came under heavy attack from those, like Constant, who were influenced by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]'s ''[[Discourse on Inequality]]''. Constant's family criticized him for leaving out part of his last name.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Constant_-_Le_Cahier_rouge,_%C3%A9d._Constant_de_Rebecque.djvu&page=138 |title=Cahier Rouge, p. 122 |publisher=Commons.wikimedia.org |date=11 August 2013 |access-date=17 September 2013}}</ref> In Paris, at the home of [[Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard]] he became acquainted with [[Isabelle de Charriere]], a 46-year-old Dutch woman of letters, who later helped publish Rousseau's ''[[Confessions (Rousseau)|Confessions]]'', and who knew his uncle [[David-Louis Constant de Rebecque]] extremely well by virtue of a 15-year correspondence. While he stayed at her home in [[Colombier, Neuchâtel|Colombier]] Switzerland, together they wrote an [[epistolary novel]]. She acted as a maternal mentor to him until Constant's appointment to the court of [[Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel]] that required him to move north. He left the court when the [[War of the First Coalition]] began in 1792.

In [[Braunschweig]], Constant married Wilhelmina von Cramm, but she divorced him in 1793. In September 1794, he met and became interested in the famous and wealthy already married Germaine de Staël, herself 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 the time.<ref>Their affair resulted in one presumed daughter [[Albertine, baroness Staël von Holstein|Albertine]].</ref>

===Paris===
[[File:CH-NB - Jouxtens-Mézery, Grosse Grange - Collection Gugelmann - GS-GUGE-BRANDOIN-E-2.tif|thumb|Jouxtens-Mézery, Grosse Grange]]

After the [[Reign of Terror]] in France (1793–1794), Constant became an advocate of [[bicameralism]] and of an assembly like the [[Parliament of Great Britain]]. In revolutionary France this strand of political thought resulted in the [[Constitution of the Year III]], the [[Council of Five Hundred]] and the [[Council of Ancients]]. In 1799, after [[18 Brumaire]], Constant was reluctantly appointed, on the insistence of [[Abbe Sieyes]], by [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] to the [[Tribunat]], despite grave reservations on the latter's part. Eventually, in 1802, the first consul confirmed in his doubts, forced Constant to withdraw because of the tenor of his speeches and his close connection with Mme de Staël.<ref>Étienne Hofmann, ''Les « Principes de politique » de Benjamin Constant'', Librairie Droz, 1980, vol. 1. pp. 187–193. {{ISBN|2600046747}}</ref> Constant became acquainted with [[Julie Talma]], the salonnière wife of actor [[François-Joseph Talma]], who wrote many letters to him of compelling human interest.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wood|first=Dennis|title=Benjamin Constant|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BFVdUXEXhDYC&pg=PA222|year=1987|publisher=Ardent Media|page=222}}</ref>

In 1800, the [[Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise]], an attempt to assassinate Napoleon, failed. Nevertheless, in 1803, at a time when Britain and France were at peace, [[Jean Gabriel Peltier]], while living in England, argued that Napoleon should be assassinated.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://etudes-revolutionnaires.org/prestashop/product.php?id_product=50 |title=Un journaliste contre-révolutionnaire, Jean-Gabriel Peltier (1760–1825) – Etudes Révolutionnaires |publisher=Etudes-revolutionnaires.org |date=7 October 2011 |access-date=17 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203000534/http://etudes-revolutionnaires.org/prestashop/product.php?id_product=50 |archive-date=3 December 2013 }}</ref> The lawyer [[James Mackintosh]] defended the French refugee Peltier against a [[libel]] suit instigated by Napoleon – then First Consul of France. Mackintosh's speech was widely published in English and also across Europe in a French translation by Madame de Staël. She was forced to leave Paris as a result.

De Staël, disappointed by French [[rationalism]], became interested in [[German romanticism]]. She and Constant set out for [[Prussia]] and [[Saxony]] and travelled with her two children to [[Weimar]]. [[Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel]] welcomed them the day after their arrival. In Weimar they met [[Friedrich von Schiller]]. Due to illness [[Johann Wolfgang Goethe]] at first hesitated.<ref>{{cite book|author=Madame de Stael|title=Madame De Stael and the Grand-Duchess Louise|url=https://archive.org/details/madamedestaelan00staegoog|year=1862|page=[https://archive.org/details/madamedestaelan00staegoog/page/n52 24]}}</ref> In [[Berlin]], they met [[August Wilhelm Schlegel]], and his brother, [[Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel|Friedrich Schlegel]]. Constant left de Staël in [[Leipzig]] and in 1806 lived in [[Rouen]] and [[Meulan]], where he started work on his novel ''[[Adolphe]]''. In 1808, he secretly married Caroline von Hardenberg, a woman who had been divorced twice, (she was related to [[Novalis]] and to [[Karl August von Hardenberg]]). He <!--spent time gambling in [[Baden-Baden]] or in [[Göttingen]], and--> moved back to Paris in 1814, where the [[French Restoration]] took place and [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]] had become king. As a member of the [[Council of State (France)|Council of State]], Constant proposed a [[constitutional monarchy]]. He became friends with [[Madame Récamier]] while he fell out with Germaine de Staël, who had asked him to pay back his gambling debts when their daughter, Albertine, married [[Victor de Broglie (1785–1870)|Victor de Broglie]]. During the [[Hundred Days]] of Napoleon, who had become more liberal, Constant fled to the [[Vendée]], but returned when he was invited several times to the [[Tuileries]] to set up changes for the [[Charter of 1815]].

After the [[Battle of Waterloo]] (18 June 1815), Constant moved to London with his wife. In 1817, the year when Madame de Staël died, he was back in Paris and was elected to the [[Chamber of Deputies of France|Chamber of Deputies]], the lower legislative house of the Restoration-era government. One of its most eloquent orators, he became a leader of the parliamentary bloc first known as the ''Independents'' and later as "liberals". He became an opponent of [[Charles X of France]] during the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Restoration]]<!--and was active in [[French politics]] as a publicist and politician during the latter half of the [[French Revolution]] and-->
between 1815 and 1830.<ref name="ReferenceA">G. Lanson, P. Tuffrau, Manuel d'histoire de la Littérature Française, Hachette, Paris 1953</ref>

In 1822, Goethe praised Constant in the following terms:

<blockquote>I spent many instructive evenings with Benjamin Constant. Whoever recollects what this excellent man accomplished in [later] years, and with what zeal he advanced without wavering along the path which, once chosen, was forever followed, realizes what noble aspirations, as yet undeveloped, were fermenting within him.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wood |first1=Dennis |title=Benjamin Constant: A Biography |date=2002 |publisher=Routledge |page=185}}</ref></blockquote>

A [[Freemason]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.grandeoriente.it/benjamin-constant-e-la-dicotomia-tra-la-liberta-degli-antichi-e-la-liberta-dei-moderni-il-filosofo-fondatore-del-liberalismo-fu-un-faro-per-il-massone-bruno-segre-c/|title=Benjamin Constant e la dicotomia tra la libertá degli antichi e la libertá dei moderni. Il filosofo fondatore del liberalismo fu un faro per il massone Bruno Segre|date=7 February 2024 |language=it|publisher=[[Grand Orient of Italy]]}}</ref> in 1830 King [[Louis Philippe I]] gave Constant a large sum of money to help him pay off his debts, and appointed him to the [[Conseil d'Etat (France)|Conseil d'Etat]].{{citation needed|date=February 2020}} Constant is said to have fathered [[Albertine, Baroness Staël von Holstein|Albertine de Staël-Holstein]] (1797–1838), who later married [[Victor de Broglie (1785–1870)]]. Constant died in Paris on 8 December 1830 and was buried in the [[Père Lachaise cemetery]].<ref>Location: in division 29.</ref>