page_title: Benjamin Constant
section_title: Paris
hierarchical_section_title: Benjamin Constant / Biography / Paris
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (1767-1830}, zeitweise Geliebter der Baronin Madame de Staël (1766-1817) und Vater ihres vierten Kindes Hedwig Gustava Albertine Baronesse de Staël-Holstein (* 08.06.1798 † 28.09.1838 Paris). 1805 trennten sich Constant und Madame de Staël. Die Tochter heiratete als 18-jährige am 20.02.1816 in Pisa den 31-jährigen Achille Charles Leonce Victor Herzog de Broglie (* 01.12.1785 Paris † 25.01.1870 ebenda), später Pair von Frankreich und Minister. Die Tochter Albertine wurde bekannt als religiöse Schriftstellerin ("Les Fragments sur divers sujets de Religion et de Morale")
context_page_description: Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, or simply Benjamin Constant, was a Swiss-French political activist and writer on political theory and religion.
  A committed republican from 1795, he backed the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor, and the following one on 18 brumaire. During the Consulat, in 1800 he became the leader of the Liberal Opposition. Having upset Napoleon and left France to go to Switzerland then to the Kingdom of Saxony, he nonetheless sided with Napoleon during the Hundred Days and became politically active again during the French Restoration. He was elected Député in 1818 and remained in post until his death in 1830. Head of the Liberal opposition, known as Indépendants, he was one of the most notable orators of the Chamber of Deputies of France, as a proponent of the parliamentary system. During the July Revolution, he was a supporter of Louis Philippe I ascending the throne.
context_section_description: 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.
  Constant became acquainted with Julie Talma, the salonnière wife of actor François-Joseph Talma, who wrote many letters to him of compelling human interest.
  In 1800, the Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise, an attempt to assassinate Napoleon, failed. 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. 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. In Berlin, they met August Wilhelm Schlegel, and his brother, 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  moved back to Paris in 1814, where the French Restoration took place and Louis XVIII had become king. As a member of the 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. 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 Staĕl died, he was back in Paris, and was elected to the 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 Restoration
  between 1815 and 1830.
  In 1822, Goethe praised Constant in the following terms:
  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.
  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. Constant is said to have fathered 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 Pere la Chaise cemetery.
caption: Portrait of Constant
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