face was pock-marked, her eyes were red and she was very thin^24 —and
belonged to a Court, that of the Duke’s wife, which one contemporary
commentator said was peopled with ‘vermin’.
25
From her early teens she
had been at Court, its gossip and intrigue were her whole life; she shared
none of Constant’s intellectual interests, and had a naturally domineering
manner. Almost the only thing she appears to have had in common with
her husband was a love of animals, of which she was to keep a very
considerable number in their home. Constant was to write bitterly in his
Journaux intimes on 18 July 1804:
I...married her without much thought, she had no money, she was
ugly and was two [in fact nine] years older than me. I was caught in
the net like a fool. If I had been 30 instead of 21, I would have been
able to order her about because she was as weak and timid as she
was violent and capricious in her emotions. But I was told what to
do by her and those around her from the very beginning. How I
suffered!^26The marriage did not even commence under the best auspices. When the
couple’s relationship had first begun in September 1788, Constant’s father
had not yet reappeared in Lausanne, having fled Amsterdam and the
military court which condemned him. The shadow of events in Holland
lay across their engagement and their first two years as man and wife. In
September 1788 Constant left for a brief stay in Holland to sort out his
father’s financial affairs, which were in a bad way, and to organize his
defence. News of the forthcoming marriage became officially public in
Brunswick on 12 October 1788, but all of the following winter, as
wedding preparations were being made, Constant’s one thought was the
fate of his father, even to the neglect of his official duties at Court: he
wrote to his uncle Samuel on 10 February 1789, ‘I no longer live other
than through my father and for my father’,
27
and to his aunt Anne de
Nassau on 30 March 1789:
I have caused him so much sorrow, I have been so unjust, so biased
against him! The only consolation I find in such recollections is
that now I am putting things right, and wish to see him spend a
happy and tranquil old age as a result of my efforts.^28Constant’s income and position at court were improved by the Duke who
appointed him Legationsrat on 27 December 1788,^29 with the prospect of
The brunswick years 133