You do not appear to me to be a republican [démocrate] at all. Like
you I think that all we are really seeing is ‘double-dealing and
frenzied passions unleashed’. But I prefer the kind of double-
dealing and frenzied passions that topple fortresses and get rid of
titles and other stupidities of the kind, which put on an equal
footing all forms of religious day-dreaming to those which would
safeguard and preserve those miserable freaks begotten of the
barbarous ignorance of the Jews crossed with the mindless ferocity
of the Vandals. The human race is born stupid and led by rogues,
that is the norm: but if I have to choose between one lot of rogues
and another, I’ll vote for the likes of Mirabeau and Barnave, rather
than of Sartine or Breteuil.
(Letter of 10 December 1790^39 )Isabelle’s position is clear: she welcomed the prospect of reform in
France, and indeed many of her writings had been directed towards such
an end. However she deplored violence and at all times championed the
rights of the individual as against the group, whether that individual
happened to be an aristocrat or a commoner. She was afraid that many
innocent individuals might suffer in a violent and uncontrolled social
upheaval. She was, of course, right in her fears, and later Constant became
the forceful advocate of a similar position, while characteristically seldom
admitting he had ever been wrong. At this stage, however, he subscribed
to the school of thought which would in a later era maintain that one
cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.
To be fair to Constant it has to be stressed that he was going through one of the most
severely testing times of his life. His political radicalism, encouraged by the stoical and
unbending Mauvillon, was winning him enemies at Court; his father’s problems
continued to deepen; his finances were shaky and his health had barely improved. Only
Constant’s marriage seemed still to be holding together, although his long absences from
Brunswick would eventually undermine that as well. Small wonder that he wrote to
Isabelle at the end of 1790: ‘I understand neither the purpose nor the designer nor the
painter nor the figures in this magic lantern in which I have the honour to feature’ (24
December 1790^40 ) and a month later:
I am not, shall never be, cannot be happy.... Unable to believe in
the mysterious and unproven promises of a religion which is in
many respects absurd, and seeing no grounds to believe in the
hopes of a philosophy which consists merely in words, all I can see
here on earth is a great deal of unavoidable suffering..., very little
pleasure..., and at the end of it, sooner or later, nothingness.
(Letter of 21 January 1791^41 )The brunswick years 137