him all his life: how to achieve happiness and success when the opposing
poles of his character pulled him violently and unceasingly towards
irreconcilable positions. For he already knew there were several potential
Benjamin Constants within him: Constant the historical scholar, happy to
work for days on end alone in a German library; Constant the sociable
gambler and rake; Constant the naturally gifted letter-writer whose talent
for amused self-observation might eventually be channelled into
autobiography and fiction. Other as yet unsuspected selves would come to
light in the future, not least those of the political theorist and the
parliamentarian.
For the moment it was the calm and the douceur of Charlotte which Constant needed
most urgently after the battering he had taken lately from Minna and her allies.
Charlotte’s marriage to Baron von Marenholtz, who was considerably older than her, had
brought neither partner much happiness: Constant’s semi-autobiographical Cécile
suggests that it had only been arranged in the first place because Charlotte’s scheming
sister, Amalie Magdalene Charlotte von Staffhorst, wished to facilitate the pursuit of her
long-standing affair with the Baron by having him marry into the family, although there
is no historical evidence of such a liaison. At first the Baron was content to let his wife
see Constant every day. Rather like Adolphe and Ellénore, the couple would discuss
literature and politics, read Isabelle de Charrière’s Caliste or the news in Le Moniteur, but
by the middle of February 1793 the Baron became jealous and Constant and Charlotte
were able to see each other only at the theatre or when out walking. Contrary to Sir
Harold Nicolson’s assumption, it seems that, unusually for Constant, the friendship did
not at this stage become a sexual liaison, if we are to believe a later letter to Isabelle de
Charrière in which he refers to his ‘chaste amours’ with Charlotte.^58
The contentment Constant found in this undemanding relationship threw into relief his
misery with his wife. According to the Narré, events came to a head with Minna at the
end of March: she was now being encouraged in her infidelity with Prince Golitsyn by
the Countess Anna Ernestine von der Schulenberg. After angry scenes with Constant,
Minna agreed to an eventual separation on 20 March 1793 so that she would not be
dishonoured and would be able to continue her ‘petty existence in a small town’, as
Constant would later write,^59 while he would regain his freedom. On about 23 March,
according to the Narré, Constant discovered a letter from Golitsyn to Minna referring to
the possibility of her becoming pregnant by him—in Cécile the letter is found torn up in
an old piano Constant’s father had given him.^60 He now knew for certain that he had been
lied to. On 24 March he went to confront her with the evidence, and the day after
composed the Narré. Henceforth there was a de facto separation which soon became
common knowledge at Court. Many blamed Constant for his laxness in allowing Minna’s
affair with the young Russian to develop, and the Duchess stood by her lady-in-waiting:
once again it became clear that in Brunswick Constant was almost without friends—
almost, because the Duke and his Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Féronce de
Rotencreutz did not abandon him, although they could see he could have conducted
matters very much better. Féronce could nevertheless not resist asking Ernst Theodor
Langer, librarian in Wolfenbüttel, in a letter dated 12 April 1793: ‘Has the story of poor
The brunswick years 143