Constant’s marriage had gradually filtered out and was now generally common
knowledge, putting both Madame de Staël and himself at the mercy of hostile public
opinion. Constant now appealed to his ever loyal and much loved aunt Anne de Nassau to
write to Madame de Staël pointing out the wrong she was doing him and asking her to
give him his freedom. The Comtesse de Nassau’s letter was copied out by Rosalie de
Constant and has thus been preserved:
It gives me great sorrow to be obliged to write to you, Madame,
now that my nephew’s position vis-à-vis yourself, which has for
long been an unhappy and humiliating one, has become
reprehensible. I feel it is the duty of his nearest relative and best
friend to help him and to lead him out of the situation in spite of
himself: I can no longer tolerate my sister’s son adding to his own
unhappiness the grievous wrong of making the woman who has
joined her destiny to his unhappy as well.
I therefore wish to inform you, Madame, that I know all about
your treatment of my nephew. I know that for several years he has
asked in vain for his freedom, freedom of which you have no right
to deprive him. Out of delicacy and his high regard for your
feelings, he wanted you to give him that freedom yourself, and
remained with you fearing your unworthy threat to end a
blameworthy liaison by a criminal act [i.e. Germaine’s suicide].
Finally, after enduring scenes as violent as they were shocking and
base, he used his right to live his own life and made sacred vows;
he informed you of them, and you, in mockery of human and divine
laws, have kept him in miserable servitude. He has been weak
enough to put up with that servitude out of consideration for the
pain you claim to be suffering and your histrionic grief.
It is my duty to do everything in my power to bring such a
scandal to an end; it is ruining my nephew’s reputation, it has
reduced his father to despair as well as such virtuous relatives and
friends as he has left. Since I also know that, while forcing my
nephew to maintain a guilty silence about his marriage, you are
having the rumour spread about that that marriage never took place
but was merely planned, and that you are painting his legitimate
spouse in the most odious colours, I wish to make clear to you,
Madame, that the whole of Europe will learn of your iniquity. You
enjoy fame, Madame: to that of your writings will now be added
that of your actions so that your moral standards can be judged for
what they are.^41Germaine’s reply has not been preserved, but it is likely that in it she
would have accused Constant of treachery, of having using the time he
Italiam 205