himself for me two years ago in Saumur, Monsieur Caffé, has very
recently been condemned to death. I believe him to be innocent and I
fear that the support he gave me in 1820 may have been the cause of
his condemnation. Obtain a pardon for him from the King, and I will
not seek re-election. I am keen to remain active in political life, but I
am much more concerned about saving the life of a man who risked
everything for me.
Constant added: ‘If your reply is favourable, I undertake to keep the real reason for
my withdrawal from the elections a secret’ (quoted in Jean-Jacques Coulmann’s
Réminiscences, Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1862–9 [Slatkine Reprints, Geneva,
1973], 3 vols, vol. III, p. 66).
- Kurt Kloocke, op. cit., p. 364.
- Norman King et Jean-Daniel Candaux, ‘La correspondance de Benjamin Constant et
de Sismondi (1801–1830)’, ABC, no. 1 (1980), p. 152.
- Kurt Kloocke, op. cit., p. 365, and C.P.Courtney, A Bibliography of Editions of the
Writings of Benjamin Constant, London: Modern Humanities Research Association,
1981, p. 130, item 58. In the Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel, there is a
contract between Constant and the publisher Béchet dated 24 November 1824
concerning volume II and subsequent volumes of De la religion of which 2,100
copies of each were to be printed by Didot (MS 264 N II s. 12 Nr 23, ‘Lettres
d’affaires de Benjamin Constant’).
- The most lucid study of Constant’s work on religion is that of Pierre Deguise,
Benjamin Constant méconnu. Le Livre ‘De la Religion’, Geneva: Droz, 1966. His
book of selections from De la religion (Lausanne: Bibliothèque romande, 1971)
contains an equally illuminating ‘Postface’ (pp. 263–74).
- Kurt Kloocke, op. cit., p. 287.
- J.-J.Coulmann, op. cit.
- Kurt Kloocke, op. cit., p. 366, and Benjamin et Rosalie de Constant,
Correspondance 1786–1830, ed. Alfred et Suzanne Roulin, Paris: Gallimard, 1955,
pp. 252–3.
- Kurt Kloocke, op. cit., p. 366. Kloocke notes that Constant’s correspondence with
Baron d’Eckstein remains unpublished.
- The changes are listed in Benjamin Constant, Adolphe. Anecdote trouvée dans les
papiers d’un inconnu, ed. C.P.Courtney, Oxford: Basil Blackwell (Blackwell French
Texts), 1989, pp. 101–24.
- The French text of the letter was first published in Dennis Wood, ‘The Von
Marenholtz Papers: Constant in Wolfenbüttel’, French Studies Bulletin, 24 (Autumn
1987), pp. 5–10.
- Paul Bastid, Benjamin Constant et sa doctrine, Paris: Armand Colin, 1966, 2 vols,
vol. 1, p. 441.
- Quoted in Harold Nicolson, Benjamin Constant, London: Constable, 1949, p. 246.
- Quoted in Victor Glachant, Benjamin Constant sous l’œil du guet, Paris: Plon-
Nourrit, 1906, p. 548.
List of abbreviations 313
