By August 1785, when Juste took his son from Paris to Brussels, it must have seemed
to Benjamin that he was once again adrift, and that the friendship and high-minded
intellectual enthusiasm of Edinburgh could not be found again. Paradise was permanently
lost, and he was once more a prey to his own fast-developing vices. It was in Brussels,
however, that Constant met a woman of whom the later recollection produced in him a
genuine pang of regret and a feeling of gratitude that lasted into his middle age. At her
invitation they became lovers; for nine years she had been the wife of a Genevan, Joseph-
Jean Johannot (1748–1829). Marie-Charlotte Johannot, née Aguiton, asked for so little in
return, if we are to accept Ma Vie’s version of events: she was tender, suffered much
from being married to an unfaithful husband, and until she died, says Constant, he was
never able to hear anyone say her name without his being deeply moved.^9 Her death is
one of the many women’s deaths which Constant chronicles, and both its sad
circumstances (she took poison because of Monsieur Johannot’s treatment of her^10 ) and
the quality of her love for Constant produce a moment of pathos in Ma Vie where,
evidently overcome by his memory of her, Constant allows his style to falter as he repeats
how long ago it now is, and how little his feelings have changed towards her though she
is now dead. The sympathy, the distant pity, and perhaps also the twinge of guilt are, as
we saw in an earlier chapter, profoundly characteristic of Constant.
But on this occasion we are privileged in being able to see the other side of the
relationship, through three extant letters in Madame Johannot’s hand and addressed to her
lover Constant shortly before Juste took him away from Brussels in November 1785. And
they broadly confirm Constant’s picture of the relationship, while adding a note of
remorse for her infidelity to her husband which is absent from Ma Vie’s version of
events. The first letter chronologically deserves to be quoted in full:
What are you asking of me? Haven’t you sufficient proofs of my
weakness already without adding another to them, the imprudence
of which I might live to regret? No, my dear friend. Even if I had
no doubts at all about your discretion, all other considerations
would still forbid me from enjoying the pleasure of being with you.
It is high time I listened to the voice of reason: it tells me that, far
from reinforcing those feelings that are already too powerful in my
heart, I ought to be rooting them out. Therefore this will be the last
occasion I shall allow myself to speak to you about them. I beg of
you, respect my peace of mind enough not to disturb it further.
Follow your own destiny, and forget me. The effort will cost you
little: make it in order to please society—society which will erase
the memory of a woman who had no other merit than to have
recognized yours; a woman who, whatever your feelings may be
towards her, will always be thinking about you wherever you may
be and filled with most earnest hopes for your happiness.
I shall not see you at all today, I shall stay at home. Perhaps you
are leaving tomorrow: the very thought of your going prevents me
from writing any more or else I would lose my composureIsabelle de charriere 67