(1758–1834), who remained unmarried and became a close friend and
lifelong correspondent; her sister Louise-Philippine, known as Lisette, also
unmarried (1759–1837); their brother Juste (‘le Jeune’) (1760–93), an
officer in the service of Holland, who died after being wounded at
Tourcoing; and Charles-Samuel (1762–1835), involved in commerce with
China and sometimes known because of this as Charles le Chinois, often a
severe (and occasionally shrewd) critic of Benjamin and of his father
Juste.
Constant’s mother, Henriette-Pauline de Chandieu (4 September 1742–10 November
1767), traced her ancestry back to one of the leading Protestant figures in the French
Reformation, Antoine de La Roche Chandieu from the Dauphiné region, who sought
refuge in Geneva in 1564 and later Lausanne, and who acquired citizenship of Geneva.
The first wife of Henriette’s father, Benjamin de Chandieu-Villars (1710–84), Françoise-
Marie-Charlotte, née de Montrond (1722–77), gave birth to ten children of whom four
daughters survived: Constant’s mother Henriette who died shortly after he was born; her
sister Anne-Marie-Pauline-Andrienne (1744–1814) who became Comtesse de Nassau on
marrying Count Lodewijk Theodoor de Nassau La Lecq (1741–95) in 1768, and who lost
her only child Louis, aged 24, in 1794—Anne de Nassau was always one of Benjamin’s
closest and most cherished relatives and he corresponded with her until her death;
Henriette’s elder sister Catherine-Louise-Jacqueline (1741–96) who married Salomon de
Charrière de Sévery (1724–93) in 1766; and Henriette’s youngest sister Antoinette-
Pauline (1760–1840) who was to marry Jean-Samuel de Loys (1761–1825) in 1784.
None of Constant’s eight cousins by these various marriages were as important in his life
as his uncle Samuel de Constant’s children, but worthy of note are Catherine de Charrière
de Sévery’s son Wilhelm (1767–1838), with whom there was mutual antipathy, and
Pauline de Loys’s daughters Antoinette (1785–1861) and Andrienne (1789–1850)—
Constant considered marrying one or other of them in January 1806 (see Constant,
Œuvres, p. 560, journal entry for 2 January 1806).
As will become clear in a later chapter, Benjamin Constant was unaware until some
years after the event that his father Juste had at an unknown date married Jeanne-
Suzanne-Marie, known as Marianne Magnin (1752–1820), a clever village girl from
Bettens who was Constant’s governess from an early age and whom he intensely disliked.
Juste had in fact forcibly taken her away from her parents in 1761 when she was 9 in
order to have her educated at his own expense, with the intention of later making her his
mistress. Contrary to what might be expected, Marianne became devoted to Juste, who
was twenty-six years older than herself. After the death of Henriette de Chandieu, whose
loss permanently and profoundly affected him, Juste turned once again to his protégée,
and there exist both a promise of marriage to Marianne signed by Juste and dated 22 July
1772 and a marriage contract dated Dijon, 11 July 1792. By this second marriage to
Marianne Juste had two more children, Charles-Louis, known as Charles de Rebecque
(1784–1864), who pursued a military career and later one in agriculture, and Louise-
Philippine (1792–1860), who married Claude-Louis-François-Marie Balluet
d’Estournelles (1772–1837) in 1817. Although at first resentful of the consequences for
his own income of Juste’s ‘second family’, after the death of their father in 1812 and of
their mother in 1820 Benjamin Constant increasingly assumed a semi-parental role vis-à-
Benjamin constant 2