learning of Constant’s plans became as violent as ever, and she used all of the very
considerable means at her disposal to prevent the marriage, possibly enlisting Constant’s
father to her cause as well as ensuring that the whole of Genevan society was hostile to
the union. At that point Constant seems to have begun to lose interest in Amélie, a
woman about whom he had in any case never been enormously enthusiastic—it was the
escape and the change which she had seemed to offer that had been important.
Constant’s Principes de politique were now complete,^40 but it was impossible to
publish the treatise in the current political climate where even a novel like Delphine was
likely to be objected to by the authorities. Instead he began a history of the reign of
Frederick the Great, hoping to be able surreptitiously to slip in some political
observations relevant to the present time: this history was likewise destined to remain
unfinished and unpublished in its entirety in his lifetime.^41 He returned to Paris in the first
half of April and thence to a new property, Les Herbages, which he had bought in
September 1802. It was within a couple of miles of Hérivaux (which he had now sold),
but much smaller and more manageable. From Les Herbages he now wrote to Bonaparte
on 15 April 1803 asking that Madame de Staël be allowed to live in France, the country
where she was born, while he himself undertook to abstain from political activity and to
concentrate on his scholarly activities. His request was ignored.^42 Germaine continued to
write Constant letters of complaint about his treatment of her, but although his conscience
was uneasy, his days and nights were now at least his own. During the summer of 1803
he was able to lead the agreeably quiet existence of a country gentleman at Les Herbages,
riding, seeing neighbours, supervising the refurbishment of the house, rarely visiting
Paris, reading German lives of Frederick the Great, writing (though with no certainty that
Bonaparte would ever permit him to publish what he wrote), annotating the manuscript of
his friend Claude Fauriel’s essay on the last days of the Consulate^43 ...and meeting Anna
Lindsay again, the latter event leading Julie Talma to fear^44 —with some justification—
that he might mislead Anna and hurt her again. War broke out with Great Britain in May
1803 after the year-long truce. Germaine was still in exile in Switzerland, though she had
been finding some consolation in the company of visiting Englishmen. Constant’s wish to
be free was undiminished, and he was now firmly supported in it by his cousin Rosalie’s
letters to him.^45
In the midst of this, according to Cécile, Constant received a letter from Charlotte on 7
August 1803, the first for several years.^46 Having remarried, to a penniless French
royalist, the Vicomte Alexandre Du Tertre (or Dutertre) in 1798 (on learning the news
Constant had felt a pang of regret and annoyance), she had been in Paris for three months
and had heard that Constant was living alone and in penury, in a hovel in the country: she
generously offered him money. Again according to Cécile, Constant wrote back declining
to accept anything.^47 Smiling no doubt at this reminder of Charlotte’s endearing and at
times infuriating obtuseness, he went to Paris to meet her, but she had already left for
Geneva. They nevertheless corresponded during August and September 1803. In
September Madame de Staël returned to France and Constant dutifully went to meet her
at Nangis, near Fontainebleau. He had advised her it was imprudent to return to Paris and,
predictably, on 3 October 1803 Bonaparte ordered her to leave France. It was possible
that Constant himself might soon be exiled as well. He left with Germaine and two of her
children for the east of France at the end of October, with the intention of finding a haven
in Germany: as he would recall in Cécile, he could not now abandon such a close friend
Benjamin constant 182