didn’t owe anyone, in order to make the children of a peasant girl
rich. It is not, my dear Aunt, that I think I am likely to lose this
cruel court case if it takes place, but it is so painful to fight it that I
am devoid of life when I am occupied with it, and yet in spite of
myself it is on my mind day and night. I have never been so
unhappy in my life. Göttingen is a bad place to be when one is in
this state of mind. There are no amusements here: work alone
makes life here bearable, and when one is in no fit state to work, as
I am, I have only one depressing thought on my mind, which also
bores me with its unchanging monotony. My wife is an angel and
sometimes shakes me out of my mood of dejection, and I owe her
the only good moments I enjoy. Perhaps we will go and find some
distractions in Kassel for two or three days.^72It is difficult to resist passing a somewhat harsher judgement on Juste than
Constant could ever bring himself to do, even in Ma Vie: quite apart from
his treatment of Benjamin in his childhood, his behaviour during
Constant’s mature years was characterized by a lack of consideration that
almost defies belief. For years he failed to tell his son about his marriage
to Marianne, or about Benjamin’s blood relationship to Charles and
Louise, yet he had demanded months—indeed years—of his son’s time to
defend him in legal actions in Holland, some of which were ill-advised,
and which may have helped destroy Constant’s marriage to Minna von
Cramm. Juste then asked for money back to support his new family from a
son who admittedly had by now lost much of it through reckless gambling
and extravagant living with Germaine, but who had at least honestly
believed that the money was his to lose. He betrayed Benjamin at a crucial
moment in his life by siding with Madame de Staël, probably in the hope
of obtaining money for Charles and Louise from her, then set in motion a
process of legal harassment that would have meant Constant’s almost
certain ruination. On 4 January 1812 he began an action in Paris to have
Constant’s possessions there seized.
73
Fate stepped in, however, and
Constant was saved from disaster by Juste’s death on 2 February 1812,
news of which reached him in Brunswick on 19 February.^74
He was spending some time there with Charlotte (4–23 February 1812), and had been
overcome by memories of his youth, of Minna and of Mauvillon. He saw Minna again at
a soirée, and spent an evening with Mauvillon’s widow Marie Louise. The Duke of
Brunswick had long since been deposed by Napoleon, and the old city was now part of
the newly created Kingdom of Westphalia—but in an Empire in which cracks were
already visible and in which resistance was increasing. (The Emperor, meanwhile, was
turning his attention to Tsar Alexander’s Russia, one of the few countries of Europe not
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