to be under his sway. It was of course to prove one of the greatest mistakes in modern
history.) Constant’s stay in Brunswick had been a melancholy affair even before the
devastating news about Juste reached him. On 12 February there was an angry scene with
Charlotte and he wrote in his diary, ‘I would not put money on our living together for the
rest of our lives’.^75 Three days later they argued bitterly over politics and Constant was
appalled at the quality of her intellect. When he finally learned that his father was dead
and that there was now no possibility of a reconciliation, he packed and returned to
Göttingen with Charlotte. There he fell to looking through his old papers, wondered
whether after all he had been in the wrong with Juste—then wrote in his diary on 28
February 1812: ‘Worked. My father would have been pleased with my book.’^76
Benjamin constant 214