and Ma Vie, each in their different ways, explore the obstacles, internal and external,
which the modern individual encounters when aspiring to be free.^22
The originality of Constant’s distinction between the ancient and modern worlds, with
Napoleon being firmly placed in the first category and the individual’s rights dominating
the second, brought him literary success at last, and De l’esprit de conquête appeared in
several revised editions. His purpose was to show that a form of government must be in
keeping with the spirit of the age: not only Napoleon but also a restored Bourbon dynasty
bent on revenge and all too likely to slip back into ancien régime absolutism were
anachronisms. Constant believed that an English-style constitutional monarchy under
Bernadotte was what best suited France now. It was an illusion on his part to imagine
such a thing could come about: the crowned heads of Europe who had led the victorious
Allies would not contemplate anything less than a Bourbon on the French throne. But
while that illusion lasted Constant had a new purpose in life. Despite disagreements with
Charlotte and his own uncertainty, he joined Bernadotte at his headquarters in Liège on 7
March 1814 just as a second edition of De l’esprit de conquête by Murray—thanks to
whom Germaine de Staël’s De l’Allemagne had at last been published the previous
year—was appearing in London bookshops. For the next five weeks he waited in Liège,
having been joined there by Auguste de Staël, Germaine’s son. Meanwhile Bernadotte’s
prospects grew ever dimmer. On 11 March Constant was already writing in his diary: ‘I
must jump onto a different branch.’^23 His dealings with the Prince had in any case proved
to be less cordial than he had hoped. By 6 April the Bourbon Louis XVIII was being
proclaimed King in a newly liberated Paris, and on 11 April 1814 Napoleon abdicated.
Bernadotte’s cause was lost.
For a few days Constant was unsure what to do next and accompanied the Prince’s
party to Brussels. He wrote in his Journaux intimes on 11 April that the waters were
muddy in France and that he would stay put until they cleared—then characteristically
decided the next day that he would leave for Paris.^24 He left Brussels on 13 April and
arrived in the French capital with Auguste de Staël on 15 April 1814 after an absence of
just over three years. His first visit was to his faithful correspondent Claude Hochet, and
over the next few weeks he renewed other friendships, with Talleyrand, for example, but
also with members of the Göttingen Gelehrten-Club among the German forces occupying
Paris.^25 The day after his arrival the Journal des Débats published the following brief
report: ‘Monsieur Benjamin Constant, Private Secretary to His Royal Highness the
Crown Prince of Sweden, is accompanying the Prince and arrived this evening in Paris.’
Constant was understandably furious at being publicly compromised by this exaggeration
of his closeness to Bernadotte and insisted that on 18 April the journal publish a
correction written by him:^26 he could hardly serve the cause of liberty in France, as he
now fully intended to once more, if he were seen as supporting a rival to the monarch
now in place. As it was things would look bad enough to an incoming conservative,
Catholic and very probably repressive administration: Constant was a Swiss Protestant
divorcee and ex-Thermidorian with known libertarian tendencies who was rather too fond
of England and Germany and who had wished to prevent the rightful heir from ascending
the French throne.
Constant was impatient to be involved in politics under the Restoration and was drawn
back into writing political journalism while Parisians waited with little enthusiasm for
their new King to enter the capital. After Louis XVIII’s arrival on 3 May, Constant
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