occasional readings of his novel as he had in Paris, worked on the Memoirs concerning
the Hundred Days and waited for Charlotte to join him. When she did, on 1 December
1815, he noted grimly in his diary the following day:
Sad but important day. Positive developments: 1. my wife hardly
cares for me any more; 2. she came here out of what is left of her
friendship for me, but she would have done better to stay in
Germany without me; 3. she is German and fanatically anti-French,
and would be my ruination if ever she came to France. It’s
fortunate that she didn’t come. Hence these two rules: 1. don’t take
her to France at any price and 2. resettle her gently in Germany.^58As Madame de Charrière had once perceptively remarked, as soon as
Constant expressed a feeling it meant that it was already about to vanish.
And indeed by Christmas he was entirely reconciled to ‘le Linon’ as he
called his wife. On 21 January 1816 his long-planned departure for
England could take place.
The end of an empire 229