letter still in the Von Marenholtz family archives at Wolfenbüttel, sent from Fort Royal,
Martinique in the French West Indies, dated January or February 1831 and bearing
thirteen signatures. It refers to Constant’s campaign to end the slave trade, and in
particular his attempts in July 1829 to obtain civil and political rights for the coloured
peoples of Guadeloupe and Martinique:
How could we forget the Honourable Deputy who by his efforts did
so much to abolish, at least in part, the revolting ill-treatment of
which we were the victims? ... The entire family of coloured
peoples [la famille entière de Couleur] dares to hope that in your
justifiable grief you will deign to accept the expression of the
regrets which his loss inspires in us—the loss of a man who was
always the staunchest supporter of our rights.Charlotte’s own death occurred on 22 July 1845 and was a particularly
painful one. She was in bed one night when somehow the strings of her
bonnet caught light from the lamp or candle she was using. She sustained
terrible burns from which she died some days later. Her beloved son
Wilhelm von Marenholtz was at her side during her last hours. He
subsequently inherited her papers, which returned to the family home at
Groß Schwülper near Brunswick.^11
Constant’s literary reputation suffered the usual decline that follows on a writer’s
death, recovering towards the end of the nineteenth century with a revival of interest in
the self-analysis of Adolphe, perhaps the most quintessential French roman d’analyse, on
the part of Anatole France, Paul Bourget and others.^12 The twentieth century saw the
establishment of Adolphe as one of the acknowledged classics of French literature, a
renewal of scholarly interest in Constant’s life and very many books and articles on his
work. In the 1970s and 1980s the reaction against Marxism and the growth of interest in
the origins of liberalism gave further impetus to research into Constant’s political writing.
It is fair to say that at the end of the twentieth century his reputation rests on his work as a
novelist and introspective—a fact which would have genuinely surprised him—and on
his work on political theory, which would have perhaps been some consolation to him for
the neglect into which his writings on religious history have fallen. Among the great
literary figures of nineteenth-century France, Constant remains nevertheless one of the
least explored. Proof of this is in the continued discovery year by year of hitherto lost or
unknown documents and letters that have lain hidden in various parts of Europe and
beyond—a process now hastened by preliminary surveys in preparation for the
publication of Constant’s complete works and correspondence.^13 For any given year of
Constant’s life information is likely to surface about an obscure area that may confound
the biographer’s speculations. The author of this very provisional biography will be
happy to see his speculations give way to the truth when that truth is finally uncovered.
Epilogue 266