Benjamin Constant

those aspects of life and art which are deadly serious. Humour arises

when the things we most love or fear are tested to the limit, when we

allow ourselves to consider for a moment that what we regard as

everything is in fact nothing. In this sense, humour is the capacity to

be radical, to pull up settled things and look at their roots.

(‘How to play the piano’, London Review of Books, vol. 14, no.

6 [26 March 1992], p. 7)

These comments would apply equally well to Constant, and strike me as much

nearer to the reality than Han Verhoeff’s view that the basis of Constant’s laughter

was aggression directed at his listeners (op. cit., p. 92).

29. Rudler, Jeunesse, p. 126.


30. Ibid.


31. Ibid.


32. Benjamin et Rosalie de Constant, Correspondance 1786–1830, ed. Alfred et
    Suzanne Roulin, Paris: Gallimard, 1955, p. 3, letter of 19 March 1786.


33. Charrière, Œuvres, III, p. 56.


34. Charrière, Œuvres, IV, p. 182, letter of 25 September 1793.


35. Ma Vie, ed. C.P.Courtney, p. 15.


36. Rudler, Jeunesse, pp. 142–3.


37. Ibid., pp. 143–4.


38. Ibid., p. 144.


39. Ibid., p. 145.


40. Ma Vie, ed. C.P.Courtney, p. 17.


41. Lausanne, Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire, Fonds Constant II, 34/13, MS of
    Ma Vie, f. 22 verso.


42. Constant, Œuvres, p. 1458.


43. William [et Clara de Charrière] de Sévery, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 151–2.


44. Le Journal de Gibbon à Lausanne 17 août 1763–19 avril 1764, ed. Georges
    Bonnard, Lausanne: Librairie de l’Université, Lausanne, F. Rouge & Cie S.A.
    (Université de Lausanne, Publications de la Faculté des Lettres, VIII), 1945, p. 59.
    The Latin quotation is from Juvenal’s Satires, IV, 2.


45. It is clear that they corresponded from Constant’s letters of 4 August 1789 and 17
    September 1790 to Isabelle de Charrière (Charrière, Œuvres, III, pp. 144, 236 and
    648).


46. Charles de Constant’s description in his Journal, quoted in Rudler, Jeunesse, p. 38.


47. Charrière, Œuvres, III, p. 144.


48. Ibid. (letter of 4 August 1789).


49. Ma Vie, ed. C.P.Courtney, p. 15.


50. Ibid., pp. 18–20.


51. Information from Charles de Constant’s Journal, Rudler, Jeunesse, pp. 150–1.


52. See Philippe Godet, Madame de Charrière et ses amis d’après de nombreux
    documents inédits (1740–1805),Geneva: Jullien, 1906 , 2 vols (reprinted Geneva:

List of abbreviations 281