- On this curious episode see Pierre Deguise, Benjamin Constant méconnu. Le Livre
‘De la Religion’, Geneva: Droz, 1966, pp. 89–115; Frank Paul Bowman, ‘L’épisode
quiétiste dans Cécile’, in Benjamin Constant. Actes du congrès Benjamin Constant
(Lausanne, octobre 1967), ed. Pierre Cordey et Jean-Luc Seylaz, op. cit., pp. 97–
108; and Eugène Susini, Charles de Langalerie (1751–1835) et son entourage, Les
Cahiers de Saint-Martin, vol. VI, 1987. The historical background to religious
movements like the Lausanne Ames intérieures is given in Auguste Viatte’s standard
work, Les Sources occultes du romantisme. Illuminisme—Théosophie 1770–1820,
Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1965, 2 vols. Vol. II contains a section on
Constant (pp. 206–9). - Cécile, ed. Paul Delbouille, pp. 216–24. It must be stressed that the account of
events given in Cécile belongs to the fictional world of an autobiographical novel
and is therefore less reliable as evidence than, say, the Journaux intimes or
Constant’s correspondence. On the question of Constant’s ‘conversion’ in 1807, as
Pierre Deguise neatly puts it (op. cit., p. 91), the various sources differ significantly:
‘Cécile says yes. The Journal intime is more vague, and Rosalie de Constant [in her
correspondence] says no’. - Constant, Œuvres, p. 656.
- Menos, p. 483.
- Constant, Œuvres, p. 665.
- Constant, Œuvres, pp. 665–6.
- On the composition and publication of Wallstein see the critical edition by Jean-
René Derré, Wallstein. Tragédie en cinq actes et en vers de Benjamin Constant,
Paris: Les Belles Lettres, [1965], esp. pp. 1–44. - Constant, Œuvres, p. 664.
- Cécile, ed. Paul Delbouille, pp. 225–7.
- Constant, Œuvres, pp. 674 and 677.
- Cécile, ed. Paul Delbouille, p. 232.
- Menos, pp. 240–1.
- Wolfenbüttel, Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, MS 264 N II s. 12 Nr 23, ‘Papiers
concernant le divorce de Mme de Constant [d’]avec M. du Tertre’, Extrait des
Registres du Greffe de l’Officialité de Paris. - The marriage certificate signed by Pastor Jean-Henry Ebray was added to the Von
Marenholtz family papers already held at the Niedersächsisches Staatsar-chiv,
Wolfenbüttel, in 1986 by Alexander Freiherr von Marenholtz-Nolde, together with a
legal document on parchment dividing up Constant’s estate after his death, ‘Partage
de la succession de M.Benjamin Constant’ dated Paris, 2 February 1831. Along with
the marriage certificate there is another document, MS 264 N II s. 12 Nr 28,
Document signé George Rouge Notaire public à Lausanne [certifying that the
marriage certificate presented by Constant showing that he was married to Charlotte
by ‘Monsieur Ebray de l’Eglise réformé[e]’on 5 June 1808 is genuine]. - A number of colloquia have taken place in recent years giving a long-overdue
account of the wide variety of intellectual interests among the cosmopolitan
membership of the Coppet Group from the late 1790s to Madame de Staël’s death,
for example Le Groupe de Coppet. Actes et documents du deuxième Colloque de
List of abbreviations 302