LAUSANNE FROM THE SIGNAL
[CHAPTER V]
BENJAMIN CONSTANT AND MADAME DE STAËL
Next, though they do not become interesting until a somewhat later date, we may mention the Constants: Rosalie de Constant, the witty little hunchback whose sentimental correspondence with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has recently been published, and her more famous cousin, Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, the story of whose love for Madame de Staël has recently been revived.[5] That is another story which will be here in its proper place.
Benjamin was a man of many love-affairs; 'Constant the inconstant' was the name that women called him by. He was the son of a Swiss soldier of fortune, and had a cosmopolitan education at Oxford and Edinburgh, in Belgium and in Germany. In his youth he held the post of Chamberlain at the Court of Brunswick, where he acquired distingished manners. He was brilliant, though shallow, and there was something Wertheresque about him.
Born in 1767, he was married, in 1789, to the ugliest of the Duchess of Brunswick's maids of honour. He said afterwards that he had married her for no particular reason that he could remember, but that his reasons for divorcing her were clear enough. After his separation from her, he consoled himself by an intrigue with Madame de Charrière—a Dutch lady, married to a Switzer, residing at Colombier, near Neuchâtel, and known as the authoress of several sentimental novels. It was an affair that could hardly have lasted long in any case, seeing that the lady was twenty-seven years older than her lover. As a matter of fact it came to a quick end when the lover met Madame de Staël.
The details of that meeting are curious. Being at Lausanne, Benjamin Constant set out to call on Madame de Staël at Coppet. His relatives already knew, and he was interested to make her acquaintance. It happened that he met Madame de Staël on the road, driving from Coppet to Lausanne. He stopped the carriage and introduced himself. She invited him to get in, and drove him back. Finding his company agreeable, she pressed him to stay to supper with her. He did so, and was farther rewarded by an invitation to breakfast with his hostess on the following morning.
It was to Madame de Charrière herself that Benjamin Constant first confided the impression that Madame de Staël had made upon him.