50 Facts About Benjamin Constant

Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, or simply Benjamin Constant, was a Franco-Swiss political thinker, activist and writer on political theory and religion.

Benjamin Constant was elected Depute in 1818 and remained in post until his death in 1830.

Besides his numerous essays on political and religious themes, Benjamin Constant wrote on romantic love.

Benjamin Constant was a fervent classical liberal of the early 19th century.

Benjamin Constant refined the concept of liberty, defining it as a condition of existence that allowed the individual to turn away interference from the state or society.

Benjamin Constant's ideas influenced the Trienio Liberal movement in Spain, the Liberal Revolution of 1820 in Portugal, the Greek War of Independence, the November uprising in Poland, the Belgian Revolution, and liberalism in Brazil and Mexico.

Henri-Benjamin Constant was born in Lausanne to the Constant de Rebecque family, descendants of French Huguenots who had fled from Artois to Switzerland during the French Wars of Religion in the 16th century.

Benjamin Constant had to leave after an affair with a girl, and moved to the University of Edinburgh.

In those years European nobility, with their prerogatives, come under heavy attack from those, like Benjamin Constant, who were influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality.

Benjamin Constant's family criticized him for leaving out part of his last name.

Benjamin Constant acted as a maternal mentor to him until Constant's appointment to the court of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel that required him to move north.

Benjamin Constant left the court when the War of the First Coalition began in 1792.

In 1799, after 18 Brumaire, Benjamin Constant was reluctantly appointed, on the insistence of Abbe Sieyes, by Napoleon Bonaparte to the Tribunat, despite grave reservations on the latter's part.

Benjamin Constant became acquainted with Julie Talma, the salonniere wife of actor Francois-Joseph Talma, who wrote many letters to him of compelling human interest.

Benjamin Constant was forced to leave Paris as a result.

Benjamin Constant left de Stael in Leipzig and in 1806 lived in Rouen and Meulan, where he started work on his novel Adolphe.

Benjamin Constant moved back to Paris in 1814, where the French Restoration took place and Louis XVIII had become king.

Benjamin Constant became friends with Madame Recamier while he fell out with Germaine de Stael, who had asked him to pay back his gambling debts when their daughter, Albertine, married Victor de Broglie.

Benjamin Constant became an opponent of Charles X of France during the Restoration between 1815 and 1830.

Benjamin Constant is said to have fathered Albertine de Stael-Holstein, who later married Victor de Broglie.

Benjamin Constant died in Paris on 8 December 1830 and was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

One of the first thinkers to go by the name of "liberal", Benjamin Constant looked to Britain rather than to ancient Rome for a practical model of freedom in a large mercantile society.

Benjamin Constant drew a distinction between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns".

Benjamin Constant criticised several aspects of the French Revolution, and the failures of the social and political upheaval.

Benjamin Constant stated how the French attempted to apply ancient republican liberties to a modern state.

Benjamin Constant realized that freedom meant drawing a line between a person's private life and that of state interference.

Benjamin Constant praised the noble spirit of regenerating the state.

Benjamin Constant even argued that with a large population, man had no role in government regardless of its form or type.

Benjamin Constant emphasised how citizens in ancient states found more satisfaction in the public sphere and less in their private lives whereas modern people favoured their private life.

Benjamin Constant's repeated denunciation of despotism pervaded his critique of French political philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Abbe de Mably.

Benjamin Constant continually condemned despotism, citing the contradiction of a liberty derived from despotism, and the vacuous nature of this ideology.

Benjamin Constant understood the revolutionaries' disastrous over-investment in the political sphere.

Benjamin Constant pointed out how despite the most obscure life, the quietest existence, the most unknown name, it offered no protection during the Reign of Terror.

Benjamin Constant attacked Napoleon's belligerence, on the grounds that it was illiberal and no longer suited to modern commercial social organization.

Benjamin Constant believed that if liberty were to be salvaged from the aftermath of the Revolution, then the chimera of Ancient Liberty had to be reconciled with the practical to achieve Modern Liberty.

Benjamin Constant concluded that constitutional monarchy was better suited than republicanism to maintaining Modern Liberty.

Benjamin Constant was instrumental in drafting the "Acte Additional" of 1815, which transformed Napoleon's restored rule into a modern constitutional monarchy.

Secondly, Benjamin Constant developed a new theory of constitutional monarchy, in which royal power was intended to be a neutral power, protecting, balancing and restraining the excesses of the other active powers.

In making this clear theoretical distinction between the powers of the King and the ministers, Benjamin Constant was responding to the political reality which had become apparent in Britain for more than a century: that is, the ministers, and not the King, are responsible actors, and the King "reigns but does not rule".

Benjamin Constant advocated the separation of powers as a basis for a liberal State, but unlike Montesquieu and most of the liberal thinkers, he advocated five powers instead of three.

Benjamin Constant was an opponent of imperialism and conquest, denouncing French colonial policy in the West Indies and elsewhere as racist, unjust, and a violation of basic principles of human equality.

Benjamin Constant supported an extension of civil and political rights to non-white colonial subjects.

Benjamin Constant supported the Haitian revolution, and argued that the institutions set up by Haitians were evidence that non-Europeans could found institutions equivalent to those of Europeans.

Benjamin Constant was a staunch proponent of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Benjamin Constant is adamant that political authority should not meddle in the religious beliefs of the citizenry, even to defend them.

Benjamin Constant condemns a religion that is commonly regarded as utilitarian, since it degrades authentic religious feeling.

Benjamin Constant considers that it was necessary for polytheism to decline in line with human progress.

Benjamin Constant published only one novel during his lifetime, Adolphe, the story of a young, indecisive man's disastrous love affair with an older mistress.

Benjamin Constant began the novel as an autobiographical tale of two loves, but decided that the reading public would object to serial passions.

Benjamin Constant was Isabelle de Charriere, a Dutch woman of letters with whom he jointly wrote an epistolary novel, under the title, Les Lettres d'Arsille fils, Sophie Durfe et autres.