Chapter 1 - Constant's education: the French, Scottish, and German Enlightenments

Summary

CHILDHOOD

Unfortunately, very little evidence about Constant's early childhood and religious education remains. We know that he was born in Lausanne on October 25, 1767 and was baptized in the Calvinist church of Saint-François about two weeks later; but thereafter information is scarce. Benjamin's mother, who died in childbirth, came from a French Protestant family who had emigrated to the Pays de Vaud for religious reasons. Benjamin's father, Juste de Constant, was a Swiss army captain attached to a regiment in the service of the United Provinces. During his early childhood, Constant was placed in the care of various female relatives and his father's young housekeeper and mistress, Marianne Magnin. A prayer dating from these years, which Benjamin probably wrote himself, suggests at least a rudimentary exposure to religion. In any case, the Protestantism prevalent in Lausanne during his childhood was of a liberal and undogmatic variety similar to the rational theology being preached in Geneva. And Juste seems not to have been very concerned about this part of his son's education. A letter written to Marianne in 1772, when Benjamin was six years old, suggests a “reasonable,” almost Deist attitude towards religion and church attendance. “You are a bit too difficult,” writes Juste,

You want that one preaches to you as one would in the city. Sermons should be proportioned to the intelligence of those who are listening. Anyway, one goes to church only to offer one's hommage to the Supreme Being and this hommage should be in the heart and independent of the exterior cult.