CONSTANT DE REBECQUE, BENJAMIN-HENRI. - Writer, polemicist, orator, b. at Lausanne on 25 Oct. 1767 to a Protestant family, d. at Paris on 8 Dec. 1830. He studied at Oxford, Erlangen, Edinburgh, and already at the age of twelve composed a heroic poem in five cantos, Les chevaliers. A restless and passionate spirit, greedy for emotions and pleasures, endowed with fervid imagination but skeptical and irresolute, he led an adventurous and troubled life, especially because of his active participation in the political movements of his time and the violent amorous passions in which he became embroiled. In 1794 he met at Lausanne A. de Staël, who exercised a great influence on his life. He was with her in exile, and at Weimar he met Goethe and Schiller.

The fruit of this encounter is a mediocre translation of Schiller's Wallenstein. During his exile, C. wrote De la religion considérée dans sa source, ses formes et ses développements (5 vols., 1824-31), a work considerable for its anti-utilitarian vision of religion, in which, however, the progress of the human spirit is conceived in the autonomy of religion from Revelation, from the authority of the Church, from reasoning itself, the intimate sense of each individual, feeling, being sufficient. For this reason the work was placed on the Index (decree of 11 June 1827). In 1807, in only fifteen days, he wrote his masterpiece, Adolphe, which, reworked subsequently, was published at London in 1816. It is a predominantly autobiographical novel: the story of an unhappy love, destroyed by the clash of temperaments, which the writer analyzes in all its phases with a depth and a sobriety worthy of the greatest classics. The same gifts of psychologist and writer are found in the Journal intime and the Cahier rouge, published respectively in 1874 and 1907, of extreme importance for their fine introspective analysis of a frankly Romantic flavor. Numerous are the writings of a political and literary character that C. collected above all in the Discours (1828) and the Mélanges de politique et de littérature (1829). Of fundamental importance is the Cours de politique constitutionnelle, a vast attempt to develop the concept of liberty as a dialectic of thought and action. Suggestive is the anti-Napoleonic libel De l'esprit de conquête et de l'usurpation (1814), rich in the fascination of legitimacy and, at the same time, of the most convinced liberalism.

Bibliography14 works

BIBL.: Works: The Oeuvres politiques of B. C. were published by Ch. Louandre, Paris 1874; the Lettres à M. me de Récamier by M. me Lenormant, ibid. 1882; the Lettres à sa famille by J. H. Messos, ibid. 1888; that to M. me de Charrère, in Revue de Paris, 1894. Literature: V. Glachant, B. C. sous l'oeil du guet, Paris 1906 (with bibl.); G. Rudler, La jeunesse de B. C., ibid. 1909; M. Ortiz, introduction to the translation of Adolphe, Florence 1923; J. Hyster, Les romans de l'individu: C., Sainte Beuve..., ibid. 1928; P. L. Léon, B. C., ibid. 1930; A. Romieu, B. C. et l'esprit européen, ibid. 1933; G. Rudler, "Adolphe de B. C.", ibid. 1935; W. Bach, B. C. und die Politik, 1767-1802. Eine psychologische-historische Studie, Leipzig 1936; F. Neri, Adolfo ed Ellenora, in Saggi di lett. ital., franc., ingl., Naples 1936, pp. 181-188; A. Fabre-Luce, B. C., Leipzig 1939; H. Gouzelot, L'idée de la liberté dans la pensée de B. C., Melun 1942.

Maria Teresa Sposato

@incollection{ec4_constant_de_rebecque_benjamin, author = {Sposato, Maria Teresa}, title = {Constant de Rebecque, benjamin-henri}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {420--421}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/constant-de-rebecque-benjamin-henri} }

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Constant de Rebecque, Benjamin-Henri

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