A Bernese noble, he had been reared in aristocratic prejudices, but his life was early embittered by domestic circumstances and the political conditions of his country. After being educated at Oxford, Edinburgh, and in Germany, he was forced by his father to accept the post of Chamberlain at the Court of Brunswick. Ariel in the cloven pine was not more heart-sick, with the difference that Constant’s “delicate” spirit was dashed by a vein of mephistophelian mockery. Some malignant fairy seemed to have linked to his flashing and unerring insight a disposition the most cynical of which man ever carried the burden through sixty-three years of life. Being utterly unwarped by illusion, he could place himself on the side of opposition with telling effect, for he could neither deceive himself nor be deceived by others; and if not rigidly conscientious, he was inexorably logical. At war with the authorities of his native land, too familiarized with order to be further charmed by it, and tired of the solemn absurdities of Court functions, he turned his thoughts towards revolutionary Paris as being, perhaps, the one city in the world which could still afford him a fresh sensation. Moreover, every element of originality and audacity in his brilliant mind was attracted by the amazing spectacle then presented by the Convention. A government which, deprived of organized armies, money, or traditions, confronted with a European coalition, and weighted with the responsibility of crime, had conquered its enemies in the field, and made its will respected from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, was exactly of a kind to fascinate a born combatant like Constant. He arrived, eager to be initiated into that strange world; longing to find himself in the salons of Madame Tallien, Josephine Beauharnais and Madame de Staël. Hitherto his Egeria had been Madame de Charrière, a charming middle-aged monitress, Dutch by birth, but French by right of intellect and choice of language. Her delicate penetration and subtle sympathy with minor moods had doubtless for years responded precisely to his ideal; for if she might not excite neither could she bore him; and she must have understood his fastidious notions even before he could express them. She was, in fact, perfection, as long as he was still too young to mind feeling old; but there necessarily came a moment when that unconscious comedy was played out. The fitful energy of his nature had gradually vanquished his early lassitude, and he needed to renew his utterances at the founts of some Sybilline inspiration.