The Red Notebook (Alma Classics) Read online

  The Red Notebook

  Benjamin Constant

  Translated by Douglas Parmée

  ALMA CLASSICS

  ALMA CLASSICS LTD

  London House

  243-253 Lower Mortlake Road

  Richmond

  Surrey TW9 2LL

  United Kingdom

  www.almaclassics.com

  The Red Notebook first published in French as Le Cahier rouge in 1907

  This translation first published by Alma Classics Ltd in 2011

  Translation and Introduction © Douglas Parmée, 2011

  Cover image © Corbis Images

  Printed in Great Britain

  ISBN: 978-1-84749-276-0

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

  Contents

  Introduction

  The Red Notebook

  1772

  1774–76

  1776–77

  1777–78

  1778–79

  1779–80

  1780–81

  1781–82

  1783

  1783–84

  1784–85

  1785–86

  1786–87

  Notes

  Introduction

  As an author of autobiographical fiction, Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque is best known for his novel Adolphe, which, first published in 1816, has enjoyed continuing success. In later life he was to write many works on politics and religion, but he also wrote two shorter autobiographical works, which remained long unpublished: The Red Notebook (named after the cahier in which the text was written), which first appeared in 1907, and part of an unfinished novel, Cécile, which carries his autobiography on from The Red Notebook and did not appear in print until 1951.

  Given its brevity, relative unfamiliarity and rather fragmentary structure, The Red Notebook has never achieved the stature of Adolphe, although a number of the incidents it relates also appear in that novel. It is, or purports to be, an autobiography covering the period from the author’s birth in 1767 to his twentieth year. Internal evidence and Constant’s correspondence suggest that its composition was spread over many years; the author may have started work on it as early as the mid-1790s and did not set it finally aside until well after the publication of Adolphe in 1816. Its readers will benefit from this lengthy period of gestation: the delay gave Constant time to manipulate facts, leave many out, and, above all, express or hint at the views of a mature man in his younger self. But just as readers of Adolphe are not concerned about the exact blend of truth and fiction, we can read The Red Notebook as a fictional Bildungsroman, a portrait of a young man growing up – a process by no means complete by the end of the text. (Indeed, the author’s diaries suggest that he himself never truly grew up.) The narrator of The Red Notebook is by no means the only protagonist in fiction of whom this might be said: Stendhal’s Fabrice in The Charterhouse of Parma and Julien Sorel in The Red and the Black immediately come to mind.

  The Red Notebook teems with odd characters and odd events, so many, indeed, that one of its messages seems to be that so-called “normal” people are rather rare birds. After the narrator the most significant figure in The Red Notebook is the former’s father, who frequently emerges from the background with important consequences. Constant’s father was the colonel of a Swiss regiment in the service of Holland – it was a common practice for Swiss regiments to act as mercenaries for other nations. It is, moreover, important to note the significance of Benjamin Constant’s Swiss origins: Switzerland was a neutral country and in those troubled times its citizens could travel far more freely in Europe than those from countries often at war. Constant’s father as represented in the book is an enigma: well intentioned, kindly and, for reasons never fully disclosed – ambiguity is also one of Constant’s constant ploys – apparently an excessively, almost incredibly indulgent parent. He is also muddle-headed, prejudiced and incompetent – in real life he caused members of his regiment to mutiny, which led to a court martial and his dismissal from the service, an incident referred to in The Red Notebook, with little detail, as an act of “injustice”.

  These first twenty years of Constant’s life as related in the book fall into a number of sections; it is, in part, a picaresque novel, containing much travel – being constantly on the move becomes a way of life for Benjamin. And we see a good deal of the other main feature of the picaresque novel: roguery. It also includes a number of other strands, notably a hint of Constant’s later, naturally very complicated political commitments, but the tale itself ends inconclusively with a trivial, amusing anecdote – does this inconclusiveness itself not form a part of its moral? We are left with the impression of an interesting young man: intelligent, gifted, sensitive – as well as snobbish, selfish, vulnerable, immature and quite unready to come to terms with life. Written as it was by the older Constant, it contains cold-blooded assessments of the author’s early weaknesses, vanity and self-deceit; but readers will find themselves wondering whether he might not have known that he was behaving like a clown even at the time – on this matter we are left constantly in suspense.

  The story of Constant’s life is taken up in Cécile, which covers the period from 1793 to 1808. Constant had already written of his desire to settle down, of his need for affection, and indeed one of his first priorities as described in this later book is to get married, although this turns out to be complete folly. He later said (he was an expert in hindsight) that he married out of pity, weakness and a desire to make a personal commitment – as well, perhaps, as masochism: his cousin Rosalie describes his wife as ugly, deeply pockmarked, with bloodshot eyes, and very skinny. How odd! Even more odd is that, quite soon, despite her appearance, she finds a man who loves her. After the end of the author’s marriage Cécile goes on to recount his further sentimental education until, finally, the literary intellectual Madame de Staël arrives on the scene and, after further typical hesitations, Constant realizes that he has found his true love, or rather his true theme. He dropped Cécile, never to return to it, and started on his masterpiece, Adolphe.

  He continued to work on The Red Notebook, but the publication of Adolphe marked the end of Constant’s interest in publishing fiction. He turned to politics, an interest he pursued for the rest of his life and on which he wrote prolifically. He also wrote and published a great deal on religion: his history of polytheism (briefly, amusingly and slightingly mentioned in The Red Notebook) appeared posthumously in 1833.

  The Red Notebook is an ingenious and incontrovertibly amusing piece of writing which, despite lacking an ending, can bear comparison with any short fiction, even with the stories of such a master as Mérimée. It covers a wide range of experiences, some of them absurd, which surely makes Constant somewhat of a precursor of modern trends. Certain sections are almost farcical – some of his extravagant love affairs, for example – but they are recounted with a deadpan factuality that makes them credible. His discovery of his “real self” in England, even if it is in part untrue, gives charming insights into youthful, quickly discarded enthusiasms as well as into others permanently valid: his discovery of natural beauty is an obvious example, as is his urge to travel, something that has become endemic. One of the principal charms of The Red Notebook is Constant’s consistent volatility and uncertainty: nothing is quite what it seems for very long, the to
ne is often ironic and much remains ambiguous, attributes very appealing to modern sensibilities. To this extent Constant’s work is very up to date, as well as having the attractively piquant flavour of the eighteenth century.

  Flaubert once stated, doubtless in one of his black moods, that children read for diversion, that it is the ambitious who read to be instructed and that the best reason for reading is in order to learn how to live. If we apply these rather magisterial statements to The Red Notebook, we must admit that we gain very little hard knowledge from the work: an interesting glimpse into travel in England and into English country life in general, perhaps, as well as a picture of life in Paris, albeit in certain, rather limited, circles; but it doesn’t add up to much. Nevertheless, the very essence of The Red Notebook, the leaven of the whole lump, is its teaching about life and how it should be lived – indeed, warnings of how not to live are scattered in abundance throughout the work – as we get to know very intimately a narrator who is just beginning to learn this difficult art.

  – Douglas Parmée

  I am glad to acknowledge my debt to the edition of The Red Notebook published in 1991 by the Cambridge Daemon Press, edited by C.P. Courtney. Dr Courtney has forgotten more about Constant’s work than most people have ever known; his edition has proved invaluable.

  The Chronologie of the Pléiade edition of a selection of Constant’s works, first published in 1957, gives an excellent idea of Constant’s restlessness.

  The Red Notebook

  I WAS BORN IN LAUSANNE on 25th October 1767. My mother, Henriette de Chandieu, came from an old French family which had taken refuge in the Swiss canton of Vaud to avoid religious troubles; my father was Juste Constant de Rebecque, a colonel in a Swiss regiment in the service of Holland. My mother died a few days after I was born.

  1772

  The first tutor whom I can remember more or less distinctly was a German. He used to beat me a lot and then hug me so that I wouldn’t complain to my father. I promised not to and faithfully kept my word, but when, despite that, it was discovered, my father dismissed him. He had, incidentally, worked out a very ingenious method of teaching me Greek: he had suggested to me that we should have a private language, just for the two of us, that only we should know. I enthusiastically agreed. First of all, he invented an alphabet made up of Greek characters, then we started to make a dictionary in which every French word was translated by a Greek one. All this became superbly imprinted in my mind because I thought it was I who was doing the inventing, and I already knew a whole lot of Greek words and was starting to give these words, which had been created by me, some general laws, which means that, when my tutor was dismissed, I was learning Greek grammar. I was at the time five years old.

  1774–76

  When I was seven, my father took me with him to Brussels and wanted to take over my education himself. He soon gave up and got me a French tutor, Monsieur de la Grange, chief surgeon in his regiment. Monsieur de la Grange was a professed atheist. Apart from that, as far as I can remember, he was also rather second-rate, very ignorant and extremely vain. He tried to seduce the daughter of the music master who was teaching me piano. He had a number of scandalous affairs. Finally he took me with him to share rooms in a house of ill fame, where it was easier for him to indulge in his pleasures. My father arrived from his regiment in a fury and Monsieur de la Grange was sacked.

  While I was waiting to be given another mentor, my father sent me to live with my music teacher and I spent a few months with him. This family, which had been lifted by the musical talents of their father from a very lowly social position, fed me and looked after me very well but could do nothing for my education. I was given a few teachers whose lessons I skipped and there was a library nearby which contained every novel which had ever been written and all the anti-religious works fashionable at the time. For eight to ten hours a day I read everything I could lay my hands on, from La Mettrie to Crébillon’s novels. My head and my eyes have felt the effects ever since.

  1776–77

  From time to time I was visited by my father; he had met an ex-Jesuit who had suggested himself as being suitable to take charge of me but nothing came of it, I don’t know why. At about the same time, a former French lawyer, who’d had to leave the country as a result of some shady business and was living in Brussels with a young tart whom he was passing off as his housekeeper, wanted to set up a teaching establishment and offered his services so persuasively that my father thought he’d found the right man. Monsieur Gobert agreed, for a very high fee, to take me into his house. He only gave me lessons in Latin – a language which he knew very poorly – and history, which he was teaching me for the sole purpose of getting me to copy out a book he had written on the subject and wanted additional copies of. But my handwriting was so poor and I was so careless that I had to keep on starting every copy over and over again. After working on it for more than a year, I never managed to get beyond the introduction.

  1777–78

  Meanwhile, Monsieur Gobert and his mistress had become the talk of the town and my father came to hear of it. There followed scenes which I myself witnessed and I left my third tutor’s house convinced for the third time that these men who’d been given the task of tutoring me and forming my character were themselves very ignorant and very immoral.

  My father took me back with him to Switzerland, where I spent some time on his country estate, under his charge alone. One of his friends told him about a quite elderly Frenchman who was living in retirement in La Chaux-de-Fonds, near Neuchâtel, and who had the reputation of being intelligent and knowledgeable. My father made enquiries and learnt that Monsieur Duplessis – that was his name – was an unfrocked monk who had escaped from his monastery, changed his religion and was living in reclusion in order not to be pursued by the French, even in Switzerland.

  Although this information was hardly very encouraging, my father sent for Monsieur Duplessis, who turned out to be better than his reputation. So he became my fourth tutor. He was a man of very weak character, but kind and witty. My father immediately conceived a great contempt for him and didn’t hide his feelings from me – hardly a good preparation for the relationship between teacher and pupil. Monsieur Duplessis performed his duties to the best of his ability and I made a great deal of progress. I spent just over a year with him, in Switzerland as well as in Brussels and Holland. At the end of that time, my father became fed up with him and made plans for me to go to a university in England.

  1778–79

  Monsieur Duplessis left to become tutor to a young Comte d’Aumale. Unfortunately, this young man had a quite good-looking sister, very loose in her behaviour, who thought it would be fun to turn the poor monk’s head. He fell passionately in love with her, though he hid the fact because his position in the household, his fifty years of age and his looks offered little hope of success. Then he discovered that a wig-maker, not so old and not so ugly, had been more successful. He started to do all sorts of wild things for which he was shown no mercy. He went out of his mind and ended up blowing his brains out.

  1779–80

  Meanwhile, my father took me with him to England and after a very short stay in London went with me to Oxford. He soon realized that that university, where the English go to finish their studies at the age of twenty, wouldn’t be suitable for a boy of thirteen. So he confined himself to teaching me English, going on a few excursions around Oxford for his own pleasure, and we left after two months with a young Englishman who’d been recommended to him as being a suitable teacher for me, despite not having any title or claim to be a tutor, something which my father had grown to loathe after the four previous experiences. Hardly had we set off with Mr May before my father began to find him ridiculous and unbearable. He confided his impressions to me, as a result of which I treated my new companion with constant ridicule and disrespect from then on.

  Mr May spent a year and a half in our company in Switzerland and Holland. We lived for quite a while in the little
town of Geetruidenberg. It was there that I fell in love for the first time. She was the daughter of the Governor, an old officer and friend of my father. I’d spend every day writing her long letters, none of which I ever sent, and I left without having declared my passionate love to her, which lasted for a good two months.

  1780–81

  I’ve met her since and the thought that I’d loved her aroused in her an interest or perhaps just curiosity to learn things about me. Once she made a sort of move to ask me about what my feelings had been for her but we were interrupted. Some while later, she got married and died in childbirth. My father, whose only desire was to get rid of Mr May, seized the first opportunity to send him back to England.

  1781–82

  So we went back to Switzerland where he turned to a Monsieur Bridel to give me a few lessons; he was quite well-educated but very pedantic and very pompous. My father didn’t take long to feel shocked by the self-importance, the disrespectful tone and the ill manners of this latest mentor he’d chosen for me and, exasperated by all his failed attempts to provide me with a private education, decided to find me, a fourteen-year-old, a place in a German university.

  The Margrave of Anspach who was in Switzerland at the time, suggested Erlangen. My father took me there and himself presented me to the little court of the Dowager Margravine of Bayreuth, which was her residence. She welcomed us with the eagerness that all bored princes or princesses feel for anyone who comes from across the border to amuse them. The Margravine took to me; in fact, as I would say the first thing that came into my head, poked fun at all and sundry and expressed, quite wittily, the most ludicrous ideas. I must have been quite an amusing person to meet, for a German court. For his part, the Margrave treated me equally kindly, giving me a title as Groom of the Bedchamber at his court, where I used to go and play faro and run up gambling debts which my father made the mistake of being kind enough to pay.