Bücher der Reihe ¿uvres complètes, X

Volume X presents a critical edition with commentary of all the texts published by Constant between July 1815 and April 1818. We are dealing here with political journalism, an instrument of public opinion deployed with great virtuosity by Constant to realise his liberal programme, with texts on political theory and the fundamental debates on the state budget, with publications composed in connection with the 1817 parliamentary elections. This volume contains an engagement with one of Chateaubriand¿s key works (La Monarchie selon la Charte), articles on the politics of the day and publications on important contemporary personalities such as Madame de Staël or Joseph Fouché. The importance of the texts always reaches beyond their particular concern to encompass fundamental principles of liberalism in Restoration Europe.

This tenth volume of the Correspondance générale, which covers the years 1816¿1818, is a valuable document on the intellectual life of the period as well as on the relations of Benjamin Constant with his friends and family, on his literary activities (particularly, during a sojourn in England, the publication of Adolphe) and on his career as publicist and champion of political and civil liberties, after his return to Paris in September 1816.