Liberal Dilemmas (1797–1802)

The years straddling the 1799 coup d’etat of 18th Brumaire are finally receiving the serious scholarly attention they deserve. We are learning more about the dangers faced by the Republic, more about the difficulties the government had balancing justice and security, and more about the ferocious political debates that these problems stimulated.1 Constant’s political activities during these years led to a deepening of his commitment to liberal politics. He served as a local official (in his commune of Luzarches) and as a member of the Tribunat (1799–1802), experiences that led him to formulate his own intricate constitutional proposal. At the same time, he participated in theoretical disputes about politics and history that, he believed, were related to the security of the Republic: he worried that France might repeat an objectionable part of England’s revolutionary history; he confronted the anarchist alternative outlined by William Godwin. Constant’s pragmatic liberal agenda, formulated in 1795–97, was not significantly altered during these years. What did change were his evaluations of the political forces at play and his assessment of the relationship of these forces to the survival of a liberal representative regime. Constant’s liberalism became more clearly articulated as he faced the political crises of the late-Directory and the Consulate.