Henri Benjamin Constant De Rebecque, a French orator and author, born at Lausanne, Oct. 25, 1767, died in Paris, Dec. 10, 1830. He was descended from a family of French Protestant exiles, and his father was a colonel in the service of Holland. He studied successively at the universities of Oxford, Erlangen, and Edinburgh, and became acquainted with many of the scholars and writers of France, Germany, and Great Britain. He married a German lady, and was for several years chamberlain of the duke of Brunswick. Having been divorced from his wife, he went to Paris in 1795, and began his political career as a moderate republican. His pamphlet, Be la force du gouvernement actuel de la France, etc, attracted considerable attention; and other political writings, mostly published in the periodicals of the day, added to his reputation. At this time he became an intimate friend of Mme. de Stael, and aided in the formation of the club de Salm, in opposition to the royalist club de Glichy. In 1799 he was placed by Napoleon in the tribunate, but showed so much opposition to the first consul's encroachments upon constitutional liberty, that he was banished in 1801. Mme. de Stael was expelled from France about the same time, and with her he associated with Goethe, Wieland, Schiller, and other literary celebrities at Weimar, and at Necker's residence in Switzerland. At this time he made a translation of Schiller's Wal-lenstein, and wrote a novel called Adolphe. He afterward visited various European courts, and lived for a time at Gottingen, where he married Mme. de Hardenberg. In 1814 he published a pamphlet entitled Be l'esprit de conquete et de I'usurpation, which attracted much attention.

He returned to Paris in the wake of the invading armies, and espoused the cause of the Bourbons, publishing articles in their support in the Journal des Bebats. The day before Napoleon's return from Elba he published a violent assault upon him, but was soon after invited to the palace, won over to what now appeared the cause of France, and appointed a councillor of state, the long persecuted Mme. de Stael, too, lending her influence to Napoleon. Constant now assisted in drawing up the famous acte additionnel to the constitution. After the battle of Waterloo, being on the proscribed list, he retired to England, but was allowed to return in September, 1816. The reactionary tendency of the government led him to join the force of so-called liberal writers, and he aided in founding the Minerve, and wrote many able articles on constitutional liberty and kindred subjects. He was elected to the chamber of deputies by the department of Sarthe in 1819, and became prominent as a speaker, at the same time continuing to write brilliant pamphlets and articles for periodicals on the questions of the day. After the death of Gen. Foy in 1825, he was the acknowledged leader of the opposition, besides being considered the highest expounder of monarchical constitutionalism.

His health had failed before the revolution of 1830, and he was absent from Paris at the time of that outbreak. On his return he concurred in the proceedings which placed Louis Philippe on the throne, and was appointed president of the council of state. He also remained in the chamber of deputies, but his prestige was gone; and when he was presented as a candidate for the French academy, he failed of election. These disappointments are believed to have hastened his death. He had just completed his philosophical work, Be la religion consideree dans sa source, ses formes et ses de-veloppements (5 vols., Paris, 1823-31), and left uncompleted a supplement to it, Du polythe-isme romain considere dans ses rapports avec la philosophie grecque et la religion chretienne (2 vols., 1833). His political works are edited by Laboulaye (2 vols., 1861; 2d ed., 1872).