Benjamin Constant’s considered response not only to the mass murder inflicted by the French Revolution, but to the attempt to reduce the whole French population to the condition of willing slaves under Bonaparte’s First Empire, provides a diagnosis of the character of many subsequent totalitarian regimes. Read by Helen Lloyd.

Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.

Image: Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife Josephine were crowned Emperor and Empress of France on 2 December 1804. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo