This fourth volume of the
Correspondance générale
contains 368 letters written during the period of the Consulat when, as a member of the Tribunat until January 1802, Constant acquired a reputation as a brilliant orator and outspoken opponent of Bonaparte. It was also a period when he produced a number of manuscripts on politics and religion on which he would base works published between 1814 and 1830. The correspondence also contains letters of compelling human interest to and from Julie Talma and an extraordinary epistolary exchange with Anna Lindsay, with whom Constant fell in love in 1800.