This volume contains 305 letters covering three years of Constant's life in which he finally experienced a happy marriage. However, these years were overshadowed by Germaine de Staël's misfortune, by his enormous gambling losses and also by a dispute with his father which was to last until his father's death. Constant left France and traveled to Switzerland and Germany, but he could not find the happiness he had hoped for ‑ not even in the seclusion of German libraries.