Benjamin Constant - A Liberdade dos Antigos Comparada com a dos Modernos

The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns is one of the founding texts of European constitutionalism and one of its author's best-known works.
The essay – on the "two liberties": the liberty of the ancients and the liberty of the moderns – corresponds to a famous lecture given in 1819 at the Royal Athenaeum of Paris, one of the most important centers for the dissemination of liberal ideals during the Restoration period, where Constant was a frequent speaker.