Constantin Heger
Belgian professor (1809-1896)
Constantin Georges Romain Heger, also spelled Héger (10 July 1809 – 6 May 1896) was a Belgian professor and literary figure of the Victorian era. He is best remembered today for his relationship with Charlotte Brontë during the 1840s. Some of the characters featured in Charlotte's work, especially Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre (1847), were inspired by him, and her two other novels, Villette (1853) and The Professor (1857) were inspired by her experience as a student under Heger.
Early life and education
Constantin Georges Romain Heger was born in Brussels in 1809 and moved to Paris in 1825 seeking employment. For a period he worked as secretary to a solicitor, but because of a shortage of funds, was unable to pursue a legal career himself. In 1829, he returned to Brussels, where he became a teacher of French and mathematics at the Athénée Royal. In 1830, he married his first wife, Marie-Josephine Noyer. When revolution broke out in Brussels in 1830, Heger fought on the barricades from 23 to 27 September alongside the revolutionaries. In September 1833, Heger's wife died during a cholera epidemic.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2994981. VIAF identifies the subject as 56492154. The Library of Congress control number is nr94016616. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1809, 1896, 1847 and 1853.
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This entry incorporates text from “Constantin Heger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.