[453] See Part II., pp. 126-132. I must rectify a mistake I have made in not assigning sufficient importance to the influence of race in France. In fact, in revising my studies on a large scale, I find that the departments peopled by the Belgio-Germanic race yield the maximum proportion of geniuses as 40 per cent., while the Celtic departments yielded only 13·5 per cent., and the Iberian 20 per cent.
[454] T. Gautier, according to the Goncourts, often declared that he could not—on account of his youth—convince himself that he was really the father of his daughter (Journal des Goncourt, 1888). “La Fontaine was not far removed from a bad man,” says Bourget. “What are we to think of a husband who deserts his young wife and his child, without any motive whatever?” Stendhal (Beyle) hated his father and was hated by him; he always declared his invincible repugnance towards compulsory family affection (Bourget, Essais de Psychologie, p. 310). “I consecrated myself to grief for her,” wrote Chateaubriand of Pauline de Baumont. “ ... She had not been dead six months, when her place was filled in my heart” (Ibid.).
[455] Revue Littéraire, Aug. 15, 1887, No. 3.
[456] Lombroso, Delitti politici, 1890.
[457] Correspondance, 1889, p. 538.
[458] Feeri, Nuova Antologia, 1889.
[459] See Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. ii.; L’Uomo Delinquente, part iii.
[460] Encéphale, No. 5, 1887.
[461] See the table in Déjerine, op. cit.
[462] Mahomet had a strange fondness for his monkey; Richelieu for his squirrel; Crébillon, Helvetius, Bentham, Erskine, for cats—the latter also for a leech. Schopenhauer was very fond of dogs, and named them his heirs; and Byron had a regular menagerie of ten horses, eight dogs, three monkeys, five cats, five peacocks, an eagle, and a bear. Alfieri had a passion for horses. (Smiles, op. cit.)