[272] It is a remarkable and perhaps significant fact that, while homosexuality is today in absolute disrepute in France, it was not so under the less tolerant law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Duc de Gesvres, as described by Besenval (Mémoires, i, p. 178), was a well-marked invert of feminine type, impotent, and publicly affecting all the manners of women; yet he was treated with consideration. In 1687 Madame, the mother of the Regent, writes implying that "all the young men and many of the old" practised pederasty: il n'y a que les gens du commun qui aiment les femmes. The marked tendency to inversion in the French royal family at this time is well known.
[273] A man with homosexual habits, I have been told, declared he would be sorry to see the English law changed, as then he would find no pleasure in his practices.
[274] Blackmailing appears to be the most serious risk which the invert runs. Hirschfeld states in an interesting study of blackmailing (Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, April, 1913) that his experience shows that among 10,000 homosexual persons hardly one falls a victim to the law, but over 3000 are victimized by blackmailers.
[275] Krafft-Ebing would place this age not under 16, the age at which in England girls may legally consent to normal sexual intercourse (Psychopathia Sexualis, 1893, p. 419). It certainly should not be lower.
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX A.
HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG TRAMPS.
BY "JOSIAH FLYNT."
I have made a rather minute study of the tramp class in the United States, England, and Germany, but I know it best in the States. I have lived with the tramps there for eight consecutive months, besides passing numerous shorter periods in their company, and my acquaintance with them is nearly of ten years' standing. My purpose in going among them has been to learn about their life in particular and outcast life in general. This can only be done by becoming part and parcel of its manifestations.