Note 23 — JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

A note upon this subject has to be written; and it may be introduced here as well as elsewhere. Balzac, in Une dernière incarnation de Vautrin, describes the morals of the French bagnes. Dostoieffsky, in Prison Life in Siberia, touches on the same topic. See his portrait of Sirotkin, p. 52, et seq., p. 120 (edn. J. & R. Maxwell, London). We may compare Carlier, op. cit., pp. 300, 301, for an account of the violence of homosexual passions in French prisons. The initiated are familiar with the facts in English prisons. There is a military prison on the Lido at Venice, where incorrigible lovers of their own sex, amongst other culprits, are confined. A man here said: "All our loves in this place are breech-loaders." Bouchard, in his Confessions (Paris, Liseux, 1881), describes the convict station at Marseilles in 1630. The men used to be allowed to bring women on board the galleys. At that epoch they "les besognoient avant tout le monde, les couchant sous le banc sur leur 'capot. Mais depuis quelques années en ca, le general a defendu entrée aux femmes. De sorte qu'il ne se pêche plus maintenant là-dedans qu'en sodomie, mollesse, irrumation, et autres pareilles tendresses" (p. 151). The same Frenchman, speaking of the Duc d'Orléans' pages at Paris, says that this was a "cour extrèmemen impie et débauchée, surtout pour les garçons, M. d'Orléans deffendoit à ses pages de se besogner ni branler la pique; leur donnant au reste congé de voir les femmes tant qu'ils voudroient, et quelquefois venant de nuict heurter à la porte de leur chambre, avec cinq ou six garses, qu'il enfermoit avec eux une heure à deux" (p. 88). This prince was of the same mind as Campanella, who, in the Città del Sole, laid it down that young men ought to be freely admitted to women, for the avoidance of sexual aberrations. Aretino and Berni enable us to comprehend the sexual immorality of males congregated together in the courts of Roman prelates. As regards military service, the facts related by Ulrichs about the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, on the testimony of a credible witness, who had been a pathic in his regiment, deserve attention (Ara Spei, p. 20; Memnon, p. 27). This man, who was a German, told Ulrichs that the Spanish, French, and Italian soldiers were the lovers, the Swiss and German their beloved. See General Brossier, cited above, p. 19. Ulrichs reports that in the Austrian army lectures on homosexual vices are regularly given to cadets and conscripts (Memnon, p. 20).