THE DURATION OF HUMAN LIFE. 



99 



and thirty and one hundred and thirty-five, and three between one 

 hundred and thirty-five and one hundred and forty. It is questionable 

 whether these old persons may not have had some interest in claiming 

 such great ages. 



In modern times, we have for France documents relatively worthy 

 of faith only from the beginning of the eighteenth century. Except 

 in a small number of cases, where the ages have been authenticated by 

 extracts from baptismal registers, these ages have no other guarantee of 

 exactitude than the declarations of the interested parties and contem- 

 poraries. 



Documents which we have before us necessarily very incom- 

 plete attribute to France, during the eighteenth century, a few more 

 than a hundred centenarians. The majority of these were men, but 

 women appear to have reached the most advanced ages. Agricultur- 

 ists figure largely in the number, while industrial workers and inhabi- 

 tants of cities are few among them. A certain degree of probability 

 is given to the statements by the fact that the number of extraordinary 

 ages claimed is very small. Instances of fecundity at advanced ages 

 are not rare. Contemporaneous writers mention examples of rejuve- 

 nation which must be regarded as probably legendary, although they 

 have been recorded without protestation in grave scientific works. A 

 much more serious fact, and one that may be more reasonably admit- 

 ted, is that of hereditary longevities, of which there are numerous ex- 

 amples. Most of these centenarians appear to have been temperate, 

 only two instances of drunkards being known among them. Many of 

 them were indefatigable walkers, traversing every day considerable 

 distances to go to their work ; and, according to the custom of the 

 day, they all went to bed and rose early. 



Among the most distinguished of them were the following, whose 

 cases are given in the order of their dates : The diplomat De Vignan- 

 court died at one hundred and three, in the exercise of his functions ; 

 the Marchioness of Luxemburg and the Marechal d'Estrees died at one 

 hundred ; the three advocates, Larroque, of Agen ; Coster, of Bordeaux ; 

 and William Grevin, of Pont l'Eveque, the first two at a hundred and 

 eleven, and the last at a hundred and seven. The master-saddler 

 Philip Herbelot died in 1714, at the verified age of one hundred and 

 fourteen years. M. Lefebre de Lezeau still attended the councils of 

 the king when a hundred years old, and died in 1715. Charles Col- 

 bert, brother of the great Minister, died at a hundred and four. 

 Jacques Poncy, dean of the surgeons of Paris, performed operations 

 in his hundredth year, and died at a hundred and two. The Count de 

 Bethune, an old superior officer, died in Paris, at a hundred and five. 

 Fontenelle died at a hundred, on the 9th of January, 1757. Dom Jean 

 Mabillon, of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, died in 

 Paris at a hundred and six, in 1778. Anne Marie Brideau died at a 

 hundred, in the enjoyment of a tontine fund that brought her 55,625 



