2i6 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



not been passed, even when all the circumstances have 

 favoured longevity, are more interesting. One of the most 

 curious among these is the case of the Turgot family, in 

 which the age of fifty-nine had not been for generations 

 exceeded, to the time when Turgot made the name famous. 

 At the age of fifty, when he was in excellent health, and 

 apparently had promise of many years of life, he expressed 

 to his friends his conviction that the end of his life was 

 near at hand. From that time forward he held himself 

 prepared for death, and, as we know, he died before he had 

 completed his fifty-fourth year. 



Fecundity is associated sometimes with longevity, but in 

 other cases it is as significantly associated with short duration 

 of life. Of families in which many children are born but few 

 survive, we naturally have less striking evidence than we 

 have of families in which many children of strong constitu- 

 tions are born for several successive generations. What 

 may be called the fecundity of the short-lived is a quality 

 commonly leading in no long time to the disappearance of 

 the family in which it makes its appearance. It is the 

 reverse, of course, with fecundity in families whose mem- 

 bers show individually great vigour of constitution and high 

 vital power. Ribot mentions several cases of this sort 

 among the families of the old French noblesse. Thus Anne 

 de Montmorency who, despite his feminine name, was 

 certainly by no means feminine in character (at the Battle 

 of St. Denis, in his sixty-sixth year, he smashed with his 

 sword the teeth of the Scotch soldier who was giving him 

 his death-blow) was the father of twelve children. Three 

 of his ancestors, Matthew I., Matthew II., and Matthew III., 

 had, in all, eighteen children, of whom fifteen were boys. 

 ' The son and grandson of the great Conde had nineteen 

 between them, and their great-grandfather, who lost his life 

 at Jarnac, had ten. The first four Guises reckoned in all 

 forty-three children, of whom thirty were boys. Achille de 

 Harley had nine children, his father ten, and his great- 

 grandfather eighteen.' In the family of the Herschels in 



