The great poet of the Symbolists, their most admired model, from whom, according to their unanimous testimony, they have received the strongest inspiration, is Paul Verlaine. In this man we find, in astonishing completeness, all the physical and mental marks of degeneration, and no author known to me answers so exactly, trait for trait, to the descriptions of the degenerate given by the clinicists--his personal appearance, the history of his life, his intellect, his world of ideas and modes of expression. M. Jules Huret[119] gives the following account of Verlaine’s physical appearance: ‘His face, like that of a wicked angel grown old, with a thin, untrimmed beard, and abrupt(?) nose; his bushy, bristling eyebrows, resembling bearded wheat, hiding deep-set green eyes; his wholly bald and huge long skull, misshapen by enigmatic bumps--all these give to his physiognomy a contradictory appearance of stubborn asceticism and cyclopean appetites.’ As appears in these ludicrously laboured and, in part, entirely senseless expressions, even the most unscientific observer has been struck with what Huret calls his ‘enigmatic bumps.’ If we look at the portrait of the poet, by Eugène Carrière, of which a photograph serves as frontispiece in the _Select Poems_ of Verlaine,[120] and still more at that by M. Aman-Jean, exhibited in the Champs de Mars Salon in 1892, we instantly remark the great asymmetry of the head, which Lombroso[121] has pointed out among degenerates, and the Mongolian physiognomy indicated by the projecting cheek-bones, obliquely placed eyes, and thin beard, which the same investigator[122] looks upon as signs of degeneration. Verlaine’s life is enveloped in mystery, but it is known, from his own avowals, that he passed two years in prison. In the poem _Écrit en_ 1875[123] he narrates in detail, not only without the least shame, but with gay unconcern, nay, even with boasting, that he was a true professional criminal: ‘J’ai naguère habité le meilleur des châteaux Dans le plus fin pays d’eau vive et de coteaux: Quatre tours s’élevaient sur le front d’autant d’ailes, Et j’ai longtemps, longtemps habité l’une d’elles... Une chambre bien close, une table, une chaise, Un lit strict où l’on pût dormir juste à son aise,... Tel fut mon lot durant les longs mois là passés... ...J’étais heureux avec ma vie, Reconnaissant de biens que nul, certes, n’envie.’ And in the poem _Un Conte_ he says: ...’ce grand pécheur eut des conduites Folles à ce point d’en devenir trop maladroites, Si bien que les tribunaux s’en mirent--et les suites! Et le voyez-vous dans la plus étroite des boîtes? Cellules! prison humanitaires! Il faut taire Votre horreur fadasse et ce progrès d’hypocrisie’...