One sturdy all power to their lawyers to defend the cause at n M. de Ro Of course the inhabitants of Biarritz were Church. all the more ferocious for having been con- as to reje quered; and, four years later, a carpenter, because, Miguel Legaret, suspected of Cagot descent, had to pa having placed himself in church among other stead of people, was dragged out by the abbé and two Cagots; t' of the jurats of the parish. Legaret defended to claim himself with a sharp knife at the time, and his dog a went to law afterwards; the end of which was Even that the abbé and his two accomplices were necessa condemned to a public confession of peni- con of tence to be uttered while on their knees at to pass the church door, just after high mass. They propria appealed to the parliament of Bourdeaux the sur against this decision, but met with no better, the pe success than the opponents of the miller Ar- house nauld. Legaret was confirmed in his right gregat of standing where he would in the parish what church. That a living Cagot had equal rights great with other men in the town of Biarritz seem- grea ed now ceded to them; but a dead Cagot was a different thing. The inhabitants of as t.. blood struggled long and hard to be interred and apart from the abhorred race. The Cagots p were equally persistent in claiming to have th common burying-ground. Again the texts of he the old Testament were referred to, and the pure blood quoted triumphantly the dent of Uzziah the leper (twenty-sixth chap-W! ter of the second book of Chronicles), who was buried in the field of the Sepulchres of ar the Kings, not in the sepulchres themselves. The Cagots pleaded that they were healthy and able-bodied; with no taint of leprosy near them. They were met by the strong argu-, ment so difficult to be refuted, which I have, quoted before. Leprosy was of two kinds, perceptible and imperceptible. If the Cagots were suffering from the latter kind, who could tell whether they were free from it or not! That decision must be left to the judgment others. pure a prece LADIES AND WIVES. A lady of rank camp to be churched after the birth of her first ch when the obsequious clergyman, thinking too common a term to apply to her, thus al the petition: "O Lord, save this lady thy ser The clerk, resolving not to be outdone in ness, immediately responded: "who putte ladyship's trust in thee.”— Notes and Queri fro. T \-THE EVILS OF KNOWING AN AUTHOR. on reading, Mary? I want you ke a drive with me, my love," said Jaw. "You ought to have a rest ntertaining all these people. Come, and drive with me. What are you novel, Aunt Burtonshaw," said Mary na beautiful book of Mr. Vivian's. I ced to see how Mary's taste improves," . Cumberland from her sofa; "one ales more interest in a book when one ...e author. I shall ask him to put his auapon our copy when he comes here." ay what are you reading, Elizabeth ? " Mrs. Burtonshaw. Mr. Vivian's poems, aunt," said Zai pon my word, I should be glad to know Mr Vivian is, or what he means," said Mrs. tonshaw; "you used to be glad of rational pations-you used to do your needlework, ake drives and walks, and like a little consation: now you have books all day long ooks morning and evening; and it is always M. Vivian. Who is Mr. Vivian then? will noly tell me? Is e orman author? Now, I at want to hear ' ५ pan, Maria An are tit to be sa Mr. Vivian? : lightful young ach things Who is w." PART X.-BOOK III. CHAPTER VIII-VISITORS. "Are we to have a party here to-day, Maria Anna?" asks Mrs. Burtonshaw. "I might have had a decent cap on, you know, if anybody had taken the trouble to mention it. What is it to be?" Not a party, my dear Elizabeth, only a few friends from town to spend the day-a country repast and a stroll by the river," says Mrs. Cum berland. I wonder, for my part, how people can have such bad hearts!" But a great many other persons fill the room to distract the attention of Mrs. Burtonshaw. There are ladies in gorgeous brocade, and ladies in simple muslin; there are little parterres of bonnets so leafy and flowery that they might almost do to replace the clusters of floral ornament in these rustic baskets on the lawn. There are gentlemen in all the varieties of morning costume, and gentlemen in full dress, looking very odd and uncomfortable in the fresh early daylight -young gentlemen with clumps of moustache like "A few friends-there's no end of people at Sylvo, who have nothing particular to say; and the gate," cried Sylvo, stretching himself out be- elderly gentlemen, who are rampant, each on his fore the mirror. Appearances there are not un- particular hobby, riding very hard by the side of satisfactory, it is to be presumed, for Sylvo sets Mr. Cumberland, who, in his delightful candor, himself up as a pillar at one side of the open is ready to trot with all. A cluster of the most bow-window, and waits with great composure for distinguished members of the company have the inroad of guests. gathered round Mrs. Cumberland, and Mary is The flowing of the tide immediately becomes surrounded by a gay crowd, on the extreme boraudible by a great many voices and footsteps in der of which stands Zaidee with Aunt Burtonthe hall. This hall is square like the house, well-shaw by her side; everybody is asking who evesized and airy, and decorated with some rybody is, or answering the same. The mirror "images," as Mrs. Burtonshaw calls them, and sparkles with the figures that move upon it—the a series of casts of the friezes of the Parthenon.gay colors and universal animation. Mrs. BurThe indefinite sounds merge into a universal tonshaw in her turn becomes interested, and plies laugh, and then the door is opened, and Mr. Cum- Zaidee with questions. Who is this gentleman, berland enters at the head of a numerous party—for instance, who is a little bald and pries about a party much too numerous to be announced one with an eye-glass? Perhaps he hears the quesby one. It is "Steele's last" which brings in tion, for he immediately advances to Miss ElizaMr. Cumberland's company with such a breath beth Cumberland, to whom he has been presentof laughter. "Some one remarked how cooled, and makes his bow. the hall was," said a stout gentleman, with a chuckle. No wonder," says he, "look at all the friezes;" whereupon Sylvo's teeth appear once more under the clump of brushwood, and a great "ha, ha," from the bow-window swells the universal mirth. "Who is Mr. Steele ?" asked Mrs. Burtonshaw. "A poor rascal of a painter-any work to do, ma'am?" says somebody, putting his hand to his forehead, and pulling a lock of long hair in mock obeisance. "Got a wife and family-do it as cheap as another. Miss Cumberland here will speak to my character-servant, ma'am." "Have you seen Mrs. Montague Crawson? asks this personage, peering eagerly through his eye-glass." Have you not been introduced to my wife, Miss Elizabeth? That is Mrs. Montague Crawson yonder, that lady in the green shawl." "Then he has only his wife, I suppose, and nothing more, my dear? says the puzzled Mrs. Burtonshaw, when Mr. Crawson has taken himself away. "Oh yes, he has his eye-glass," says an adjacent young lady, "just as these young gentlemen who support the window have a moustache, each of them." The speaker laughs innocently, unwitting that this is Sylvo's mother who refuses to smile upon her. Mrs. Burtonshaw draws herself apart in kindling wrath. "Tell us how you did about that picturethat great old master. Is it a Steele or a Zurbaran?" asks somebody in the crowd, addressing the former hero of Mrs. Burtonshaw's sympathy. "Yes, it's quite true, I put in the word," acknowledges Mr. Steele. "Do you think I haven't timber enough in my head to paint another? How is Mrs. Steele? Mrs. Steele is not here, she's gone over the Channel. Don't mention it, but I have as good a chance as another; all the ships in the world don't get safe to their journey's end." "Poor old Steele, he is coming to poverty in his old days," said somebody else behind. With unmingled consternation Mr. Burtonshaw look ed on and listened. If the poor gentleman was coming to poverty, was that a subject to be mentioned in polite society to hurt his feelings?and old! The "poor gentleman" in question was of a slim and pliant figure, closely buttoned up, with long hair untouched by gray, and a face of beardless youthfulness. "It will give me great pleasure, sir, I am sure, to be able to help you in any way," said Mrs. Burtonshaw, with a courtesy of antique politeness, puzzled, yet compassionate; and Mrs. Burtonshaw gave the cut di- Zaidee, who was looking on with a smile, felt rect to the unfeeling_personage who proclaimed her hand vehemently grasped by the indignant the poverty of Mr. Steele, and whom Mr. Cum- hand of Aunt Burtonshaw. "Come away from berland was now presenting to her. "I have no that inhuman man, child!" called the good lady patience with men who trifle with other people's under her breath. "What does Maria Anna mean, feelings, my love," said Mrs. Burtonshaw, retir-I wonder, by bringing such people here? enough ing to give her countenance to Zaidee-" of course, though he is an artist, the poor gentleman does not wish any one to know his poverty. DXCIV. LIVING AGE. VOL. XI. 7. to destroy the morals of her children. Mary! Why, Mary is laughing with him, as if he were the most innocent person in the world. Who is by a moat, and only accessible by a draw-resolved to try the secular power. They bridge; besides which, the Cagots were fierce accordingly applied to the cortes of Navarre, and vigilant. Some one, however, proposed and were opposed on a variety of grounds. to get into their confidence; and for this pur- First, it was stated that their ancestors had pose he pretended to fall ill close to their had "nothing to do with Raymond Count of path, so that on returning to their stronghold, Toulouse, or with any such knightly person they perceived him, and took him in, restored age; that they were in fact descendants of him to health, and made a friend of him. Gehazi, servant of Elisha (second book of One day, when they were all playing at nine- Kings, fifth chapter, twenty-seventh verse), pins in the woods, their treacherous friend left who had been accursed by his master for his the party on pretence of being thirsty, and fraud upon Naaman, and doomed, he and his went back into the castle, drawing up the descendants, to be lepers for evermore. Name, bridge after he had passed over it, and so cut- Cagots or Gahets; Gahets, Gehazites. What ting off their means of escape into safety. can be more clear? And if that is not enough, Then, going up to the highest part of the and you tell us that the Cagots are not lepers castle, he blew upon a horn, and the pure now; we reply that there are two kinds of race, who were lying in wait on the watch for leprosy, one perceptible and the other imsome such signal, fell upon the Cagots at their perceptible, even to the person suffering from games, and slew them all. For this murder I it. Besides, it is the country talk, that where find no punishment decreed in the parliament the Cagot treads the grass withers, proving of Toulouse, or elsewhere. the unnatural heat of his body. Many credible As any intermarriages with the pure race and trustworthy witnesses will also tell you was strictly forbidden, and as there were that, if a Cagot holds a freshly-gathered apple books kept in every commune in which the in his hand, it will shrivel and wither up in an names and habitations of the reputed Cagots hour's time as much as if it had been kept for were written, these unfortunate people had no a whole winter in a dry room. They are hope of ever becoming blended with the rest born with tails; although the parents are cunof the population. Did a Cagot marriage ning enough to pinch them off immediately. take place, the couple were serenaded with Do you doubt this? If it is not true, why do satirical songs. They also had minstrels, and the children of the pure race delight in sewing many of their romances are still current in on sheep's tails to the dress of any Cagot who Brittany; but they did not attempt to make is so absorbed in his work as not to perceive any reprisals of satire or abuse. Their disposition was amiable and their intelligence great. Indeed it required both these qualities, and their great love of mechanical labor, to make their lives tolerable. them? and their bodily smell is so horrible and detestable that it shows that they must be heretics of some vile and pernicions description, for do we not read of the incense of good workers, and the fragrance of holiness?" At last they began to petition that they Such were literally the arguments by which might receive some protection from the laws; the Cagots were thrown back into a worse and, towards the end of the seventeenth cen- position than ever, as far as regarded their tury, the judicial power took their side. But rights as citizens. The pope insisted that they gained little by this. Law could not they should receive all their ecclesiastical prevail against custom: and, in the ten or privileges. The Spanish priests said nothing, twenty years just preceding the first French but tacitly refused to allow the Cagots to revolution, the prejudice in France against mingle with the rest of the faithful, either the Cagots amounted to fierce and positive dead or alive. The accursed race obtained abhorrence. laws in their favor from the Emperor Charles At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Fifth; but there was no one to carry the Cagots of Navarre complained to the these laws into effect. As a sort of revenge Pope, that they were excluded from the fel- for their want of submission and for their imlowship of men, and accursed by the Church, pertinence in daring to complain, their tools because their ancestors had given help to a were all taken away from them by the local certain Count Raymond of Toulouse in his authorities: an old man and all his family revolt against the Holy See. They entreated died of starvation, being no longer allowed to his holiness not to visit upon them the sins of fish. their fathers. The pope issued a bull-on They could not emigrate. Even to remove the thirteenth of May, fifteen hundred and their poor mud habitations from one spot to fifteen-ordering them to be well-treated and another, excited anger and suspicion. To be to be admitted to the same privileges as other sure, in sixteen hundred and ninety-five, the He charged Don Juan de Santa Maria Spanish government ordered the alcaldes to of Pampeluna to see to the execution of this search out all the Cagots, and to expel them bull. But Don Juan was slow to help, and before two months had expired, under pain of the poor Spanish Cagots grew impatient, and having fifty ducats to pay for every Cagot re men. maining in Spain at the expiration of that also examined their ears, which, according to time. The inhabitants of the villages rose up common belief (a belief existing to this day), and flogged out any miserable Cagots who were differently shaped to those of other peomight be in their neighborhood; but the ple; being round and gristly, without the lobe French were on their guard against this en- of flesh into which the ear-ring is inserted. forced irruption, and refused to permit them They decided that most of the Cagots whom to enter France. Numbers were hunted up they examined had the ears of this round into the inhospitable Pyrenees, and there shape; but they gravely added, that they saw died of starvation, or became a prey to wild no reason why this should exclude them from beasts. They were obliged to wear both the good-will of men, and from the power of gloves and shoes when they were thus put to holding office in church and state. They reflight, otherwise the stones and herbage they corded the fact, that the children of the towns trod upon, and the balustrades of the bridges ran baaing after any Cagot who had been that they crossed, would, according to popular compelled to come into the streets to make belief, have become poisonous. purchases, in allusion to this peculiarity of the And all this time there was nothing remark- shape of the ear, which bore some resemblance able or disgusting in the outward appearance to the ears of the sheep as they are cut by of this unfortunate people. There was noth- the shepherds in this district. Dr. Guyon ing about them to countenance the idea of names the case of a beautiful Cagot girl, who their being lepers-the most natural mode of sang most sweetly, and prayed to be allowed accounting for the abhorrence in which they to sing canticles in the organ-loft. The or were held. They were repeatedly examined ganist, more musician than bigot, allowed her by learned doctors, whose experiments, al- to come; but the indignant congregation, though singular and rude, appear to have finding out whence proceeded that clear, fresh been made in a spirit of humanity. For voice, rushed up to the organ-loft, and chased instance, the surgeons of the King of Navarre, the girl out, bidding her "remember her ears," in sixteen hundred, bled twenty-two Cagots, and not commit the sacrilege of singing praises in order to examine and analyze their blood. to God along with the pure race. They were young and healthy people of both But this medical report of Dr. Guyon's sexes, and the doctors seem to have expected bringing facts and arguments to confirm his that they should have been able to extract opinion, that there was no physical reason some new kind of salt from their blood which why the Cagots should not be received on should account for the wonderful heat of their terms of social equality by the rest of the bodies. But their blood was just like that of world-did no more for his clients than the other people. Some of these medical men legal degrees promulgated two centuries behave left us an account of the general appear-fore had done. The French held with Hudiance of this unfortunate race, at a time when bras, that :they were more numerous and less intermixed than they are now. The families existing in the south and west of France, who are reputed to be of Cagot descent at this day, are, like And, indeed, the being convinced by Dr. their ancestors, tall, largely made, and power-Guyon that they ought to receive Cagots as ful in frame; fair and ruddy in complexion, follow-creatures, only made them more rabid with gray-blue eyes, in which some observers in declaring that they would not. One or see a pensive heaviness of look. Their lips two little occurrences which are recorded are thick, but well-formed. Some of the re- prove that the bitterness of the repugnance ports name their sad expression of countenance to the Cagots was in full force in the time with surprise and suspicion-"They are not just preceding the first French revolution. gay, like other folk." The wonder would be There was a M. d'Abedos, the curate of if they were. Dr. Guyon, the medical man Lourbes, and brother to the seigneur of the of the last century who has left the clearest neighboring castle, who was living in sevenreport on the health of the Cagots, speaks of teen hundred and eighty; he was well-eduthe vigorous old age they attain to. In one cated for the time, a travelled man, and senfamily alone, he found a man of seventy-four sible and moderate in all respects but that of years of age; a woman as old, gathering cher- his abhorrence of the Cagots; he would insult ries; and another woman, aged eighty-three, them from the very altar, calling out to them, was lying on the grass, having her hair combed as they stood afar off, "Oh! ye Cagots, damnby her great-grandchildren. Dr. Guyon and ed for evermore!" One day, a half-blind other surgeons examined into the subject of Cagot stumbled and touched the censer borne the horribly infectious smell which the Cagots before this Abbé de Lourbes. He was imwere said to leave behind them, and upon mediately turned out of the church, and foreverything they touched; but they could per- bidden ever to re-enter it. One does not ceive nothing unusual on this head. They know how to account for the fact, that the He that's convinced against his will very brother of this bigoted abbé, the seigneur family as Cagot, or Malandrin, or Oiselier, of the village, went and married a Cagot girl; according to the old terms of a abhorrence. but so it was, and the abbé brought a legal There are various ways in which learned process against him, and had his estates taken men have attempted to account for the unifrom him, solely on account of his marriage, versal repugnance in which this well-made, which reduced him to the condition of a Cagot, powerful race are held. Some say that the against whom the old laws were still in force. antipathy to them took its rise in the days The decendants of this Seigneur de Lourbes are simple peasants at this very day, working on the land which belonged to their grandfathers. when leprosy was a dreadfully prevalent dis ease; and that the Cagots are more liable than other men to a kind of skin disease, not precisely leprosy, but resembling it in some This prejudice against mixed marriages re- of its symptoms; such as dead whiteness of mained prevalent until very lately. The tradi- complexion, and swellings of the face and extion of the Cagot decent lingered amongst the tremities. There was also some resemblance people, long after the laws against the accursed to the ancient Jewish custom in respect to race were abolished. A Breton girl, within lepers, in the habit of the people; who, on the last few years, having two lovers each of re- meeting a Cagot, called out, “ Cagote? Caputed Cagot descent, employed a notary to ex-gote?" to which they were bound to reply, amine their pedigrees, and see which of the two Perlute! perlute!" Leprosy is not properly had least Cagot in him; and to that one she gave an infectious complaint, in spite of the horror her hand. In Brittany the prejudice seems to in which the Cagot furniture, and the cloth have been more virulent than anywhere else. woven by them, is held in some places; the M. Emile Souvestre records proofs of the disorder is hereditary, and hence (say this hatred borne to them in Brittany so late as body of wise men, who have troubled themeighteen hundred and thirty-five. Just lately selves to account for the origin of Cagoterie) a baker at Hennebon, having married a girl the reasonableness and the justice of preof Cagot descent, lost all his custom. The venting any mixed marriages, by which this godfather and godmother of a Cagot child terrible tendency to leprous complaints might became Cagots themselves by the Breton laws, be spread far and wide. Another authority unless, indeed, the poor little baby died be- says, that though the Cagots are fine-looking fore attaining a certain number of days. men, hard-working, and good mechanics, yet They had to eat the butchers' meat condemn- that they bear in their faces, and show in ed as unhealthy; but, for some unknown their actions reasons for the detestation in reason, they were considered to have a right which they are held; their glance, if you to every cut loaf turned upside down, with meet it, is the jettatura, or evil eye, and they its cut side towards the door, and might enter are spiteful, and cruel, and deceitful above all any house in which they saw a loaf in this posi- other men. All these qualities they derive tion, and carry it away with them. About from their ancestor Gehazi, the servant of thirty years ago, there was the skeleton of a Elisha, together with their tendency to lephand hanging up as an offering in a Breton rosy. Church near Quimperle, and the tradition was, that it was the hand of a rich Cagot who had dared to take holy water out of the usual bénitier, some time at the beginning of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, which an old soldier witnessing, he laid in wait and the next time the offender approached the bénitier, he cut off his hand, and hung it up dripping with blood, as an offering to the patron saint of the church. The poor Cagots in Brittany petitioned against their opprobrious name, and begged to be distinguished by the appellation of Malandrins. To English ears one name is much the same as the other, as neither conveys any meaning; but, to this day, the descendants of the Cagots do not like to have this word applied to them, preferring the term Malandrin. Again, it is said that they are descended from the Arian Goths, who were permitted to live in certain places in Guienne and Languedoc, after their defeat by King Clovis, on condition that they abjured their heresy, and kept themselves separate from all other men for ever. The principal reason alleged in support of this supposition of their Gothic descent, is the specious one of derivation,— Chiens Gots, Cans Gots, Cagots, equivalent to Dogs of Goths. Again, they were thought to be Saracens, coming from Syria. In confirmation of this idea, was the belief that all Cagots were possessed by a horrible smell. The Lombards, also, were an unfragrant race, or so reputed among the Italians: witness Pope Stephen's letter to Charlemagne, dissuading him from The French Cagots tried to destroy all the marrying Bertha, daughter of Didier, King records of their pariah descent, in the commo- of Lombardy. The Lombards boasted of tions of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine; Eastern descent, and were noisome. The but if writings have disappeared, the tradition Cagots were noisome, and therefore must be yet remains, and points out such and such a of Eastern descent. What could be clearer? |