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diff --git a/2531-h/2531-h.htm b/2531-h/2531-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ef7520 --- /dev/null +++ b/2531-h/2531-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1128 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Accursed Race, by Elizabeth Gaskell</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + + </style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Accursed Race, by Elizabeth Gaskell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: An Accursed Race</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Elizabeth Gaskell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March, 2001 [eBook #2531]<br /> +[Most recently updated: December 22, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price, Jennifer Lee, Alev Akman and Andy Wallace</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ACCURSED RACE ***</div> + +<h1>AN ACCURSED RACE</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Elizabeth Gaskell</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +We have our prejudices in England. Or, if that assertion offends any of my +readers, I will modify it: we have had our prejudices in England. We have +tortured Jews; we have burnt Catholics and Protestants, to say nothing of a few +witches and wizards. We have satirized Puritans, and we have dressed-up Guys. +But, after all, I do not think we have been so bad as our Continental friends. +To be sure, our insular position has kept us free, to a certain degree, from +the inroads of alien races; who, driven from one land of refuge, steal into +another equally unwilling to receive them; and where, for long centuries, their +presence is barely endured, and no pains is taken to conceal the repugnance +which the natives of “pure blood” experience towards them. +</p> + +<p> +There yet remains a remnant of the miserable people called Cagots in the +valleys of the Pyrenees; in the Landes near Bourdeaux; and, stretching up on +the west side of France, their numbers become larger in Lower Brittany. Even +now, the origin of these families is a word of shame to them among their +neighbours; although they are protected by the law, which confirmed them in the +equal rights of citizens about the end of the last century. Before then they +had lived, for hundreds of years, isolated from all those who boasted of pure +blood, and they had been, all this time, oppressed by cruel local edicts. They +were truly what they were popularly called, The Accursed Race. +</p> + +<p> +All distinct traces of their origin are lost. Even at the close of that period +which we call the Middle Ages, this was a problem which no one could solve; and +as the traces, which even then were faint and uncertain, have vanished away one +by one, it is a complete mystery at the present day. Why they were accursed in +the first instance, why isolated from their kind, no one knows. From the +earliest accounts of their state that are yet remaining to us, it seems that +the names which they gave each other were ignored by the population they lived +amongst, who spoke of them as Crestiaa, or Cagots, just as we speak of animals +by their generic names. Their houses or huts were always placed at some +distance out of the villages of the country-folk, who unwillingly called in the +services of the Cagots as carpenters, or tilers, or slaters—trades which +seemed appropriated by this unfortunate race—who were forbidden to occupy +land, or to bear arms, the usual occupations of those times. They had some +small right of pasturage on the common lands, and in the forests: but the +number of their cattle and live-stock was strictly limited by the earliest laws +relating to the Cagots. They were forbidden by one act to have more than twenty +sheep, a pig, a ram, and six geese. The pig was to be fattened and killed for +winter food; the fleece of the sheep was to clothe them; but if the said sheep +had lambs, they were forbidden to eat them. Their only privilege arising from +this increase was, that they might choose out the strongest and finest in +preference to keeping the old sheep. At Martinmas the authorities of the +commune came round, and counted over the stock of each Cagot. If he had more +than his appointed number, they were forfeited; half went to the commune, half +to the baillie, or chief magistrate of the commune. The poor beasts were +limited as to the amount of common which they might stray over in search of +grass. While the cattle of the inhabitants of the commune might wander hither +and thither in search of the sweetest herbage, the deepest shade, or the +coolest pool in which to stand on the hot days, and lazily switch their dappled +sides, the Cagot sheep and pig had to learn imaginary bounds, beyond which if +they strayed, any one might snap them up, and kill them, reserving a part of +the flesh for his own use, but graciously restoring the inferior parts to their +original owner. Any damage done by the sheep was, however, fairly appraised, +and the Cagot paid no more for it than any other man would have done. +</p> + +<p> +Did a Cagot leave his poor cabin, and venture into the towns, even to render +services required of him in the way of his trade, he was bidden, by all the +municipal laws, to stand by and remember his rude old state. In all the towns +and villages the large districts extending on both sides of the +Pyrenees—in all that part of Spain—they were forbidden to buy or +sell anything eatable, to walk in the middle (esteemed the better) part of the +streets, to come within the gates before sunrise, or to be found after sunset +within the walls of the town. But still, as the Cagots were good-looking men, +and (although they bore certain natural marks of their caste, of which I shall +speak by-and-by) were not easily distinguished by casual passers-by from other +men, they were compelled to wear some distinctive peculiarity which should +arrest the eye; and, in the greater number of towns, it was decreed that the +outward sign of a Cagot should be a piece of red cloth sewed conspicuously on +the front of his dress. In other towns, the mark of Cagoterie was the foot of a +duck or a goose hung over their left shoulder, so as to be seen by any one +meeting them. After a time, the more convenient badge of a piece of yellow +cloth cut out in the shape of a duck’s foot, was adopted. If any Cagot +was found in any town or village without his badge, he had to pay a fine of +five sous, and to lose his dress. He was expected to shrink away from any +passer-by, for fear that their clothes should touch each other; or else to +stand still in some corner or by-place. If the Cagots were thirsty during the +days which they passed in those towns where their presence was barely suffered, +they had no means of quenching their thirst, for they were forbidden to enter +into the little cabarets or taverns. Even the water gushing out of the common +fountain was prohibited to them. Far away, in their own squalid village, there +was the Cagot fountain, and they were not allowed to drink of any other water. +A Cagot woman having to make purchases in the town, was liable to be flogged +out of it if she went to buy anything except on a Monday—a day on which +all other people who could, kept their houses for fear of coming in contact +with the accursed race. +</p> + +<p> +In the Pays Basque, the prejudices—and for some time the laws—ran +stronger against them than any which I have hitherto mentioned. The Basque +Cagot was not allowed to possess sheep. He might keep a pig for provision, but +his pig had no right of pasturage. He might cut and carry grass for the ass, +which was the only other animal he was permitted to own; and this ass was +permitted, because its existence was rather an advantage to the oppressor, who +constantly availed himself of the Cagot’s mechanical skill, and was glad +to have him and his tools easily conveyed from one place to another. +</p> + +<p> +The race was repulsed by the State. Under the small local governments they +could hold no post whatsoever. And they were barely tolerated by the Church, +although they were good Catholics, and zealous frequenters of the mass. They +might only enter the churches by a small door set apart for them, through which +no one of the pure race ever passed. This door was low, so as to compel them to +make an obeisance. It was occasionally surrounded by sculpture, which +invariably represented an oak-branch with a dove above it. When they were once +in, they might not go to the holy water used by others. They had a bénitier of +their own; nor were they allowed to share in the consecrated bread when that +was handed round to the believers of the pure race. The Cagots stood afar off, +near the door. There were certain boundaries—imaginary lines on the nave +and in the aisles which they might not pass. In one or two of the more tolerant +of the Pyrenean villages, the blessed bread was offered to the Cagots, the +priest standing on one side of the boundary, and giving the pieces of bread on +a long wooden fork to each person successively. +</p> + +<p> +When the Cagot died, he was interred apart, in a plot burying-ground on the +north side of the cemetery. Under such laws and prescriptions as I have +described, it is no wonder that he was generally too poor to have much property +for his children to inherit; but certain descriptions of it were forfeited to +the commune. The only possession which all who were not of his own race refused +to touch, was his furniture. That was tainted, infectious, unclean—fit +for none but Cagots. +</p> + +<p> +When such were, for at least three centuries, the prevalent usages and opinions +with regard to this oppressed race, it is not surprising that we read of +occasional outbursts of ferocious violence on their part. In the +Basses-Pyrenées, for instance it is only about a hundred years since, that the +Cagots of Rehouilhes rose up against the inhabitants of the neighbouring town +of Lourdes, and got the better of them, by their magical powers as it is said. +The people of Lourdes were conquered and slain, and their ghastly, bloody heads +served the triumphant Cagots for balls to play at ninepins with! The local +parliaments had begun, by this time, to perceive how oppressive was the ban of +public opinion under which the Cagots lay, and were not inclined to enforce too +severe a punishment. Accordingly, the decree of the parliament of Toulouse +condemned only the leading Cagots concerned in this affray to be put to death, +and that henceforward and for ever no Cagot was to be permitted to enter the +town of Lourdes by any gate but that called Capdet-pourtet: they were only to +be allowed to walk under the rain-gutters, and neither to sit, eat, nor drink +in the town. If they failed in observing any of these rules, the parliament +decreed, in the spirit of Shylock, that the disobedient Cagots should have two +strips of flesh, weighing never more than two ounces a-piece, cut out from each +side of their spines. +</p> + +<p> +In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries it was considered no more +a crime to kill a Cagot than to destroy obnoxious vermin. A “nest of +Cagots,” as the old accounts phrase it, had assembled in a deserted +castle of Mauvezin, about the year sixteen hundred; and, certainly, they made +themselves not very agreeable neighbours, as they seemed to enjoy their +reputation of magicians; and, by some acoustic secrets which were known to +them, all sorts of moanings and groanings were heard in the neighbouring +forests, very much to the alarm of the good people of the pure race; who could +not cut off a withered branch for firewood, but some unearthly sound seemed to +fill the air, nor drink water which was not poisoned, because the Cagots would +persist in filling their pitchers at the same running stream. Added to these +grievances, the various pilferings perpetually going on in the neighbourhood +made the inhabitants of the adjacent towns and hamlets believe that they had a +very sufficient cause for wishing to murder all the Cagots in the Château +de Mauvezin. But it was surrounded by a moat, and only accessible by a +drawbridge; besides which, the Cagots were fierce and vigilant. Some one, +however, proposed to get into their confidence; and for this purpose he +pretended to fall ill close to their path, so that on returning to their +stronghold they perceived him, and took him in, restored him to health, and +made a friend of him. One day, when they were all playing at ninepins in the +woods, their treacherous friend left the party on pretence of being thirsty, +and went back into the castle, drawing up the bridge after he had passed over +it, and so cutting off their means of escape into safety. Them, going up to the +highest part of the castle, he blew a horn, and the pure race, who were lying +in wait on the watch for some such signal, fell upon the Cagots at their games, +and slew them all. For this murder I find no punishment decreed in the +parliament of Toulouse, or elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +As any intermarriage with the pure race was strictly forbidden, and as there +were books kept in every commune in which the names and habitations of the +reputed Cagots were written, these unfortunate people had no hope of ever +becoming blended with the rest of the population. Did a Cagot marriage take +place, the couple were serenaded with satirical songs. They also had minstrels, +and many of their romances are still current in Brittany; but they did not +attempt to make 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 labour, to make their lives +tolerable. +</p> + +<p> +At last, they began to petition that they might receive some protection from +the laws; and, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the judicial power +took their side. But they gained little by this. Law could not prevail against +custom: and, in the ten or twenty years just preceding the first French +revolution, the prejudice in France against the Cagots amounted to fierce and +positive abhorrence. +</p> + +<p> +At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Cagots of Navarre complained to +the Pope, that they were excluded from the fellowship of men, and accursed by +the Church, because their ancestors had given help to a certain Count Raymond +of Toulouse in his revolt against the Holy See. They entreated his holiness not +to visit upon them the sins of their fathers. The Pope issued a bull on the +thirteenth of May, fifteen hundred and fifteen—ordering them to be +well-treated and to be admitted to the same privileges as other men. He charged +Don Juan de Santa Maria of Pampeluna to see to the execution of this bull. But +Don Juan was slow to help, and the poor Spanish Cagots grew impatient, and +resolved to try the secular power. They accordingly applied to the Cortes of +Navarre, and were opposed on a variety of grounds. First, it was stated that +their ancestors had had “nothing to do with Raymond Count of Toulouse, or +with any such knightly personage; that they were in fact descendants of Gehazi, +servant of Elisha (second book of Kings, fifth chapter, twenty-seventh verse), +who had been accursed by his master for his fraud upon Naaman, and doomed, he +and his descendants, to be lepers for evermore. Name, Cagots or Gahets; Gahets, +Gehazites. What can be more clear? And if that is not enough, and you tell us +that the Cagots are not lepers now; we reply that there are two kinds of +leprosy, one perceptible and the other imperceptible, even to the person +suffering from it. Besides, it is the country talk, that where the Cagot +treads, the grass withers, proving the unnatural heat of his body. Many +credible and trustworthy witnesses will also tell you that, if a Cagot holds a +freshly-gathered apple in his hand, it will shrivel and wither up in an +hour’s time as much as if it had been kept for a whole winter in a dry +room. They are born with tails; although the parents are cunning enough to +pinch them off immediately. Do you doubt this? If it is not true, why do the +children of the pure race delight in sewing on sheep’s tails to the dress +of any Cagot who is so absorbed in his work as not to perceive them? And their +bodily smell is so horrible and detestable that it shows that they must be +heretics of some vile and pernicious description, for do we not read of the +incense of good workers, and the fragrance of holiness?” +</p> + +<p> +Such were literally the arguments by which the Cagots were thrown back into a +worse position than ever, as far as regarded their rights as citizens. The Pope +insisted that they should receive all their ecclesiastical privileges. The +Spanish priests said nothing; but tacitly refused to allow the Cagots to mingle +with the rest of the faithful, either dead or alive. The accursed race obtained +laws in their favour from the Emperor Charles the Fifth; which, however, there +was no one to carry into effect. As a sort of revenge for their want of +submission, and for their impertinence in daring to complain, their tools were +all taken away from them by the local authorities: an old man and all his +family died of starvation, being no longer allowed to fish. +</p> + +<p> +They could not emigrate. Even to remove their poor mud habitations, from one +spot to another, excited anger and suspicion. To be sure, in sixteen hundred +and ninety-five, the Spanish government ordered the alcaldes to search out all +the Cagots, and to expel them before two months had expired, under pain of +having fifty ducats to pay for every Cagot remaining in Spain at the expiration +of that time. The inhabitants of the villages rose up and flogged out any of +the miserable race who might be in their neighbourhood; but the French were on +their guard against this enforced irruption, and refused to permit them to +enter France. Numbers were hunted up into the inhospitable Pyrenees, and there +died of starvation, or became a prey to wild beasts. They were obliged to wear +both gloves and shoes when they were thus put to flight, otherwise the stones +and herbage they trod upon and the balustrades of the bridges that they handled +in crossing, would, according to popular belief, have become poisonous. +</p> + +<p> +And all this time, there was nothing remarkable or disgusting in the outward +appearance of this unfortunate people. There was nothing about them to +countenance the idea of their being lepers—the most natural mode of +accounting for the abhorrence in which they were held. They were repeatedly +examined by learned doctors, whose experiments, although singular and rude, +appear to have been made in a spirit of humanity. For instance, the surgeons of +the king of Navarre, in sixteen hundred, bled twenty-two Cagots, in order to +examine and analyze their blood. They were young and healthy people of both +sexes; and the doctors seem to have expected that they should have been able to +extract some new kind of salt from their blood which might account for the +wonderful heat of their bodies. But their blood was just like that of other +people. Some of these medical men have left us a description of the general +appearance of this unfortunate race, at a time when 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 their +ancestors, tall, largely made, and powerful in frame; fair and ruddy in +complexion, with gray-blue eyes, in which some observers see a pensive +heaviness of look. Their lips are thick, but well-formed. Some of the reports +name their sad expression of countenance with surprise and +suspicion—“They are not gay, like other folk.” The wonder +would be if they were. Dr. Guyon, the medical man of the last century who has +left the clearest report on the health of the Cagots, speaks of the vigorous +old age they attain to. In one family alone, he found a man of seventy-four +years of age; a woman as old, gathering cherries; and another woman, aged +eighty-three, was lying on the grass, having her hair combed by her +great-grandchildren. Dr. Guyon and other surgeons examined into the subject of +the horribly infectious smell which the Cagots were said to leave behind them, +and upon everything they touched; but they could perceive nothing unusual on +this head. They also examined their ears, which according to common belief (a +belief existing to this day), were differently shaped from those of other +people; being round and gristly, without the lobe of flesh into which the +ear-ring is inserted. They decided that most of the Cagots whom they examined +had the ears of this round shape; but they gravely added, that they saw no +reason why this should exclude them from the good-will of men, and from the +power of holding office in Church and State. They recorded the fact, that the +children of the towns ran baaing after any Cagot who had been compelled to come +into the streets to make purchases, in allusion to this peculiarity of the +shape of the ear, which bore some resemblance to the ears of the sheep as they +are cut by the shepherds in this district. Dr. Guyon names the case of a +beautiful Cagot girl, who sang most sweetly, and prayed to be allowed to sing +canticles in the organ-loft. The organist, more musician than bigot, allowed +her to come, but the indignant congregation, finding out whence proceeded that +clear, fresh voice, rushed up to the organ-loft, and chased the girl out, +bidding her “remember her ears,” and not commit the sacrilege of +singing praises to God along with the pure race. +</p> + +<p> +But this medical report of Dr. Guyon’s—bringing facts and arguments +to confirm his opinion, that there was no physical reason why the Cagots should +not be received on terms of social equality by the rest of the world—did +no more for his clients than the legal decrees promulgated two centuries before +had done. The French proved the truth of the saying in Hudibras— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +He that’s convinced against his will<br /> +Is of the same opinion still. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And, indeed, the being convinced by Dr. Guyon that they ought to receive Cagots +as fellow-creatures, only made them more rabid in declaring that they would +not. One or two little occurrences which are recorded, show that the bitterness +of the repugnance to the Cagots was in full force at the time just preceding +the first French revolution. There was a M. d’Abedos, the curate of +Lourdes, and brother to the seigneur of the neighbouring castle, who was living +in seventeen hundred and eighty; he was well-educated for the time, a travelled +man, and sensible and moderate in all respects but that of his abhorrence of +the Cagots: he would insult them from the very altar, calling out to them, as +they stood afar off, “Oh! ye Cagots, damned for evermore!” One day, +a half-blind Cagot stumbled and touched the censer borne before this Abbé de +Lourdes. He was immediately turned out of the church, and forbidden ever to +re-enter it. One does not know how to account for the fact, that the very +brother of this bigoted abbé, the seigneur of the village, went and married a +Cagot girl; but so it was, and the abbé brought a legal process against him, +and had his estates taken from him, solely on account of his marriage, which +reduced him to the condition of a Cagot, against whom the old law was still in +force. The descendants of this Seigneur de Lourdes are simple peasants at this +very day, working on the lands which belonged to their grandfather. +</p> + +<p> +This prejudice against mixed marriages remained prevalent until very lately. +The tradition of the Cagot descent lingered among the people, long after the +laws against the accursed race were abolished. A Breton girl, within the last +few years, having two lovers each of reputed Cagot descent, employed a notary +to examine their pedigrees, and see which of the two had least Cagot in him; +and to that one she gave her hand. In Brittany the prejudice seems to have been +more virulent than anywhere else. M. Emile Souvestre records proofs of the +hatred borne to them in Brittany so recently as in eighteen hundred and +thirty-five. Just lately a baker at Hennebon, having married a girl of Cagot +descent, lost all his custom. The godfather and godmother of a Cagot child +became Cagots themselves by the Breton laws, unless, indeed, the poor little +baby died before attaining a certain number of days. They had to eat the +butchers’ meat condemned as unhealthy; but, for some unknown reason, they +were considered to have a right to every cut loaf turned upside down, with its +cut side towards the door, and might enter any house in which they saw a loaf +in this position, and carry it away with them. About thirty years ago, there +was the skeleton of a hand hanging up as an offering in a Breton 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 lay 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 appelation of Malandrins. To +English ears one 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 name +applied to them, preferring that of Malandrin. +</p> + +<p> +The French Cagots tried to destroy all the records of their pariah descent, in +the commotions of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine; but if writings have +disappeared, the tradition yet remains, and points out such and such a family +as Cagot, or Malandrin, or Oiselier, according to the old terms of abhorrence. +</p> + +<p> +There are various ways in which learned men have attempted to account for the +universal repugnance in which this well-made, powerful race are held. Some say +that the antipathy to them took its rise in the days when leprosy was a +dreadfully prevalent disease; and that the Cagots are more liable than any +other men to a kind of skin disease, not precisely leprosy, but resembling it +in some of its symptoms; such as dead whiteness of complexion, and swellings of +the face and extremities. There was also some resemblance to the ancient Jewish +custom in respect to lepers, in the habit of the people; who on meeting a Cagot +called out, “Cagote? Cagote?” to which they were bound to reply, +“Perlute! perlute!” Leprosy is not properly an infectious +complaint, in spite of the horror in which the Cagot furniture, and the cloth +woven by them, are held in some places; the disorder is hereditary, and hence +(say this body of wise men, who have troubled themselves to account for the +origin of Cagoterie) the reasonableness and the justice of preventing any mixed +marriages, by which this terrible tendency to leprous complaints might be +spread far and wide. Another authority says, that though the Cagots are +fine-looking men, hard-working, and good mechanics, yet they bear in their +faces, and show in their actions, reasons for the detestation in which they are +held: their glance, if you meet it, is the jettatura, or evil-eye, and they are +spiteful, and cruel, and deceitful above all other men. All these qualities +they derive from their ancestor Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, together with +their tendency to leprosy. +</p> + +<p> +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 Gets, Cagots, equivalent to Dogs of Goths. +</p> + +<p> +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 +marrying Bertha, daughter of Didier, King of Lombardy. The Lombards boasted of +Eastern descent, and were noisome. The Cagots were noisome, and therefore must +be of Eastern descent. What could be clearer? In addition, there was the proof +to be derived from the name Cagot, which those maintaining the opinion of their +Saracen descent held to be Chiens, or Chasseurs des Gots, because the Saracens +chased the Goths out of Spain. Moreover, the Saracens were originally +Mahometans, and as such obliged to bathe seven times a-day: whence the badge of +the duck’s foot. A duck was a water-bird: Mahometans bathed in the water. +Proof upon proof! +</p> + +<p> +In Brittany the common idea was, they were of Jewish descent. Their unpleasant +smell was again pressed into service. The Jews, it was well known, had this +physical infirmity, which might be cured either by bathing in a certain +fountain in Egypt—which was a long way from Brittany—or by +anointing themselves with the blood of a Christian child. Blood gushed out of +the body of every Cagot on Good Friday. No wonder, if they were of Jewish +descent. It was the only way of accounting for so portentous a fact. Again; the +Cagots were capital carpenters, which gave the Bretons every reason to believe +that their ancestors were the very Jews who made the cross. When first the tide +of emigration set from Brittany to America, the oppressed Cagots crowded to the +ports, seeking to go to some new country, where their race might be unknown. +Here was another proof of their descent from Abraham and his nomadic people: +and, the forty years’ wandering in the wilderness and the Wandering Jew +himself, were pressed into the service to prove that the Cagots derived their +restlessness and love of change from their ancestors, the Jews. The Jews, also, +practised arts-magic, and the Cagots sold bags of wind to the Breton sailors, +enchanted maidens to love them—maidens who never would have cared for +them, unless they had been previously enchanted—made hollow rocks and +trees give out strange and unearthly noises, and sold the magical herb called +<i>bon-succès</i>. It is true enough that, in all the early acts of the +fourteenth century, the same laws apply to Jews as to Cagots, and the +appellations seem used indiscriminately; but their fair complexions, their +remarkable devotion to all the ceremonies of the Catholic Church, and many +other circumstances, conspire to forbid our believing them to be of Hebrew +descent. +</p> + +<p> +Another very plausible idea is, that they are the descendants of unfortunate +individuals afflicted with goitres, which is, even to this day, not an uncommon +disorder in the gorges and valleys of the Pyrenees. Some have even derived the +word goitre from Got, or Goth; but their name, Crestia, is not unlike Cretin, +and the same symptoms of idiotism were not unusual among the Cagots; although +sometimes, if old tradition is to be credited, their malady of the brain took +rather the form of violent delirium, which attacked them at new and full moons. +Then the workmen laid down their tools, and rushed off from their labour to +play mad pranks up and down the country. Perpetual motion was required to +alleviate the agony of fury that seized upon the Cagots at such times. In this +desire for rapid movement, the attack resembled the Neapolitan tarantella; +while in the mad deeds they performed during such attacks, they were not unlike +the northern Berserker. In Béarn especially, those suffering from this madness +were dreaded by the pure race; the Béarnais, going to cut their wooden clogs in +the great forests that lay around the base of the Pyrenées, feared above all +things to go too near the periods when the Cagoutelle seized on the oppressed +and accursed people; from whom it was then the oppressors’ turn to fly. A +man was living within the memory of some, who married a Cagot wife; he used to +beat her right soundly when he saw the first symptoms of the Cagoutelle, and, +having reduced her to a wholesome state of exhaustion and insensibility, he +locked her up until the moon had altered her shape in the heavens. If he had +not taken such decided steps, say the oldest inhabitants, there is no knowing +what might have happened. +</p> + +<p> +From the thirteenth to the end of the nineteenth century, there are facts +enough to prove the universal abhorrence in which this unfortunate race was +held; whether called Cagots, or Gahets in Pyrenean districts, Caqueaux in +Brittany, or Yaqueros Asturias. The great French revolution brought some good +out of its fermentation of the people: the more intelligent among them tried to +overcome the prejudice against the Cagots. +</p> + +<p> +In seventeen hundred and eighteen, there was a famous cause tried at Biarritz +relating to Cagot rights and privileges. There was a wealthy miller, Etienne +Arnauld by name, of the race of Gotz, Quagotz, Bisigotz, Astragotz, or Gahetz, +as his people are described in the legal document. He married an heiress, a +Gotte (or Cagot) of Biarritz; and the newly-married well-to-do couple saw no +reason why they should stand near the door in the church, nor why he should not +hold some civil office in the commune, of which he was the principal +inhabitant. Accordingly, he petitioned the law that he and his wife might be +allowed to sit in the gallery of the church, and that he might be relieved from +his civil disabilities. This wealthy white miller, Etienne Arnauld, pursued his +rights with some vigour against the Baillie of Labourd, the dignitary of the +neighbourhood. Whereupon the inhabitants of Biarritz met in the open air, on +the eighth of May, to the number of one hundred and fifty; approved of the +conduct of the Baillie in rejecting Arnauld, made a subscription, and gave all +power to their lawyers to defend the cause of the pure race against Etienne +Arnauld—“that stranger,” who, having married a girl of Cagot +blood, ought also to be expelled from the holy places. This lawsuit was carried +through all the local courts, and ended by an appeal to the highest court in +Paris; where a decision was given against Basque superstitions; and Etienne +Arnauld was thenceforward entitled to enter the gallery of the church. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the inhabitants of Biarritz were all the more ferocious for having +been conquered; and, four years later, a carpenter, named Miguel Legaret, +suspected of Cagot descent, having placed himself in the church among other +people, was dragged out by the abbé and two of the jurets of the parish. +Legaret defended himself with a sharp knife at the time, and went to law +afterwards; the end of which was, that the abbé and his two accomplices were +condemned to a public confession of penitence, to be uttered while on their +knees at the church door, just after high-mass. They appealed to the parliament +of Bourdeaux against this decision, but met with no better success than the +opponents of the miller Arnauld. Legaret was confirmed in his right of standing +where he would in the parish church. That a living Cagot had equal rights with +other men in the town of Biarritz seemed now ceded to them; but a dead Cagot +was a different thing. The inhabitants of pure blood struggled long and hard to +be interred apart from the abhorred race. The Cagots were equally persistent in +claiming to have a common burying-ground. Again the texts of the Old Testament +were referred to, and the pure blood quoted triumphantly the precedent of +Uzziah the leper (twenty-sixth chapter of the second book of Chronicles), who +was buried in the field of the Sepulchres of 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 argument so difficult +to be refuted, which I 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 of others. +</p> + +<p> +One sturdy Cagot family alone, Belone by name, kept up a lawsuit, claiming the +privilege of common sepulture, for forty-two years; although the curé of +Biarritz had to pay one hundred livres for every Cagot not interred in the +right place. The inhabitants indemnified the curate for all these fines. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Romagne, Bishop of Tarbes, who died in seventeen hundred and sixty-eight, +was the first to allow a Cagot to fill any office in the Church. To be sure, +some were so spiritless as to reject office when it was offered to them, +because, by so claiming their equality, they had to pay the same taxes as other +men, instead of the Rancale or pole-tax levied on the Cagots; the collector of +which had also a right to claim a piece of bread of a certain size for his dog +at every Cagot dwelling. +</p> + +<p> +Even in the present century, it has been necessary in some churches for the +archdeacon of the district, followed by all his clergy, to pass out of the +small door previously appropriated to the Cagots, in order to mitigate the +superstition which, even so lately, made the people refuse to mingle with them +in the house of God. A Cagot once played the congregation at Larroque a trick +suggested by what I have just named. He slily locked the great parish-door of +the church, while the greater part of the inhabitants were assisting at mass +inside; put gravel into the lock itself, so as to prevent the use of any +duplicate key,—and had the pleasure of seeing the proud pure-blooded +people file out with bended head, through the small low door used by the +abhorred Cagots. +</p> + +<p> +We are naturally shocked at discovering, from facts such as these, the +causeless rancour with which innocent and industrious people were so recently +persecuted. The moral of the history of the accursed race may, perhaps, be best +conveyed in the words of an epitaph on Mrs. Mary Hand, who lies buried in the +churchyard of Stratford-on-Avon:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What faults you saw in me,<br /> + Pray strive to shun;<br /> +And look at home; there’s<br /> + Something to be done. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ACCURSED RACE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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