The evening times., 1899-09-30
THE RACE OF CAGOTS.
A French People Who Are Despised
by Their NeiEhbOrs.

by Their NefEhbOrs.
(From the CornhilI Magazine.)
The first historical mention. of the Ca
gots dates from about the eleventh cen
tury. Their origin is very uncertain, as
several authors have pet theories on the
subject, which all amount in the end to
very much the same thing-pure surmise.
What was Cagot? Was he a foreigner;
was he an atheist? Nothing OF the kind.
He was Frenchman, a good Catholic ex-
actly as others were. What was the mat
ter with him, then? He was Cagot.
One is reminded of the old rhyme of DR..
Fell. There was dislike, but no reason.
When one knows no real reason. the OBJ
vious course is to invent one, or several,
and this is what the pure race. as they
called themselves, did. First and fore
most. they said the Cagots were iepers-
that they descended. in fact. from Gehazi.
and that therefore they were an accursed
race. 1t was bad enough to be a
leper. even without the outward and visi-
BILE signs, but there was a great deal more
to be said against the Cagots. Their
breath was detestable and poisonous; they
had no lobe TO their ears; they were born
with tails, which their Canning mothers
instantly pinched off; their skin was
winter their hair fairer, their eyes bluer
than a good Frenchmans had any right to
be. They were sorcerers and warlocks.
they had the evil eye; the unnatural heat
OF their body was such that if a Cagot
held some grass or fruit in his hand it
dried up and withered, and even in winte-
he could bear no covering on his bed
They were specially licentious, hot tenn
pered. coyetous. naughty, s.nfully proud,
and pretentious. At certain phases o. the
moon their skin became red and scaiy.
oh Iioip n a fepnPtinn nj
leaves with which to bathe it. The moon
was also responsible for a kind of deli
rum which seized on the Cagots, causing
them to rush wildly about as if they wers
mad. These outbreaks were called the
Cagoutelie, and seem-if it be true that
they ever existed-to correspond to the
Neapolitan tarantella-
All these facts proved that the Cagots
were dangerous and terrible people, who
must not be allowed to consider themselves
equal to their purer brethren, but must be
constantly reminded of their inferior con-
dition, duty which the pious countryfoik
undertook and carried out with great con-
scientiousness, helped by law and church.
A Cagot was forbidden to carry any weapon
of defence, which in those days of blood
and iron reduced man at once to con-
dition of serf, and made it impossible for
him to hold his own against the brutal
and clustering man at arms. The churches
could not be closed to them. but the priests
forced them to enter the holy place by a
separate door, so low that the accursed
ones were forced to bend their heads TO
pass through. There was a special Cagot
holy water stoup and an imaginary line or
boundary in the church. across which no
Cagot might venture. The consecrated
wafer was held out to them on long
wooden fork by the priest standing on his
own side of the boundary. No priest would
receive the confession of a Cagot, although
these poor people seem to have been most
anxious to perform their religious duties.
The church never appears to have tried TO
soften their hard lot; on the contrary, the
priests were careful to prevent the curse
that weighed upon them from falling into
allegiance. Even so late as the eighteenth
century we read that seigneur of Lourdes
having insisted upon marrying Cagot, his
brother, who was cure of Lourbes, had his
estates confscated. by virtue of an old law
which reduced anyone marrying Cagot to
the same condition. To this day the de-
scendants of this couple are peasants.
1t took five Cagots TO witness against one
pure" man. They were obliged to wear a
piece OF cloth sewn ON the front of their
dress; in some parts this was shaped like a
ducks foot, and was either red or yellow
They had to eat the meat condemned as
bad in the markets, a privilege which they
seem to have shared with the lepers to
whom they were so constantly and so un-
Justly likened. for we find in an old statute
of the time of Robert III of Scotland the
following pleasing provision. 1T is stat
ute, that if any man brings to the market
corrupt swine or salmond to be saudi, they
sable taken to the Baillies; and incontineDt
without any question, sable send to the
Upper folk. and gif there be no
Upper folk, they salb, destroyed alluterlis.'