An Accursed Race | Page 3

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.
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 Chateau 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.
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.
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.
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