We have our prejudices in England. Or, if that assertion offends any of myreaders, I will modify it: we have had our prejudices in England. We havetortured Jews; we have burnt Catholics and Protestants, to say nothing of a fewwitches 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, fromthe inroads of alien races; who, driven from one land of refuge, steal intoanother equally unwilling to receive them; and where, for long centuries, theirpresence is barely endured, and no pains is taken to conceal the repugnancewhich the natives of “pure blood” experience towards them.
There yet remains a remnant of the miserable people called Cagots in thevalleys of the Pyrenees; in the Landes near Bourdeaux; and, stretching up onthe west side of France, their numbers become larger in Lower Brittany. Evennow, the origin of these families is a word of shame to them among theirneighbours; although they are protected by the law, which confirmed them in theequal rights of citizens about the end of the last century. Before then theyhad lived, for hundreds of years, isolated from all those who boasted of pureblood, and they had been, all this time, oppressed by cruel local edicts. Theywere truly what they were popularly called, The Accursed Race.
All distinct traces of their origin are lost. Even at the close of that periodwhich we call the Middle Ages, this was a problem which no one could solve; andas the traces, which even then were faint and uncertain, have vanished away oneby one, it is a complete mystery at the present day. Why they were accursed inthe first instance, why isolated from their kind, no one knows. From theearliest accounts of their state that are yet remaining to us, it seems thatthe names which they gave each other were ignored by the population they livedamongst, who spoke of them as Crestiaa, or Cagots, just as we speak of animalsby their generic names. Their houses or huts were always placed at somedistance out of the villages of the country-folk, who unwillingly called in theservices of the Cagots as carpenters, or tilers, or slaters—trades whichseemed appropriated by this unfortunate race—who were forbidden to occupyland, or to bear arms, the usual occupations of those times. They had somesmall right of pasturage on the common lands, and in the forests: but thenumber of their cattle and live-stock was strictly limited by the earliest lawsrelating to the Cagots. They were forbidden by one act to have more than twentysheep, a pig, a ram, and six geese. The pig was to be fattened and killed forwinter food; the fleece of the sheep was to clothe them; but if the said sheephad lambs, they were forbidden to eat them. Their only privilege arising fromthis increase was, that they might choose out the strongest and finest inpreference to keeping the old sheep. At Martinmas the authorities of thecommune came round, and counted over the stock of each Cagot. If he had morethan his appointed number, they were forfeited; half went to the commune, halfto the baillie, or chief magistrate of the commune. The poor beasts werelimited as to the amount of common which they might stray over in search ofgrass. While the cattle of the inhabitants of the commune might wander hitherand thither in search of the sweetest herbage, the deepest shade, or thecoolest pool in which to stand on the hot days, and lazily switch their dappledsides, the Cagot sheep and pig had to learn imaginary bounds, beyond which ifthey strayed, any one might snap them up, and kill them, reserving a part ofthe flesh for his own use,