Part 38 (2/2)
The law was more severe in Brittany, about the same period; for, in 1477, the Duke Francois II., in order to prevent the _cacous_, _caqueux_, _or caquins_, from being under the necessity of begging, and mingling with persons in health, granted them permission to use, as farmers, the produce of the land near their dwellings, under certain restrictions; and at the same time insisted on their renewing the red mark which they were condemned to wear. He also ordered that all commerce should be interdicted to them except that of _hemp_, from whence it comes that the trade of a cordwainer is considered vile in some cantons of Bretagne, as those of swineherd and boatman were in Egypt.
In some places in Brittany, the trade of cooper was looked upon with contempt, and the opprobrious name of _caqueux_ was given to them because they were thought to belong to a _race of Jews_ dispersed after the ruin of Jerusalem, and who were considered _leprous from father to son_.
It was _only as late as_ 1723, that the parliament of Bordeaux--which had long shown such tyranny towards this unhappy cla.s.s--issued an order that opprobrious names should no longer be applied to them, and that they should be admitted into the general and private a.s.semblies of communities, allowed to hold munic.i.p.al charges, and be granted the honours of the church. They were to be permitted in future to enter the galleries of churches like any other person; their children received in schools and colleges in all towns and villages, and christian instruction withheld from them no more than from another. Yet, in spite of this ordinance, hatred and prejudice followed this people still; though, protected by the laws, they fell on them less heavily.
At Auch, a quarter was set apart for the _Cagots_, or _capots_, and _another_ for _the lepers_. The _gakets_ of Guizeris, in the diocese of Auch, had a door appropriated to them in the church, which the rest of the inhabitants carefully avoided approaching.
”This prejudice,” says Brugeles,[38] ”lasted till the visit paid to the church by M. Louis d'Aignan du Sendat, archdeacon of Magnoac, who, in order to abolish this distinction, pa.s.sed out of the church by the _porte des Cagots_, followed by the _cure_, and all the ecclesiastics of the parish, and those of his own _suite_; the people, seeing this, followed also, and since that time the doors have been used indifferently by all cla.s.ses.”
[Footnote 38: ”Chroniques Eccl. du Dioc. D'Auch.”]
Although my idea may be laughed at by the learned, it has occurred to me, that this race might be the descendants of those Goths who were driven from Spain by the Moors, introduced by Count Julian in consequence of the conduct of Don Roderick.
There seems scarcely a good reason why the Goths under Alaric should stop in the Pyrenees on their way to a safer retreat, when pursued by the troops of Clovis, the Christian; Spain was open to them, and to remain amongst the enemy's mountains seemed bad policy. Again, why should Abdelrahman, after his defeat, when his discomfited people fled before the _hammer_ of the great Charles, have paused in the Pyrenees?
Spain was their's, and surely the remnant would have sought their own land, even if detained awhile by the snows, and not have remained a mark of contempt and hatred in the country of their conquerors.
But when Roderick and his Goths fled from the Moors, after the fatal battle of Guadalete, and they remained monarchs of Spain, there was no safety for the ruined remnant but in close concealment; and the Pyrenees offered a safe retreat. The Christians of France, however, would not have received them as friends, and they could not return to their own country; therefore, they might have sheltered themselves in the gorges, and when they appeared have been looked upon with the same horror as the Arians of the time of Alaric, or even have been confounded by the people with those very Moors who drove them out of Spain.
The difficulty, which is the greatest by far, is to account for the unceasing contempt which clung to them _after_ they became _Chrestiaas_.
An ingenious person of Pau, who has considered the subject in all its bearings, has a theory that the Cagots are, after all, the _earliest Christians_, persecuted by the Romans, compelled, in the first instance, to take shelter in rocks and caves; and, even after the whole country became converted to Christianity, retaining their bad name from habit, and in consequence of their own ignorance, which had cast them back into a benighted state, and made them appear different from their better-instructed neighbours. Their name of _Christians_ appears to have given rise to this notion.
I am looking forward very anxiously to a work of M. Francisque Michel, on the subject, of the Cagots, which I hear is now in the press. His unwearied enthusiasm and industry, and the enormous researches he has made both in France and Spain, will, doubtless, enable him to throw some valuable light on the curious question,[39] if not set it at rest for ever.
[Footnote 39: M. Francisque Michel's announced work bears the following t.i.tle: ”Recherches sur les Races maudites de la France et de l'Espagne.
(Cagots des Pyrenees. Capots du Languedoc. Gahets da la Guienne.
Colliberts du Bas Poitou. Caqueux de la Bretagne. Cacous du Mans.
Marrons de l'Auvergne. Chreetas de Mayorque. Vacqueros des Asturies.)”]
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAGOT--VALLeE D'ASPE--SUPERSt.i.tIONS--FORESTS--DESPOURRINS--THE TWO GAVES--BEDOUS--HIGH-ROAD TO SARAGOSSA--CASCADE OF LESCUN--URDOS--A PICTURE OF MURILLO--LA VACHE.
THE subject of the Cagots has occupied the attention of learned and unlearned persons both formerly, and at the present time; and the interest it excites is rather on the increase than otherwise; like the mysterious question of the race and language of the Basques, it can never fail to excite speculation and conjecture. A gentleman, who is a professor at the college of Pau, has devoted much of his time to the investigation of this curious secret, and has thrown his observations together in the form of a romance, in a manner so pleasing, and so well calculated to place the persons he wishes to describe immediately before the mind's eye of his reader, that I think a few extracts from his story of THE CAGOT, yet unpublished, will give the best idea of the state of degradation and oppression in which the Cagots were forced to exist; and exhibit in lively colours the tyranny and bigoted prejudice to which they were victims. I avail myself, therefore, of the permission of M.
Bade, to introduce his _Cagot_ to the English reader.[40] The story thus opens:
[Footnote 40: Most of the scenes of the story in the Vallee d'Aspe have become familiar to me, and I can vouch for the truth of the descriptions.]
THE CAGOT.
A BeARNAIS TALE.
”ON a fine night in the month of June, 1386, a mounted party, accompanied by archers and attendants on foot, were proceeding, at a quiet pace, along the left bank of a rivulet called Lauronce, on the way between Oloron and Aubertin. A fresh breeze had succeeded the burning vapours which, in the scorching days of summer, sometimes transform the valleys of Bearn into furnaces. Myriads of stars glittered, bright and clear, like sparkles of silver, in the deep blue sky, and their glimmering light rendered the thin veil still more transparent which the twilight of the solstice had spread over the face of the country; while through this shadowy haze might be seen, from point to point, on the hills, the ruddy flame of half-extinguished fires.
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