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.

In the Pays Basque, the prejudices—and for
some time the laws—ran stronger against the
Cagots 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 themselves of the Cagot's
mechanical skill, and was glad to have him
and his tools easily conveyed from one place
to another.

They were 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.

When the Cagot died, he was interred
apart, in a plot of burying-ground on the
north side of the cemetery.  Under such
laws and prescriptions as I have described, it
is no wonder if 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 of his 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.

When such were, for at least three
centuries, the prevalent usages and opinions with
regard to this oppressed race, it is no wonder
that we read of occasional outbursts of
ferocious violence on their part. In the Basses-
Pyrenees, 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 nine-pins 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, or 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 each, cut out from each side of
their spines.

In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries, it was considered no more a
crime to brill 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 moaning 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, or 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 neighbouring 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 nine-pins 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.  Then, going up to the highest
part of the castle, he blew upon a horn, and
the pure race, who were lying in wait on