CHAPTER XIV.
CAGOTS--CACOUS OF BRITTANY.
ONE of the most puzzling and, at the same time, interesting subjects, which recurs to the explorer in the Pyrenees, is the question respecting that mysterious race of people called Cagots, whose origin has never yet been satisfactorily accounted for.

All travellers speak of the Cagots, and make allusion to them, but nothing very positive is told.

When I arrived in the Pyrenees, my first demand was respecting them; but those of my countrymen who had ever heard of their existence assured me that their denomination was only another word for _Cretin_ or _Goitreux_: others insisted that no trace of the ancient _parias_ of these countries remained, and some treated the legends of their strange life as mere fables.
I applied to the French inhabitants; from whom I heard much the same, though all agreed that Cagots were to be found in different parts of the mountains, and that they were still shunned as a race apart, though the prejudice against them was certainly wearing away.
I inquired of our Bearnaise servant whether she could tell me anything about the Cagots, upon which she burst into a fit of laughter, which lasted some time, on her recovery from which she informed me that they were accustomed to use the word as a term of derision.

"Any one," said she, "_whose ears are short--cut off at the tip_, we call Cagot; but it is only _pour rire_, it is not a polite word." I hoped, from her information, and the manner in which she treated the subject, that the Cagots were indeed extinct, and known only as a by-word, which had now no meaning; but I found, by conversing with intelligent persons who had been a great deal in the mountains, and given their attention to such discoveries, that the unfortunate people, once the objects of scorn and oppression to all their fellow-men, are still to be found, and still lead an isolated life, though no longer proscribed or hunted like wild beasts as formerly.
I examined, with the aid of a friend in Pau, the archives of the town, and found several times mention made of these people up to a late period, in which they were classed as persons out of the pale of the law; a price is put on their heads, as if they were wolves; they are forbidden to appear in the towns, and orders are issued to the police to _shoot them_ if found infringing the rules laid down; punishments are named as awaiting them if they ventured to ally themselves, in any way, with any out of their own caste, and they are spoken of together with brigands and malefactors, and all other persons whose crimes have placed them out of the protection of their country.
In Gascony, Bearn, and the Pays Basque, it is well known that for centuries this proscribed race has existed, entirely separated from the rest of their species, marrying with each other, and thus perpetuating their misfortune, avoided, persecuted, and contemned: their origin unknown, and their existence looked upon as a blot on the face of nature.

At one period the Cagots were objects of hatred, from the belief that they were afflicted with the leprosy, which notion does not appear to be founded on fact; in later times, they have been supposed to suffer more especially from _goitre_; but physicians have established that they are not more subject to this hideous disease than their neighbours of the valleys and mountains.