Whether this connexion really exists or not, a stupid indifference, which prevents them from feeling their position, exists in common with the Cretins amongst those people known as Goths, or Cagots, _chiens de Gots_, and _Capots_, who are a fearful example of the duration of popular hatred.

They are condemned to the sole occupation permitted to them, that of hewing of wood; are banished from society, their dwellings placed at a distance from towns and villages, and are in fact excommunicated beggars; forced, besides, in consequence of the profession of Arianism, adopted by their Gothic ancestors, to wear on their habits a mark of obloquy in the form of a goose's foot, which is sewn on their clothes; exposed to insult and every species of severity; condemned to the fear of having their feet pierced with hot irons, if they appear bare-footed in towns, and pursued with the most bitter rigour that bigotry and animosity can indulge in." The words, _Stupides, Idiots, Cretins_, and _Cagots_ have been considered synonymous; but this is an error: the last wretched class being separated in their misery, and distinct from the rest.

The beautiful valleys of the Pyrenees are frightfully infested with the disease of _goitre_, and few of them are free; but the Cagots merely share the affliction, as has been said before (following the learned and benevolent Palassou) with the rest of the inhabitants.
The notion which, at first sight, would seem better founded, is, that the Cagots are descendants of those numerous _lepers_ who formed a fearful community at one period, and were excluded from society to prevent infection; but the more the subject is investigated the less does this appear likely: though banished, from prudential motives, and even held in abhorrence, from the belief that their malady was a judgment of Heaven, those afflicted with leprosy, when healed, had the power of returning to the communion of their fellows: they were not excommunicated, nor placed beyond the mercy of the laws: they were avoided, but not hated; and they had some hope for the future, which was denied to the Cagots.
In the Basque country they are called _Agots_, and it is ascertained that, though held in the same aversion as in Bigorre, Navarre, and Bearn, they have no physical defects, nor any difference of manners or appearance to the rest of the natives: they are there also vulgarly said to descend from the Goths.
The popular notion of the shortness of the lobe of the ear, which is supposed to be a characteristic of a Cagot, seems to be only worthy of the laughter which accompanied its first announcement to me; yet it is an old tradition, and has long obtained credence.
The learned Marca, who has treated this subject, remarks: "These unfortunate beings are held as infected and leprous; and by an express article in the _Coutumes de Bearn_ and the provinces adjacent, familiar conversation with the rest of the people is severely interdicted to them.

So that, even in the churches, they have a door set apart by which to enter, with a _benitier_ and seats for them solely: they are obliged to live in villages apart from other dwellings: they are usually carpenters, and are permitted to use no arms or tools but those expressly required in their trade: they are looked upon as infamous, although they have, according to the ancient _Fors de Bearn_, a right to be heard as witnesses; seven of them being required to make the testimony of _one uninfected_ man." Though previous to the time of Louis VI.

called Le Gros, in 1108, the Cagots were sold as slaves _with_ estates, it does not appear that their fate, in this respect, was different from that of other serfs, who were all transferred from one master to another, without reserve.