They were not authorized to place their benches in the lower part of the church at Pontivy till after the revolution in 1789! The villagers still look upon certain rope-makers, tailors, and coopers, as possessing _an evil eye_, and are in the habit of concealing their _thumbs_ under the rest of their fingers,[51] and pronouncing the word _argaret_ as a counter-spell: this word is unintelligible even to the Bas-Bretons themselves.

The prejudice still exists in Finisterre against the Cacous: the village of Lannistin is one of their abodes.

The Cagot girls of Bearn are said never to be able to draw water from a brook or well without spilling half of it: so that their houses are always dirty, and themselves thirsty.

Probably the same misfortune exists in Brittany, for there is little cleanliness to be found there.
[Footnote 51: This practice is similar to that of the Neapolitans, who wear a little hand in coral (_gettatura_) as a preservative against the evil eye.] Perhaps, after all, the most probable conjecture as to the origin of these unhappy Cagots is, that they were persons _suspected of witchcraft_, and banished in the first instance from society, to which traditional prejudice prevented their return; and, though the cause of their banishment was no longer remembered, the abhorrence they had once inspired did not wear out with ages.

The supposition of their having been _the first Christians_, persecuted and contemned, and never regaining the world's good opinion, seems a notion difficult to adopt, except that the first Christians were suspected of sorcery and communication with evil spirits.