Egyptians or gipsies were not
very slow in giving to the people whom they visited a true estimate of
their questionable honesty, and we do not think it would be particularly
interesting to follow step by step the track of this odious band, which
from this period made its appearance sometimes in one country and
sometimes in another, not only in the north but in the south, and
especially in the centre of Europe. Suffice it to say that their quarrels
with the authorities, or the inhabitants of the countries which had the
misfortune to be periodically visited by them, have left numerous traces
in history.

On the 7th of November, 1453, from sixty to eighty gipsies, coming from
Courtisolles, arrived at the entrance of the town of Cheppe, near
Chalons-sur-Marne. The strangers, many of whom carried "javelins, darts,
and other implements of war," having asked for hospitality, the mayor of
the town informed them "that it was not long since some of the same
company, or others very like them, had been lodged in the town, and had
been guilty of various acts of theft." The gipsies persisted in their
demands, the indignation of the people was aroused, and they were soon
obliged to resume their journey. During their unwilling retreat, they were
pursued by many of the inhabitants of the town, one of whom killed a gipsy
named Martin de la Barre: the murderer, however, obtained the King's
pardon.

In 1532, at Pleinpalais, a suburb of Geneva, some rascals from among a
band of gipsies, consisting of upwards of three hundred in number, fell
upon several of the officers who were stationed to prevent their entering
the town. The citizens hurried up to the scene of disturbance. The gipsies
retired to the monastery of the Augustin friars, in which they fortified
themselves: the bourgeois besieged them, and would have committed summary
justice on them, but the authorities interfered, and some twenty of the
vagrants were arrested, but they sued for mercy, and were discharged.

[Illustration: Fig. 372.--Gipsy Encampment.--Fac-simile of a Copper-plate
by Callot.]

In 1632, the inhabitants of Viarme, in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne,
made an onslaught upon a troop of gipsies who wanted to take up their
quarters in that town. The whole of them were killed, with the exception
of their chief, who was taken prisoner and brought before the Parliament
of Bordeaux, and ordered to be hung. Twenty-one years before this, the
mayor and magistrates of B