ey derive from their ancestor Gehazi, the
servant of Elisha, together with their tendency to leprosy.

Again, it is said that they are descended from the Arian Goths who were
permitted to live in certain places in Guienne and Languedoc, after their
defeat by King Clovis, on condition that they abjured their heresy, and
kept themselves separate from all other men for ever. The principal
reason alleged in support of this supposition of their Gothic descent, is
the specious one of derivation,--Chiens Gots, Cans Gets, Cagots,
equivalent to Dogs of Goths.

Again, they were thought to be Saracens, coming from Syria. In
confirmation of this idea, was the belief that all Cagots were possessed
by a horrible smell. The Lombards, also, were an unfragrant race, or so
reputed among the Italians: witness Pope Stephen's letter to Charlemagne,
dissuading him from marrying Bertha, daughter of Didier, King of
Lombardy. The Lombards boasted of Eastern descent, and were noisome. The
Cagots were noisome, and therefore must be of Eastern descent. What
could be clearer? In addition, there was the proof to be derived from
the name Cagot, which those maintaining the opinion of their Saracen
descent held to be Chiens, or Chasseurs des Gots, because the Saracens
chased the Goths out of Spain. Moreover, the Saracens were originally
Mahometans, and as such obliged to bathe seven times a-day: whence the
badge of the duck's foot. A duck was a water-bird: Mahometans bathed in
the water. Proof upon proof!

In Brittany the common idea was, they were of Jewish descent. Their
unpleasant smell was again pressed into service. The Jews, it was well
known, had this physical infirmity, which might be cured either by
bathing in a certain fountain in Egypt--which was a long way from
Brittany--or by anointing themselves with the blood of a Christian child.
Blood gushed out of the body of every Cagot on Good Friday. No wonder,
if they were of Jewish descent. It was the only way of accounting for so
portentous a fact. Again; the Cagots were capital carpenters, which gave
the Bretons every reason to believe that their ancestors were the very
Jews who made the cross. When first the tide of emigration set from
Brittany to America, the oppressed Cagots crowded to the ports, seeking
to go to some new country, where their race might be unknown. Here was
another proof of their descent from Abraham and his nomadic people: and,
the forty years' wandering