itted to
own; and this ass was permitted, because its existence was rather an
advantage to the oppressor, who constantly availed himself of the Cagot's
mechanical skill, and was glad to have him and his tools easily conveyed
from one place to another.

The race was repulsed by the State. Under the small local governments
they could hold no post whatsoever. And they were barely tolerated by
the Church, although they were good Catholics, and zealous frequenters of
the mass. They might only enter the churches by a small door set apart
for them, through which no one of the pure race ever passed. This door
was low, so as to compel them to make an obeisance. It was occasionally
surrounded by sculpture, which invariably represented an oak-branch with
a dove above it. When they were once in, they might not go to the holy
water used by others. They had a benitier of their own; nor were they
allowed to share in the consecrated bread when that was handed round to
the believers of the pure race. The Cagots stood afar off, near the
door. There were certain boundaries--imaginary lines on the nave and in
the isles which they might not pass. In one or two of the more tolerant
of the Pyrenean villages, the blessed bread was offered to the Cagots,
the priest standing on one side of the boundary, and giving the pieces of
bread on a long wooden fork to each person successively.

When the Cagot died, he was interred apart, in a plot burying-ground on
the north side of the cemetery. Under such laws and prescriptions as I
have described, it is no wonder that he was generally too poor to have
much property for his children to inherit; but certain descriptions of it
were forfeited to the commune. The only possession which all who were
not of his own race refused to touch, was his furniture. That was
tainted, infectious, unclean--fit for none but Cagots.

When such were, for at least three centuries, the prevalent usages and
opinions with regard to this oppressed race, it is not surprising that we
read of occasional outbursts of ferocious violence on their part. In the
Basses-Pyrenees, for instance it is only about a hundred years since,
that the Cagots of Rehouilhes rose up against the inhabitants of the
neighbouring town of Lourdes, and got the better of them, by their
magical powers as it is said. The people of Lourdes were conquered and
slain, and their ghastly, bloody heads served the triumphant Cagots for
balls to play at