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placed in the ordinary manner, she inquired the reason, of one of the guests, who told her to be silent on the subject, whispering, however, that the first mentioned loaves indicated the seats of the Cagots.

In the Basque country (arrondissement of Bayonne) the Cagots are termed Agotac, and if the people, in the midst of whom they dwell, are to be credited, they bear a very bad character. In personal appearance almost all may be distinguished by their grey eyes, short noses, thick lips, very short auricular lobes, and sad looks. It has been said that the Agotac are short lived, but instances are cited of centenarians amongst them. They follow chiefly the occupations of carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, turners, and above all of millers; indeed, in certain localities, to be a miller is considered the equivalent of an Agotac. Many of them are also tambourine players, which is rarely the case with the Basques. Now that Biarritz has become an imperial watering-place, strangers may be attracted thither more frequently than formerly. The curious amongst them will discover as many as thirty Cagot families in that quarter of the town, which is called Gardagne. At Carne, also, in the canton of Bidache, about twenty miles from Biarritz, there were (in 1847) nine families of pure Cagots, and eleven of intermixed race. Respecting these mixed marriages, a curious fact has been affirmed by one of the inhabitants of Carne, that all the women of Basque origin, who married Cagots, fell sick shortly after their union, and that a certain number of them died, but the remainder became afterwards stronger and healthier than before. Though, in the course of time, their condition became ameliorated, the Agotacs underwent the same penalties on account of their race, as were inflicted on the Cagots generally. The fact of their being such was always entered in the baptismal and marriage registers of the parishes where they lived, and amongst other popular references the children used to bleat at them as they passed, in allusion to the sheep of the country, whose ears it is the custom to clip. This roundeared peculiarity was a distinctive sign everywhere, as well throughout Gascony as in the Pays Basque, and in all parts of France, and in Spanish Navarre also, the treatment of the Cagots was the same. Not to multiply instances, in one of the towns in the department of the Landes (where they were called Gahets, Gésitz, and Gésitens, from their supposed descent from the Prophet's servant, Gehazi, the leper) a rich Cagot was observed, at three different times, to have dipped his hand in the holy water of the bénitier used by the general inhabitants. An old soldier, having heard of this, took his sabre and hid himself, one Sunday, in the entrance of the church. He watched his opportunity, and when he saw the Cagot's hand approaching the bénitier he swept it off with a stroke of his weapon, and the offending limb was forthwith nailed to the church door. It is right, however, to add that this outrage was committed two hundred years ago. It would occupy too much space to indicate all the localities of these proscribed people, who were to be found under so many various names from Bordeaux to Lower Brittany, where especially they were believed to be of leprous nature, a belief which the most celebrated physicians vainly combated. This popular notion was, in a great degree, attributable to those external appearances in the Cagot, which were also supposed infallibly to point out the leper. It was laid down by Guy de Chauliac, a physician of the fourteenth century, and by others before him, that amongst the unmistakeable signs of leprosy were round ears and eyes and fetid breath,-the last a perfectly gratuitous assumption in so far as it applied to the Cagots, who were, for the most part, of unusually sound constitution. The habits of the Cagots were also, in many instances assimilated to those of lepers; and the latter being freely accused of sorcery it was easy to associate with that crime those who were equally proscribed. Leprosy, in short, was

looked upon, not as a disease only, but as a curse, and there is little reason for doubting that, in consequence of the imputed malady, the Cagots were cast out, as a race accursed, from equal communion with their fellow-men. How unjust that imputation was might be shown from the works of

numerous savans.

But before the Cagots are dismissed, to enjoy the reputation which they really deserved, of being nothing but a simple, hard-working, patient, and industrious race, something must be said respecting their presumed origin. The phenomenon of a people living thus apart has been accounted for by numerous suppositions. The name they bore led many, naturally, to the conclusion, that the Cagots were of Gothic descent; but opinions widely differed as to the period when they made their first appearance in France. The theory which has had the greatest number of adherents, sustained the opinion that the Cagots were the bastardised and degenerate descendants of those Goths whom Clovis defeated on the plains of Vouillé, near Poitiers, and derived the word "Cagot" from the compound epithet "Can-Got" ("Chiens de Goths," or "Dogs of Goths"), used to express an inimical feeling. This derivation may not be strained, indeed, it is as probable as any,--but those who depend upon its application, in the time of Clovis, fail to show in what manner the defeated Goths managed to establish themselves in the country which had witnessed their overthrow, for the provinces which they occupied fell into the hands of their conqueror.

Others, at the head of whom is the learned Pierre de Marca, ascribe to the Cagots an Arabian origin, supposing that when Charles Martel defeated the Moors near Tours, a remnant of the army of Abd 'el raman remained in Gascony, and spread themselves southward, between the Garonne and the Western Pyrenees. But, in the first place, there are no physical traces of Arab blood in the Cagot; and in the next de Marca's theory is founded on false premises, for he thinks that the suspicion of leprosy which attached to the Cagots arose from the fact that the Arabs, in whom he saw their ancestors, were natives of Syria, where the disease was endemic, and that they sprang from the children of Gehazi, who was smitten by the anathema of Elisha after the cure of Naaman had been effected. This is an ingenious explanation, but nothing more, for no proof exists that the people of Aquitaine themselves believed their invaders to have come from Syria, nor were they exclusively of Arabian descent, as the army of Abd el rahman numbered in its ranks not only Arabs but Berbers and men of Germanic and Slave origin. But Pierre de Marca adduces other reasons in proof. He says that the Saracens, like the Cagots, exhaled a most unpleasant odour, which could not be removed from them until they had been baptised. But then the Jews and the Lombards were equally accused of smelling unpleasantly, and, moreover, the Cagots of later days were at least as good Christians as their neighbours. Pierre de Marca continues his theme as follows: "Having ascertained the origin of the imputation of leprosy, and of the stench of the Gezitans, or Cagots, to be in their Saracen descent, from the same source," he says, "must be derived the mark of the duck's or goose's foot, which formerly they were compelled to wear." But before the goose's foot is admitted as evidence against the Cagots, it must be shown that they actually wore that emblem; and this evidence is entirely wanting.

A third theory respecting the origin of the Cagots-which also has had many supporters-supposes them to have been the descendants of the Albigenses, who escaped the massacre of the ferocious Simon de Montfort; but here dates are incontestably against the supposition, for the persecution of the Albigenses ended in 1215; and mention is made of the Cagots,

under the name of Gaffos, in the ancient For de Navarre, which was compiled in the time of King Sancho Ramires, about the year 1074; the Cartulary of Saint Luc also calls "Chrestiens," as early as A.D. 1000.

The last opinion which has been broached respecting the accursed race is that which has been arrived at by M. Francisque Michel, the learned professor of foreign literature at the Imperial College of Bordeaux; and the theory which he sustains appears to be the most satisfactory of any. His belief is, that the Cagots are the descendants of those Spanish refugees who, in the ninth century, fled from the Mussulman yoke and took refuge in France, where they were protected by Charlemagne and his two immediate successors; but during the troubles which afterwards befel the empire the privileges granted to the refugees appear no longer to have been recognised, and thenceforward they fell by degrees until they became the miserable and outcast race whose degradation has no parallel in European history.

A SPRING SONG.

BY W. C. BENNETT.

LONG has been the winter,
Long-long in vain

We've sought the buds upon the bough,
The primrose in the lane.

Long have skies been dull and grey,
Nipping's been the blast—

But sing-Summer's coming,
The bee's out at last!
Sing-Winter's flying,

Summer's coming fast;
Humming joy and Spring-time-
The bee's out at last!

Loud shouts the cuckoo;

The nested elm around

Wheels the rook cawing;

There are shadows on the ground.
Warm comes the breeze, and soft,
Freezing days are past-
Sing-Summer's coming,
The bee's out at last!

Sing-Winter's flying,
Summer's coming fast;
Humming hope and Spring-time-
The bee's out at last!

A MOMENTOUS QUESTION.

WHEN were "the good old times ?"-those times about which so much has been said, and so much has been written for so many, many years? I am a lover of truth, a worshipper, although, perchance, but in the outer court of her world-wide temple, and I ask for information, not in a spirit of doubt or disbelief. Of this question, over which I have often pondered, and to which I have never yet obtained a satisfactory reply, perhaps, if forwarded to one of those obliging editors, those living encyclopædias who answer correspondents upon pertinent and impertinent subjects in the most unwearying and decided manner, the requisite solution might be obtained.

In one age or another of the world's history, these venerable days must have passed, as their memory lingers amongst us yet: what everybody says must be true, and almost everybody speaks of the "good old times." The fact of their existence being undisputed, and "facts are stubborn things," the question remains when were the good old times?

Once in a venerable country church, the present anxious inquirer on this momentous topic was startled by a reverend and somewhat prosy divine restricting his discourse, addressed to candidates for confirmation, to what his subject was not rather than to what it was. In like manner I have cogitated and decided upon when the "good old times" were not, according to my own limited understanding of the term, but am brought no nearer to that portion of the world's history in which they were: for although our respected grandsires frequently tell us that "things were very different when we were boys," one is certainly disposed to imagine the "good old times" of tradition of an earlier date than their babyhood. The days of extravagance and frivolity, the nights of drinking, gambling, and debauchery, which were not only fashionable but general, under the rule of the "finest gentleman in Europe," would scarcely be looked upon now as any but very bad times indeed for all classes of the community.

The phrase itself implies a dissatisfaction with things as they are; a preference for those which have been; a belief that we of another age and time are better adapted for living in a past age and time than in the present.

That "the good old times" were, in every way, superior to these degenerate modern days. If not, why such regretful dwelling upon the past! In what respect were the old days so good, in contradistinction to the evil of the present? Was there an age when wickedness was less rife upon the earth; when sorrow, poverty, degradation, and all the evils sin has entailed upon the human race were not scattered broadcast over its surface?

I fear not, for I do not suppose that the days of Eden-blessedness are the times alluded to; other than these I know of no good times in the world's past history, albeit I cling trustfully to the poet's creed of "a good time coming" coming surely, even though slowly; a better time than this; a better than any which has been; if not in the world which now is, none the less certainly in a world which shall be.

But it is with the past we are just now concerned. How far back shall we go in our search-to sacred story? Nay, the good old times are not chronicled in those pages which speak of murder, and bloodshed, and wars, and enmities, and violence, and the "golden age" of pagan story is but a poet's dream still unfulfilled. Better times came when the creed of love

manifested in the world, had its worshippers and champions, but the "good" times were not then; when the cross and the faggot, the prison and the scourge, were the arms with which that creed was combated, and its supporters destroyed.

But the term has probably had no reference to any period of religious liberty, so we will not make the inquiry a theological one; suffice it that a belief in "good old times" of one kind or another exists, and has had its maintainers for ages, and will continue to have till-we know not when. Perhaps it is only our own nation after all which boasts of having had any good old times to be proud of ("les bons vieux temps" sounds so very literally translated, that I question the genuineness of the Gallicism), so, leaving speculations upon general history, we will try and find out when the term may be best applied to our ancestors' "experiences” of by-gone days.

Not surely to the times of our acorn-eating progenitors? With all my love for the venerable and the antique, I do not think that the days of mud huts, and woad, and paint fashions, were altogether to be preferred to the present, although I am not an admirer of French entre-mets, and by no means a supporter of crinoline. The Bond-street exquisite may, perhaps, have but a paucity of ideas beneath his well oiled locks, but still, with all his faults, I think he may be an improvement upon those respectable ances tors whose dwellings were in the woods, and very much "in the rough."Nor do I think that the venerable frequenters of Pall Mall clubs, the feasters upon turtle, and the imbibers of cold punch and "crusted port," would place their "good old times" so far back as the days of the Druids. And the ladies of the present day, despite of all the rights and wrongs for and against which they are struggling and contending, would hardly desire an exchange of their imaginary slavery for that which was then too often a stern reality.

So the good old times not being then, were they but a little later, in the days of the Conquest? We can now look back, and trace what blessings dawned upon our land when Norman William, and his eager followers, set foot upon the shore he was so soon to possess, but very different, methinks, was the feeling with which the new suzeraine was greeted by those who had opposed him, till opposition was useless. The days of the curfew were bad enough to those who had had no gas-pipes laid down; what would they be to us who are supporters of Child and Palmer's manufactures and the projectors of gas companies innumerable? Or, again, will anyone place the good old times" in the age of the doughty deeds of chivalry, when armed cohorts sailed "Eastward ho"! carrying thither, at the point of the sword, the creed of the Prince of Peace ?

Were those days of anarchy at home, of peril dared abroad, the days we would choose to live in, we who know the blessings of peace within our walls and plenteousness within our palaces, even whilst other lands are desolated and laid waste for the iniquities of their rulers. Is it nothing that we are at peace within ourselves, whilst our bravest and noblest go forth to contend against oppression, injustice, and barbarian cruelty, in quite another spirit than that which animated the adventurers in the so-called Holy Wars? Surely the days that now are are better for us to live in than the days of the Crusaders, zealous but misguided though their fanaticism was. Let it not be supposed that the advantages subsequently derived from the intercourse of nations thus originated, are either unremembered or unvalued, but, nevertheless, we should hesitate to designate even the golden age of chivalry as the good old times which free-born Britons would, as a nation, desire to see revived.

The glories of the Elizabethan age have been hymned alike in prose and

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