to help, and the poor Spanish Cagots grew impatient, and resolved to try
the secular power. They accordingly applied to the Cortes of Navarre,
and were opposed on a variety of grounds. First, it was stated that
their ancestors had had "nothing to do with Raymond Count of Toulouse, or
with any such knightly personage; that they were in fact descendants of
Gehazi, servant of Elisha (second book of Kings, fifth chapter, twenty-
seventh verse), who had been accursed by his master for his fraud upon
Naaman, and doomed, he and his descendants, to be lepers for evermore.
Name, Cagots or Gahets; Gahets, Gehazites. What can be more clear? And
if that is not enough, and you tell us that the Cagots are not lepers
now; we reply that there are two kinds of leprosy, one perceptible and
the other imperceptible, even to the person suffering from it. Besides,
it is the country talk, that where the Cagot treads, the grass withers,
proving the unnatural heat of his body. Many credible and trustworthy
witnesses will also tell you that, if a Cagot holds a freshly-gathered
apple in his hand, it will shrivel and wither up in an hour's time as
much as if it had been kept for a whole winter in a dry room. They are
born with tails; although the parents are cunning enough to pinch them
off immediately. Do you doubt this? If it is not true, why do the
children of the pure race delight in sewing on sheep's tails to the dress
of any Cagot who is so absorbed in his work as not to perceive them? And
their bodily smell is so horrible and detestable that it shows that they
must be heretics of some vile and pernicious description, for do we not
read of the incense of good workers, and the fragrance of holiness?"

Such were literally the arguments by which the Cagots were thrown back
into a worse position than ever, as far as regarded their rights as
citizens. The Pope insisted that they should receive all their
ecclesiastical privileges. The Spanish priests said nothing; but tacitly
refused to allow the Cagots to mingle with the rest of the faithful,