And, indeed, the being convinced by Dr. Guyon that they ought to receive
Cagots as fellow-creatures, only made them more rabid in declaring that
they would not. One or two little occurrences which are recorded, show
that the bitterness of the repugnance to the Cagots was in full force at
the time just preceding the first French revolution. There was a M.
d'Abedos, the curate of Lourbes, and brother to the seigneur of the
neighbouring castle, who was living in seventeen hundred and eighty; he
was well-educated for the time, a travelled man, and sensible and
moderate in all respects but that of his abhorrence of the Cagots: he
would insult them from the very altar, calling out to them, as they stood
afar off, "Oh! ye Cagots, damned for evermore!" One day, a half-blind
Cagot stumbled and touched the censer borne before this Abbe de Lourbes.
He was immediately turned out of the church, and forbidden ever to re-
enter it. One does not know how to account for the fact, that the very
brother of this bigoted abbe, the seigneur of the village, went and
married a Cagot girl; but so it was, and the abbe brought a legal process
against him, and had his estates taken from him, solely on account of his
marriage, which reduced him to the condition of a Cagot, against whom the
old law was still in force.
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