The descendants of this Seigneur de Lourbes
are simple peasants at this very day, working on the lands which belonged
to their grandfather.
This prejudice against mixed marriages remained prevalent until very
lately. The tradition of the Cagot descent lingered among the people,
long after the laws against the accursed race were abolished. A Breton
girl, within the last few years, having two lovers each of reputed Cagot
descent, employed a notary to examine their pedigrees, and see which of
the two had least Cagot in him; and to that one she gave her hand. In
Brittany the prejudice seems to have been more virulent than anywhere
else. M. Emile Souvestre records proofs of the hatred borne to them in
Brittany so recently as in eighteen hundred and thirty-five. Just lately
a baker at Hennebon, having married a girl of Cagot descent, lost all his
custom. The godfather and godmother of a Cagot child became Cagots
themselves by the Breton laws, unless, indeed, the poor little baby died
before attaining a certain number of days. They had to eat the butchers'
meat condemned as unhealthy; but, for some unknown reason, they were
considered to have a right to every cut leaf turned upside down, with its
cut side towards the door, and might enter any house in which they saw a
loaf in this position, and carry it away with them.
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