Some say that the antipathy to them took its rise in the days when
leprosy was a dreadfully prevalent disease; and that the Cagots are more
liable than any other men to a kind of skin disease, not precisely
leprosy, but resembling it in some of its symptoms; such as dead
whiteness of complexion, and swellings of the face and extremities. There
was also some resemblance to the ancient Jewish custom in respect to
lepers, in the habit of the people; who on meeting a Cagot called out,
"Cagote? Cagote?" to which they were bound to reply, "Perlute! perlute!"
Leprosy is not properly an infectious complaint, in spite of the horror
in which the Cagot furniture, and the cloth woven by them, are held in
some places; the disorder is hereditary, and hence (say this body of wise
men, who have troubled themselves to account for the origin of Cagoterie)
the reasonableness and the justice of preventing any mixed marriages, by
which this terrible tendency to leprous complaints might be spread far
and wide. Another authority says, that though the Cagots are
fine-looking men, hard-working, and good mechanics, yet they bear in
their faces, and show in their actions, reasons for the detestation in
which they are held: their glance, if you meet it, is the jettatura, or
evil-eye, and they are spiteful, and cruel, and deceitful above all other
men.
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