The first of this people who came into Europe, must have been persons of discernment and discrimination, to have adapted their deceptions
so exactly to the genius and habits of the different people they visited, as to ensure success in all countries.
The stratagem to which they had recourse on entering France, evinces consummate artifice of plan, and not a little adroitness and dexterity in the execution. The specious appearance of submission to papal authority, in the penance of wandering seven years without lying in a bed, combined three distinct objects. They could not have devised an expedient more likely to recommend them to the favor of Ecclesiastics; or better concerted for taking advantage of the superstitious credulity of the people, and, at the same time, for securing to themselves the gratification of their own nomadic propensities. So complete was the deception they practised, that we find they wandered up and down in France, under the eye of magistracy, not for seven only, but for more than a hundred years, without molestation.
In 1561, the edict of the States of Orleans directed their expulsion by fire and sword; yet in 1612, they had increased to such a degree,
that there was another order for their total extermination. Notwithstanding this severity, in 1671 they were again spread over the kingdom, as appears in the letters of the Marchioness de Sévigné to her friends, and the Countess Grignan, in nine volumes, translated from the last Paris edition: “Bohemians travel up and down the Provinces of France, and get their living by dancing, showing postures, and telling fortunes; but chiefly by pilfering, &c.”
It is remarkable, that in all countries, they professed to be Egyptians; but the representation is not only refuted by Bellonius, but by later writers, who assert, that the “few who are to be found in Egypt, wander about as strangers there, and form a distinct people.”
As historians admit that the greatest numbers of them are to be found in Turkey, and south of Constantinople, there is reason to apprehend they had a passage through that country. If many of them did not visit Egypt previously to their arrival in Europe, they probably wished to avail themselves of the reputation
the Egyptians had acquired in occult sciences, that they might practise with greater success, the arts to which they had been previously accustomed, and the practice of which is common in various parts of Asia. In other respects the habits of Egypt were very dissimilar to theirs.
We find by the reports on the first question put by the Circular, mentioned in Section IX. that “all Gypsies in this country suppose the first of them came from Egypt;” and this idea is confirmed by many circumstances that have been brought into view in the course of this work. In addition it may be observed, that before the discovery of the passage to India, by the Cape of Good Hope, all the productions of the east, that were distributed in Europe, came to Egyptian ports. Hence we have many concurring testimonies, which render it highly probable, if not evidently clear, that the first Gypsey tribes who came into England, and other parts of Europe, migrated from hordes of that people who had previously found their way into Egypt.
The evidence appears equally strong, that they were not natives of Egypt; but as the Egyptians were in great repute for the practice of the occult sciences, common to them and to the Suder caste; we cannot be surprized to find these crafty itinerants, should avail themselves of such an opportunity, as coming out of that country, to profess themselves Egyptians.