“But though this was the common report, I spoke to them several times, yet I never lost a farthing by them; or ever saw them look into people’s hands. But the Bishop of Paris, hearing of it, went to them with a Friar Preacher, named Le petit Jacobin, who, by the Bishop’s order, preached a sermon excommunicating
all the men and women who pretended to believe these things; and had believed in them, and shown their hands; and it was agreed that they should go away, and they departed for Pontoise, in September.
“This was copied from an old book in the form of a journal, drawn up by a doctor of divinity in Paris, which fell into the hands of Pasquier; who remarks upon it, that however the story of a penance savours of a trick, these people wandered up and down France, under the eye, and with the knowledge of the magistrates, for 100, or 120 years. At length, in 1661, an edict was issued, commanding all officers of justice, to turn out of the kingdom, in the space of two months, under pain of the gallies, and corporal punishment, all men, women and children, who assumed the name of Bohémiens, or Egyptians.”
Dufresne, in his Glossary V. Ægyptiaci, confirms Pasquier’s character of them in these words: “Ægyptiaci, Gallicé Egyptiens, Bohémiens, vagi homines, harioli, et fatidici, qui hac et illac errantes, ex manu inspectione futura
prœsagire se fingunt; ut de marsupiis incautorum nummos corrogent;” which may be thus translated, “Egyptians called by the French Egyptiens, Bohémiens, vagabonds, soothsayers and fortune-tellers, who, wandering up and down, pretend to foretel future events from the inspection of the hand, for the purpose of obtaining money from persons not careful of their purses, &c.”
Grellmann speaks of Gypsies “being numerous in Lorraine and Alsatia, before the French Revolution, but especially in the forests of Lorraine. They increased in this district, in consequence of their having been assiduously looked after in the dominions of the late Duke Deux-Fonts, and driven from thence; whither his successor would not suffer them to return. He adds, that an order of the provincial council, held at Tarragona, in 1591, subjected them to the magistrates, as people “quos vix constat esse Christianos, nisi ex eorum relatione, cum tamen sint mendaces, fures, deceptores, et aliis sceleribus multi eorum assueti;” in English, “who are scarcely allowed to be Christians,
except from their own account of themselves, seeing they are liars, thieves, cheats, and many of them accustomed to other kinds of wickedness.”
Twiss, in his Travels p. 179, gives the following account of them in Spain: “They are very numerous about, and in, Murcia, Cordova, Codis, and Ronda. The race of these vagabonds is found in every part of Europe. The French call them Bohémiens, the Italians Zingari, the Germans Ziegeuners, the Dutch Heydenen, Pagans, the Portuguese Siganos, and the Spaniards Gitanos, in Latin, Cingari.
“Their language, which is peculiar to themselves, is every where so similar, that they are undoubtedly all derived from the same source. They began to appear in Europe in the 15th century, and are probably a mixture of Egyptians and Ethiopians. The men are all thieves, and the women libertines. They follow no certain trade, and have no fixed religion. They do not enter into the order of society, wherein they are only tolerated. It is supposed there are upwards of forty thousand of
them in Spain; great numbers of them are innkeepers in the villages, and small towns; and they are every where fortune-tellers.