MODERN TROGLODYTES
into their hearts and heads some sort of moral principle. But his efforts were ineffectual, and left not a trace behind. They recollect him and his son well enough, but confuse the one with the other. And two of those who were under instruction for a while, when I questioned them about it, allowed that they had submitted to be bored by them for the sake of profiting by their charity.
"I interrogated an old but still robust woman, who had lived in the caverns for three years. She had been consigned to them by her own children, who had sought by this means to rid themselves of the responsibility of maintaining her.
"The elements of this population belong accordingly to all sorts. I noticed only one woman of an olive tint and with very black hair, who may have come from a distance. But I was told she was a recent accession to the colony, and I might be sure of this, as her clothing was still fairly sound and clean. As she is still young and can work, her case is curious; one wonders what can have induced her to go there.
"I saw there also a couple without children; the man had the slouch and hang-dog look of an habitual criminal.
"I may give an instance which will show the degradation to which this population has fallen. An old beggar I visited, who has lived in a cavern belonging to his brother for forty-seven years, and who has had a wife, allowed a billiard ball to be rammed into his mouth for two sous (a penny) by some young fellows who were making sport of him. He was nearly killed by it, for they had the greatest difficulty in extracting the billiard ball."[1]
At Duclair also, on the Seine, are rock dwellings precisely like those on the Loire, and still inhabited.
Along the banks of the Loire from Tours to Saumur are numerous cave habitations still in occupation. Bell, in his
- ↑ Zaborowski, "Aux Caves d'Ezy," in Revue Monsuelle de l'école d'Anthropologie, Paris, 1897, i. p. 27, et seq.
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