Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/176

168 perpetuate error by the results of error.

Ziska became prominent as a leader in the year 1418, and in that year was authorized to raise forces. Probably he had been busy in that way even earlier; and so, from the first, secrecy and deception would have been necessary in the organization of his innumerable small bodies, so suddenly made one great body when he extorted the royal authority. He carried on hostilities with great success until his death in 1424. By this event, the Hussites were divided into three bodies, one of which was called the Orphans, or orphan children of Ziska. These dwelt in their camps in the open country, and were under a vow never again to sleep beneath a roof. They also refused obedience to any sovereign. Driven out of Bohemia in the disasters to which the death of Ziska led the way, and still more effectually driven out in the expatriation of all non-Catholics, the whole sect became fugitives and wanderers; and it is easy to see what kind of wanderers the "Orphans" particularly would be, with their wagon-camps and their oath against houses.

It is a remarkable coincidence, (if it shall prove to be no more,) that the Gypsies, a race of wanderers, peculiar by reason of the very characteristic that would have resulted from the Hussite oath, made their first appearance in Europe at this very period,—between 1418 and 1427,—and in those very countries in which the Orphans ought first to have been seen. But the earliest circumstantial notice of a company of Gypsies relates to the one that visited Paris in 1427. Pasquier gave a particular account of them, and remarks, that, though they had a very bad name, and though he was with them a great deal, he "never lost a coin."

These were called Bohemians, and the French have adhered to that name ever since. Doubtless the French of that day, who conversed with these people, and looked at them with very wide-open eyes, had as good reason for calling them Bohemians as they had for calling other men Spaniards, Italians, or Russians. Bohemia then formed too important a part of Europe for Frenchmen to confound men of that country with Hindoos just from Asia. The Bohemians were not strangers in France. Nearly a hundred years before, a king of Bohemia, with a large retinue, was present on the French side at the battle of Crécy, and Ziska himself fought at Agincourt. But writers on the Gypsies treat very slightingly the fact, that the French called the first party that visited Paris, as mentioned above, Bohemians, and merely say that they use that name for the Gypsies, "because they first heard of them from Bohemia."

Various circumstances point to the probability that the Gypsies were, at their first appearance in different countries, fugitives from religious intolerance. They always called themselves pilgrims, which Egyptians or Hindoos would scarcely have done, but which would be quite natural in that age to Europeans desirous of concealing their real character and of commending themselves to strangers in whom their difference of faith made them expect to find enemies. They called themselves Christians also, and declared ostentatiously their conformity to the Roman Catholic rites; but they carefully kept away from the churches. This assumption of a character which they knew would protect them is in keeping with the whole craft of their lives.

Another notable fact is, that they showed everywhere passes of safe-conducts from the Emperor Sigismund. Ziska's followers could not have got authentic passes, but they could forge them easily; and Hindoo stragglers, on their first appearance in Europe, would hardly have known the value of such pieces of paper. In all the original Gypsy parties there were dukes and counts, and these men called themselves Lords of Little Egypt; and from this fact seems originally to have arisen the notion that they were Egyptians. But this seems less like an assertion of their origin than like a piece of