“Nearly all of them had their ears bored, and one or two silver rings in each, which they said were esteemed ornaments in their country. The men were black, their hair curled; the women remarkably black, all their faces scarred, _deployez_, their hair black, their only clothes a large old shaggy garment, _flossoye_, tied over the shoulders with a cloth or cord, sash, _lien_, and under it a poor petticoat, _roquet_. In short, they were the poorest miserable creatures that had ever been seen in France; and notwithstanding their poverty, there were among them women, who by looking into people’s hands told their fortunes. And what was worse, they picked people’s pockets of their money; and got it into their own, through telling these things by art, magic, &c. “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.”