The history of the Jews: From the war with Rome to the present time

We enter now on the eighteenth century, and are, as it were, in sight of the history of our own times. The position in which we find the Jews is in the main the same which they at present occupy. In Romish countries they were still liable to sharp persecution, sometimes from mob violence, sometimes from the action of the Church. The lands in which the severest measures were enforced continued to be Spain and Portugal, where the Inquisition was dominant throughout the entire century, though its power gradually but very evidently diminished as the years passed on. In the reign of Philip V., who succeeded to the Spanish throne A.D. 1700, and held it till 1746, the first direct blow was given to its authority. In the War of Succession, which began at the outset of his reign, his French allies treated the Inquisition with very scant respect. They broke open the prisons of the Holy Office, released the prisoners, and even seized the silver images in the Dominican chapels, melting them down to pay the expenses of the campaign. The king took no part in the spoliation; but when the Inquisitors appealed to him against the sacrilegious violence of the French, he replied that he could not interfere with the measures taken by his allies. He was a weak and sombre-tempered young man, though not, it would seem, a religious bigot, and allowed the clergy in the main to have their way. One Auto da Fé was held every year throughout his reign; and the number of victims is said to have amounted to 14,000. There can be little doubt that the greater part of these were ‘secret Jews.’ It is beyond dispute that throughout this century, and long afterwards—even, it is said, to our own times—secret Judaism continued to maintain its hold; and from time to time discoveries were made, and executions followed.

In 1713 the English were confirmed in the possession of Gibraltar, which had been wrested from Spain some ten years before. But it is a singular fact that the Spaniards, even when yielding up their stronghold to Great Britain, could not endure that the Jews should be allowed to live in peace there; and one clause of the treaty stipulated that ‘no Jew should be tolerated in that city.’[199]

Ferdinand VI. succeeded his father in 1746, and reigned till 1759. He bears the character of a good and wise prince, and no public Auto da Fé took place in his time, though there appear to have been a considerable number of petty local executions. Probably these took place without his sanction, or even knowledge. He died without issue, and was succeeded by his brother, Charles III. He again was an able and vigorous sovereign, and the power of the Inquisition still further diminished during his reign. Three years after his accession he took the decided step of banishing the Grand Inquisitor for encroaching on the privileges of the Crown. In 1770, and again in 1784, he ordered that any procedure against offenders must be approved by the king, and sufficient evidence adduced to justify imprisonment. He was succeeded by his son, Charles IV., the weak and miserable victim of Napoleon’s ambition. The Inquisition was upheld during his reign, though it does not appear that any Auto da Fé took place. Very much the same is the history of the Jewish persecution in Portugal, the power of the Inquisition, though greatly limited, still subsisting to the very end of the century.

In Italy very nearly the same state of things continued as has been described under the history of the previous century. On the separation of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies from that of Spain, Charles, who succeeded to the sovereignty, reversed the policy which had been pursued by his predecessors, and invited the Jews to settle for sixty years in his kingdom. He offered to confer upon them rights and privileges which would have left them little ground of complaint. They were to be allowed to hold lands, except such as conferred feudal rights on their possessors. They were to be permitted to trade with all parts of the world, exempt from any special impost—on the same terms, in fact, as his Christian subjects. They might practise all professions, that of the physician included, and have Christian patients, if the latter desired it. They might also follow any handicraft; they might serve in the army; they might freely print and circulate their literature; they might have Christians in their service. They were to be free also to build synagogues and celebrate their religious rites; and the authority of their clergy was to be upheld by the State. All men, in fine, were forbidden, under severe penalties, to insult or wrong them; and all attempts to proselytize their children were to be discouraged. We do not wonder at hearing that Jews in great numbers, from all parts of Europe, accepted King Charles’s invitation; neither can it move our surprise to hear that his subjects were not inclined to acquiesce in their sovereign’s enlightened views. The Pope of the day, Clement XII., and his confessor, a man of great influence in the Church, denounced the concessions made to the Jews; the clergy preached inflammatory sermons from their pulpits, a Capuchin friar publicly warned the king that, as the punishment of his guilty act, he would die childless. The Jews could not face the storm. They knew that any attempt to open shops, or bring their merchandise into Naples, would be the signal for a riot, not improbably for a massacre. After a brief sojourn in the city, they withdrew from it.

In 1775, Pius VI., the Pope whom Napoleon imprisoned and deposed, revived some of the harsh laws against the Jews, whose condition, for a long time past, had been growing more peaceful and assured. He issued an edict by which Rabbinical literature was suppressed; no Hebrew book, or even manuscript, might remain in the possession of a Jew. He was required to keep himself rigidly within the limits of his Ghetto; he was obliged again to wear his yellow badge; when a corpse was buried, no funeral procession was allowed; no Jew might employ a Christian midwife or wet-nurse; and, vice versâ, a Christian might not employ Jews. The old enactment requiring Jews to attend controversial sermons was again enforced; and the Rabbins were obliged to draw up lists of their disciples, who were required to be present. This seems to have been at the outset of Pius’s long reign. The outbreak of the French Revolution, and the troubles which it brought upon him, probably gave a new direction to his thoughts.

Turning to France, we find that the condition of the Jews during the eighteenth century was very peculiar. It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that, although nominally excluded from France, they had long been suffered to dwell there under protections granted to them by Henry II. and others. There were, indeed, three different sections of Jews resident in France at this time—the Portuguese Jews, to whom charters were granted by the French Parliament A.D. 1550. These were chiefly to be found in Bayonne, Bordeaux, and its vicinity. They appear at first to have passed under the name of New Christians, and as such, no doubt, were obliged to submit themselves to the ordinances of the Church; but in the fierce strife which ensued between the Catholics and Huguenots they escaped notice. It is said that they contracted marriages according to their own rites, and evaded the baptism of their children. There were, again, the Jews of Avignon, who were either Italians or native Frenchmen. These had been tolerated by the Popes during their residence there, and probably no great notice had been taken of them since the removal of the papal court. Again, after the conquest of Metz and Alsace, a considerable number of German Jews became subjects of France. It is likely that they by no means regretted the change of masters; for only a few years before, the Parliament at Metz had burnt a number of Jews on the old charge of murdering infants. Louis XIV. granted the Jews of Alsace the same privileges possessed by Bordeaux and other cities—that of free commerce, on condition of paying a certain poll-tax, subsequently compounded for a lump sum. Nevertheless, all over Lorraine and Alsace the Jews, during this century, were harshly dealt with. Their usurious exactions rendered them odious to the people, as indeed had been the case with their ancestors for many generations. In Strasburg only a few Jewish families were allowed to reside. In Lorraine the laws of Duke Leopold, made in 1724, continued long in force. By these only 180 families were permitted to reside and to carry on trade; and even these were required to live within the Jewish quarters.

When the Edict of Nantes was revoked, and all the subjects of the King of France were required to accept the ordinances of the Catholic Church, the Jews in France were in some danger of persecution. But the act seems never to have been carried out so far as they were concerned. As before, the clergy were too busy in enforcing the law against Huguenots to trouble themselves about a handful of Jews. But, though they were kindly treated, it would be a mistake to suppose that they were naturalized, as some writers have affirmed. It is said that they offered the Regent Orleans two million livres in exchange for the privilege of naturalization—a sum which that impecunious potentate would have been well pleased to lay his hands on. But he was afraid of the unpopularity he would incur by the act, and refused the offer. The writer of the pamphlet respecting the Naturalization Bill of 1753, quoted in a previous chapter, says: ‘It is a vulgar error to suppose that the Jews in France were naturalized subjects; and any Frenchman of whom you asked the question would laugh in your face.’ It appears to have been only in certain cities that the Jews were allowed to reside permanently. In Lyons they could only reside three months consecutively. In Paris it is said their residence was altogether prohibited.

Louis XV. appears to have treated them with kindness, and to have discouraged a step which was made to abridge their privileges. He also showed much favour to the celebrated Samuel Bernard, the famous banker of his day, who afterwards became a convert to the Church. As the century advanced, and Voltaire and the Encyclopædists began to exercise a wide influence in France, it might have been expected that they would have exerted it in favour of the Jews; who, although they were no longer exposed to the terrible sufferings they had undergone in previous generations, were still subject to a more modified religious persecution—a thing utterly abhorrent to the writers in question. But the Encyclopædists disliked the Jews almost as much as the Christians. The Hebrew race had suffered cruelly in previous ages, as being the enemies of the Gospel. But in the eyes of the infidel writers they were almost as objectionable, as being the living witnesses of its truth. No Dominican persecutor of the fifteenth century would have viewed the Jews with more contempt and hatred than does Voltaire, the advocate of religious tolerance.

In fact, it is obvious that the Jews had to undergo many hardships in France during the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV. A few years after the accession of Louis XVI., the mildness of whose temper had become generally known, a petition was presented by the Jews to the king and council, complaining of the heavy burdens laid upon them. Besides the fees exacted for the royal protection, a capitation tax was imposed upon them by the feudal superior on whose estate they resided. The right of residence was only personal, and a fresh sum had to be paid for every child that was born to them. Further, a toll was paid by every Jew at the gate of every city which he entered, as though he had been a horse or a sheep. There were besides restrictions on their commerce, which weighed heavily upon them.

The appeal to Louis XVI. was not in vain. The obnoxious capitation tax was abolished in 1784; and in 1788 a commission was appointed, of which Malesherbes was the president, and the first act of the latter was to put an end to the toll at the city gates.[200] Malesherbes also set on foot measures for ameliorating generally the condition of the Jews. He proposed to give a prize for the best essay on the subject. This was gained by the celebrated Abbé Grégoire, whose essay was very generally approved. Steps were taken to carry out some of the improvements suggested. But before this could be done the Revolution had begun, and liberty, equality, and fraternity for all men had become the general cry in France. The Jews were not slow to avail themselves of their opportunity, and sent in their petition to the General Assembly to be admitted to the rights of equal citizenship. The question was discussed in the National Assembly, and was affirmed, though not until after considerable debate. On the 17th of September, 1791, the decree was passed by which Jews, without exception or distinction, were admitted to the rights of French citizenship. It was ratified also by the Constitution of 1795.