A.D. 1700-1800.
THE JEWS IN SPAIN, ITALY, AND FRANCE.
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.
FOOTNOTES:
[199] This was soon set aside, being contrary to the spirit of
English law. The Jews established themselves in Gibraltar, and are
now a thriving population, with four synagogues.
[200] The tariff of tolls has been preserved, and has a curious
sound. For a Jew 12 deniers (about 1d.), a Jewess and child 9
deniers, a Jewess 6 deniers; for a dead Jew 5 sous, a dead Jewess 30
deniers.