12 Walter Jacob

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march into Russia sold foodstuff to the armies and the high prices demanded were criticized; that seems to have been the only report by any official.

Too much has been made in the popular mind of Napoleon ’s friendliness to Jews ; this is understandable as his action provided civil rights in his French Empire for a decade and those rights continued in France after his fall, where they had, after all already existed. Napoleon actually rejected equal rights through his decree of 1806 and in other ways as each of those documents treated Jews as a group rather than as individuals unlike other French citizens. This remained so as demonstrated by the“infamous decree” of 1808 which established the consistory organization of French Jewry, but negatively limited occupations, residency, and the ability of conscripts to purchase substitutes for their military service.” It took several years for most of these restrictions to be eliminated; in the meantime, Jews were second class citizens .

Napoleon did succeed in planting a seed of civil equality in the remainder of Europe , but it took decades of struggle to bring about those rights. Initially virtually all German states returned their Jewish population to their previous status. Even Prussia did not extend rights to the restored territories.

THE ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES.

Let us return to the Assembly of Notables which dealt with the questions of the Emperor as the Sanhedrin only ratified what had already been decided. Although the Assembly was organized with imperial pomp, its opening session was marked by Molé’s harsh speech that made the wishes of the Emperor quite clear. The delegates had decided to conduct their initial session as a festive opening even though it was shabbat.>® Paeans of praise to the Emperor were offered then and were generously scattered throughout the lengthy meetings.