he Street of
Rivoli, the bridges of Austerlitz, Jena, and the Arts--these are some
of the magnificent enterprises due to his initiative. Such works were
pushed throughout the summer of 1807 by employing large numbers of
laborers and artisans, while local workshops were opened in every
department to furnish employment to all who could not otherwise find
it. The political economist may lift his eyebrows and shrug his
shoulders in contemplating such shifts; but they were imperial shifts,
and created a high degree of comfort at the time, while they satisfied
in permanency that passion for beauty in utility which does not
sufficiently enter as an element into economic science.

Closely connected with this policy was a measure of Napoleon's already
referred to, but little known. In some respects it was more successful
than any other; it certainly is most characteristic of the man. The
evil aimed at was cured at the time, and the permanent question is
less acute in modern France than in any other European country. For
years past there had been chronic distress among the agricultural
classes in some of the most fertile districts of France, notably in
the northeast. This was attributed to the presence of Jews in large
numbers. The stringent laws of the old regime had crowded that
unfortunate people out of all occupations but two--peddling and
money-lending. In both of these they became experts, and when
emancipated by the Revolution they used their liberty, not to widen
their activities, but to intensify the evils of the monopoly which
they had secured. Since 1791 large numbers of Polish and German Jews
had established themselves on the right bank of the Rhine; and
reaching hands across that stream to their kinsfolk on the left bank,
they combined to strip the French peasantry by the familiar arts of
barter and usury, which need not be described here, until in a few
years they were creditors to the extent of twenty-three million
francs, and had become extensive landed proprietors. They were never
seen to labor with their hands, and having no family name, they evaded
the conscription laws with impunity, while the courts of justice
became their humble servants in enforcing the collection of scandalous
debts or in the foreclosure of inflated mortgages.

In 1806 a temporary decree had suspended all legal executions in
certain districts, and many Jews of the better class made ready to bow
before the coming tempest and come to the a