races of Jews in
discussing the question of Jewish emancipation at the time of the
Revolution. For whilst the Sephardim had shown themselves good citizens
and were therefore subject to no persecutions, the Ashkenazim by their
extortionate usury and oppressions had made themselves detested by the
people, so that rigorous laws were enforced to restrain their rapacity.
The discussions that raged in the National Assembly on the subject of
the Jewish question related therefore mainly to the Jews of Alsace.
Already, in 1784, the Jews of Bordeaux had been accorded further
concessions by Louis XVI; in 1776 all Portuguese Jews had been given
religious liberty and the permission to inhabit all parts of the
kingdom. The decree of January 28, 1790, conferring on the Jews of
Bordeaux the rights of French citizens, put the finishing touch to this
scheme of liberation. But the proposal to extend this privilege to the
Jews of Alsace evoked a storm of controversy in the Assembly and also
violent insurrections amongst the Alsatian peasants. It was thus on
behalf of the people that several deputies protested against the decree.
"The Jews," said the Abbe Maury, "have traversed seventeen centuries
without mingling with other nations. They have never done anything but
trade with money, they have been the scourge of agricultural provinces,
not one of them has known how to ennoble his hands by guiding the
plough." And he went on to point out that the Jews "must not be
persecuted, they must be protected as individuals and not as Frenchmen,
since they cannot be citizens.... Whatever you do, they will always
remain foreigners in our midst."

Monseigneur de la Fare, Bishop of Nancy, adopted the same line of
argument:

They must be accorded protection, safety, liberty; but should we
admit into the family a tribe that is foreign to it, that turns its
eyes unceasingly towards a common country, that aspires to abandon
the land that bears it?... My _cahier_ orders me to protest against
the motion that has been made to you. The interest of the Jews
themselves necessitates this protest. The people have a horror of
them; they are often in Alsace the victims of popular risings.[625]

In all this, as will be seen, there is no question of persecution, but
of precautions against a race that wilfully isolates itself from the
rest of the community in order to pursue its own interests and
advantages. The Jews of Bordeaux in