d in the
pathway of religion!" His humanitarian deeds gave way to a profound
religious mysticism. He experienced a revulsion of feeling toward
reforms in his vast empire, and, as always, the Jews were the first
victims of an ill-boding change. The kindly monarch who, at Paris, had
said to a Russo-Jewish deputation, _J'enleverai le joug de vos epaules_,
began to make their yoke heavier than he had found it. The enlightened
czar, who, in striking a medal commemorating the emancipation of the
Jews of his empire, had anticipated Napoleon by a year, suddenly became
a bigoted tyrant, whose efforts were devoted to converting the same Jews
to Christianity. He who had claimed that his greatest reward would be to
produce a Mendelssohn, now resorted to various expedients, to render
education unpalatable to the Jews. The Jewish assemblymen, who, in 1816,
soon after the Franco-Russian war, had been convoked to St. Petersburg,
were not allowed to meet; and when, two years later, they did meet,
their every attempt was baffled by the Government. Jews were expelled
systematically from St. Petersburg (1818). They were forbidden to employ
Christians as servants (May 4, 1820), to immigrate into Russia from
abroad (August 10, 1824), and reside in the towns and villages of
Mohilev and Vitebsk (January 13, 1825). Several years after the double
poll and guild tax had been abolished in Courland (November 8, 1807), it
was restored with an additional impost on meat from cattle slaughtered
according to the Jewish rite (korobka). All this impoverished the Jews
to such an extent that they were forced to sell the cravats of their
praying shawls (taletim), in order to defray the expense of a second
deputation to St. Petersburg.[29]

Had Alexander I been satisfied with merely restricting the Jews' rights,
the favorable attitude towards enlightenment we have noticed above would
probably have remained unaltered. Unfortunately, Alexander became a
fanatic conversionist. It was a time when missionary zeal became
endemic, and Baroness Kruedener's influence was strengthened. The
Reverend Lewis Way, having founded (1808) the London Society for
Promoting Christianity among the Jews, made a tour through Europe,
everywhere urging the Gentiles to enfranchise the Jews as an inducement
to them to embrace Christianity, the only means of hastening the advent
of the Apostolic millennium. His _Memoires sur l'etat des israelites_
presented to the Congress of Aix-la-Chape