Three German princes alone withstood the spirit of the age: those of Bavaria, Austria, and Saxony. The first, Maximilian Joseph, appointed king of Bavaria by Napoleon, promulgated an edict (June 10, 1813), which appeared to concede equality to Jews, at least to those who possessed the right of settlement. But it was equality with many limitations. In cities to which no Jew had hitherto been admitted, their settlement was to depend upon the royal pleasure, and even in those places where they had dwelt for a long time their numbers were not to be increased, but rather diminished. In Austria, Leopold II and Francis I, the successors of Emperor Joseph, who had somewhat loosened the chains of the Jews, left the favorable intentions of their predecessor unexecuted, and imposed new humiliations. In addition to the unendurable burden of taxes in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Galicia,—taxes upon candles, upon wine, and meat—a collection-tax was imposed in Vienna, which was a toll upon every Jew who entered the capital. Spies closely watched the Jew who stayed in Vienna for a short time unprovided with a passport, and treated him like a criminal. Marriages among Jews were still restricted, and could be contracted only by the eldest son of the family, or by one able to pay heavy bribes. Although Austria was so often overrun by the soldiers of liberty, yet, impenetrable as the wall of China, it resisted every innovation. In the newly-created kingdom of Saxony all the restrictions imposed in the time of the Electoral princes and the Lutheran Church were maintained in their fullest rigor. Saxony was rightly called the Protestant Spain of the Jews. Indeed they were not suffered to dwell in the country at all; only a few privileged Jews were admitted to the two towns of Dresden and Leipsic, but under the express condition that they could be expelled at any time. They were not allowed to have a synagogue, but only to meet for prayer in small rooms, on condition that they made no noise. In Leipsic and Dresden every privileged Jew was compelled to pay annually seventy thalers for himself, besides other sums for his wife, children, and servants. The Jews were rigidly constrained in their choice of trades and occupations, and were placed under strict supervision while traveling. When all other German districts had abolished the poll-tax, Saxony still retained it. The example of the two neighboring countries—Westphalia and Prussia—had no influence upon this district, which at that time was rendered doubly selfish by trade jealousy and religious prejudice. The reactionary movement found plenty of fuel in Germany.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE REACTION AND TEUTOMANIA.
The Jews in the Wars for Freedom—The Congress of Vienna—Hardenberg and Metternich—Rühs' Christian Germanism—Jew-hatred in Germany and Rome—German Act of Federation—Ewald's Defense of Judaism—Jew-hatred in Prussia—Lewis Way—Congress at Aix—Hep, hep Persecution—Hartwig Hundt—Julius von Voss—Jewish Avengers.
1813–1818 C. E.
Like the Persian monarch Xerxes, Napoleon, hitherto invincible, and grown haughty and brutal through his successes, summoned the nations and princes to a universal war, and they followed him as submissively as slaves follow their master. Proudly he led forth Europe, subdued by him, against Asiatic Russia. Within the memory of man such an immense expedition had not been known. But, if ever, the words of the text were fulfilled in this gigantic contest: "An horse is a vain thing for safety, neither shall he deliver any by his great strength"; if ever, Divine justice manifested itself in him who had trampled upon right and liberty. Napoleon was defeated, not by the power of his enemy, but by a Higher Hand which struck him with blindness—a blindness which permitted the glow of the flames at Moscow and the ice of a Russian winter to work his ruin. When God and fortune had forsaken him, the princes who had promised him service and allegiance fell away from him, and turned the points of their swords against him, and the people, which, relying upon his own warlike talents, he had so greatly despised, rose up against him. But the nations likewise were stricken with blindness; whilst breaking asunder one sort of bonds, they forged new ones for themselves. The two years (May, 1812-April, 1814) form an instructive chapter in history, from the moment when Napoleon led an army of more than half a million men against Russia, until the day when, abandoned by all, he was compelled to flee, in order to escape the threats and insults of the embittered French people. It was a sanguinary, horrifying drama.
No one could have suspected that the greater would drag down the less in its ruin, that by the downfall of Napoleon, the Jews whom he had liberated, though reluctantly, would be hurled into their former slavery. Jewish youths belonging to wealthy families had emulated their Christian friends in courage, and rushed to battle to help in slaying the giant. Large numbers of Jews, especially in Prussia, animated by burning love of country, had joined the volunteers, had rejoiced to be accepted in the ranks, and wipe away with their blood on the battlefield the stain of cowardice, so often imputed to them by the opponents to their emancipation. Jewish young men paid for the freedom accorded them on paper with their lives. Jewish physicians and surgeons sacrificed themselves in the camps and hospitals in their devoted attendance on the wounded and the plague-stricken. Jewish women and girls spared no efforts to bring help and comfort to the wounded. Again, as in the days of national independence, sons of the same race and religion were opposed to each other—German Jews engaged in deadly combat with French, Italian, and Dutch Jews, and recognized each other only in the last hour, in time to embrace as brothers. Those unfit to bear arms had shown their attachment to Germany and their worthiness of emancipation by sacrifices in other ways. Nevertheless, the seemingly forgotten Jew-hatred was rekindled in the hearts of the Germans, extended ever further, and robbed the Jews of the reward which the hard-won victories had promised to bring even to them.
With the fall of the hero began the rule of petty, intriguing, reckless speculators, who bartered both men and lands. They misled the princes who earnestly desired to restore long banished freedom, and ensnared them with lying artifices. In France these intriguers, the Talleyrands, reinstated the throne of the Bourbons. In Germany Metternich and Gentz turned the struggles for freedom into mockery. Only the more far-sighted knew that Europe, owing to the closer connection between the rulers, would be reduced to a more degrading state of slavery, because sloth and pettiness were the order of the day.
The Jews felt the first effects of the reaction now commencing in Germany. It arose in Frankfort, the seat of unmitigated, mediæval anti-Semitism. As soon as the artillery of the retreating enemy had ceased within the precincts of this city, loud voices were heard encouraging each other to demand that boundaries be set at once to the unheard-of presumption of the Jews. In Lübeck and Bremen, the citizens did not content themselves with depriving the Jews of their recently-acquired rights, but energetically strove to banish them altogether. The proposal was seriously made to drive all adherents of the Mosaic religion from the town. In Hanover, Hildesheim, Brunswick, and Hesse, they were at one blow divested of their rights of equality. These events naturally gave great anxiety to the Jews throughout Germany. If the privileges granted them by law, as in Frankfort, could be abolished, what security had they for the continuance of their equality? What a contrast this reaction presented to that in France! Here, although the nobility, who hated freedom and were thirsting for revenge, and the Catholic clergy were in power at the court of Louis XVIII, and looked upon the terrible events since 1789 as if they had not happened, yet the rights of the Jews were not abridged.