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-Chapelle (October 11, 1818) and his visit to Russia resulted in an imperial ukase (March 25, 1817) organizing a Committee of Guardians for Israelitish Christians (Izrailskiye Christyanye).  The members of this association were to be granted land in the northern or southern provinces of Russia and to enjoy special privileges.  The bait proved tempting, and, as a consequence, some prominent Maskilim, too weak to resist the allurements, precipitated themselves into the Greek Catholic fold.  Abraham Peretz, financier and champion of Jews’ rights, consented to be converted, as also Loeb Nebakhovich, the dramatist, whose plays were produced in the Imperial theatre of St. Petersburg and performed in the presence of the emperor.[30] Equally bad, if not worse, for the cause of Haskalah was the conduct of those who, disdaining,