(FRENCH JUDAICA)

This document prescribes the oath of office to be taken by the members of the “consistorial syngagogues” of Paris as well as those throughout the Empire (which included Italy and the Rhineland): “I swear and promise to God, on the holy Bible, to obey the constitution of the Empire, and fidelity to the Emperor. I promise also to make known all that I learn contrary to the interests of the Ruler and of the State.” Historian Simon Schwarzfuchs sums up the procedure: “The members of the Central Consistory were officially appointed on 19 October and could then begin organising the Jewish religion in France. They took the oath of loyalty to the Emperor which was requested from them, as it had been from all other civil servants or bishops, and promised to report anything they heard which might be detrimental to the interests of the state. They had now officially become a part of the organised Empire, although they were never recognised as such by the state itself.” Schwarzfuchs, Napoleon, The Jews and the Sanhedrin (1979), p. 131