Requête Adressée au Roi par le Consistoire Central des Israélites, contre la prorogation du Décret du 17 mars 1808, qui soumet les Juifs à une législation spéciale

(FRENCH JUDAICA)

C. Ballard

Paris

1818

Szajkowski, Judaica-Napoleonica 492

The “infamous decrees” of the 17th March 1808 revealed Napoleon’s ambivalence towards the Jews of France. Along with establishing the central regulation of the Jewish religion under the Consistoire, this group of three decrees placed restrictions on the rights of Jews to full citizenship and closely regulated the collection of debts owed to Jews. The partial deprivation of the rights and benefits that the Jews of France had received seventeen years earlier was the cause of the objection to the decrees. Jewish opposition in later years is evidenced in the present request to the Ruler seeking to annul the anti-Jewish legislation contained in the “infamous decrees.” See: S. Scharzfuchs, Napoleon, the Jews and the Sanhedrin, pp. 123-6