In the spring of 1808 the Government of the Duchy was forced to pay attention to the Jewish question, in consequence of a petition for civil rights presented by the Jews, and in connection with the impending elections to the Diet. The Council of Ministers, which had already been informed of Napoleon's decree, clutched at it as an anchor of salvation. A report was submitted to Duke Frederick Augustus, in which it was pointed out that "a somber future would be in store for the Duchy if the Israelitish nation, which is to be found here in vast numbers, were suddenly to be allowed to enjoy civil rights," the reason being that this people "cherishes a national spirit alien to the country," and engages in unproductive occupations. The Council of Ministers pointed to Napoleon's decree suspending the Jewish question for a time as a convenient means of evading the clause of the Constitution granting equal rights to all citizens. To make sure of Napoleon's approval in this matter, the Government of Warsaw conducted negotiations with its agents in France and with the French minister Champagny, who was a Jew-hater. Napoleon's sympathetic attitude towards this anti-Jewish policy having been ascertained, the Duke promulgated on October 17, 1808, a decree to the following effect: The inhabitants of our Varsovian Duchy _professing the Mosaic religion_ shall be barred for ten years from enjoying the political rights they were about to receive, in the hope that during this interval they may eradicate their distinguishing characteristics, which mark them off so strongly from the rest of the population. The foregoing decision, however, will not prevent us from allowing individual members of that persuasion to enjoy political rights even before the expiration of said term, provided they will prove themselves worthy of our high favor, and will comply with the conditions which will be set forth by us in a special edict concerning the professors of the Mosaic religion. In this way the Government of Warsaw in politely couched terms, phrased after the modern French pattern, managed to rob all the "professors of the Mosaic religion" of the rights of citizenship which the Constitution had granted them. It is true that the decree uses the words "political rights," but in reality the Jews were divested by it of their elementary civil rights. In November, 1808, they were forbidden to acquire patrimonial estates belonging to the Shlakhta. The humiliating restrictions attaching to the right of domicile in Warsaw were restored, and were embodied in a decree issued in 1809 which ordered the Jews to remove within six months from the main streets of the capital, except a few individuals, such as bankers, large merchants, physicians, and artists. There was a general tendency to return to the anti-Jewish traditions of the Old Polish and Prussian legislation.