This state of affairs could not very well inspire the Jewish population with a great love for military service, although the Jews had been graciously permitted to discharge it in person. With few exceptions, the Jews preferred to pay an additional tax rather than spill their blood for a country which offered them obligations without rights. The decree of January 29, 1812, legalized this substitution of personal military service by a monetary ransom, the grand total of which amounted to 700,000 gulden a year. On the brink of destruction, during the war tempest of 1812, the Duchy of Warsaw still found leisure to strike an economic blow at the Jews. At the suggestion of Minister Lubenski, a ducal decree was issued on September 30 forbidding the Jews, after the lapse of two years, to sell liquor and keep taverns, which meant, in other words, that tens of thousands of Jewish families were to be deprived of their livelihood. Secretly the Government justified this measure by the impending augmentation of the territory of the Duchy and the restoration of Old Poland, where strict economic measures were necessary to keep the returning Jewish population in bounds. But the confidence reposed in the power of Napoleon was not justified. The idol was overthrown. The Duchy of Warsaw, the pale specter of an independent Poland, vanished into air, and the fate of the country again lay in the hands of the three Powers that had divided it, particularly Russia. The millions of Jews in Russian Poland were well aware of what they had to expect at the hands of their new rulers. FOOTNOTES: [215] [On this expression see p. 88, n. 1.] [216] [It consisted of the present Governments of Moghilev and Vitebsk.] [217] [After the first partition of Poland the Government of the country was placed in the hands of a Permanent Council consisting of thirty-six members, who were to be elected by the Diets, and were to take charge of the five departments of the administration: foreign affairs, police, war, justice, and finance. The king was to be the president of the Council. The Diet, which assembled on October 6, 1788, abolished this Permanent Council, and set out to elaborate a modern Constitution, which was finally presented on May 3, 1791. While, according to Polish law, the Diets met only once in two years for six weeks (see above, p. 76, n. 1), the Diet of 1788 declared itself permanent. It sat for four years--hence its name, the Quadrennial Diet--until the adoption of the new Constitution in 1791 led to civil war and to the intervention of Russia.] [218] [Popular Polish form of the Jewish name _Hirsch_.] [219] [See p. 85.] [220] See p. 280. [221] [Kollontay (in Polish, _Kollontaj_) was a radical member of the Polish Chamber. See p. 291.] [222] See p. 272 and p. 273. [223] [Lukov (in Polish, _Lukow_) is a district town in the province of Shedletz, not far from Warsaw. Castellan is the Polish title for the head of a district.]