to settle by paying large sums of money. The Portuguese Jews were jealous; they feared that they would be placed on a level with these co-religionists, who were little educated, and engaged in petty trading or monetary transactions, and that they would lose their honorable reputation. Induced by these selfish motives they exerted themselves to have the immigrant German and Avignon Jews expelled from the town, by appealing to the old edict that Jews might not dwell in France. But the exiles contrived to gain the protection of influential persons at court, and thus obtained the privilege of sojourn. Through the connivance of the authorities, 152 foreign Jews had already flocked to Bordeaux, several of whom had powerful friends. This was a thorn in the side of the Portuguese, and to hinder the influx of strangers, they passed (1760) an illiberal communal law against their foreign co-religionists. They branded every foreign Jew not of Portuguese origin as a vagrant and a beggar, and as a burden to the wealthy. They calumniated the strangers, asserting that they followed dishonorable, fraudulent occupations, and thereby predisposed the citizens and authorities against them. According to their proposal, Portuguese Jews, or their council, should be vested with the right to expel the foreign Jews, or "vagrants," from the town within three days. This cruel and heartless statute had to be confirmed by King Louis XV. It was not difficult to obtain from this monarch, who was ruled by his wives and his courtiers, the most inhuman petitions. A friend and kinsman of Isaac Pinto undertook to get the sanction of the court for this statute.