This miserable condition of the Alsatian Jews a villainous man sought to turn to his own advantage, and he almost brought on a sanguinary persecution. A lawyer, not without brains and literary culture, named Hell, belonging to a poor family, and ardently wishing for a high position, being acquainted with the devices of the Jewish usurers, actually learned the Hebrew language, to be able to levy blackmail on them without fear of discovery. He sent threatening letters in Hebrew, saying that they would inevitably be accused of usury and deception, if they did not supply him with a stated sum of money. This worthless lawyer afterwards became district judge to several Alsatian noblemen, and thus the Jews were given wholly into his power. Those who did not satisfy his continually increasing demands, were accused, ill-treated, and condemned. Meantime his unjust conduct was partially exposed: he was suspected, and this excited him against the Jews of Alsace. He devised a plan to arouse fanaticism against them. He pointed out to debtors a way to escape the oppressive debts which they owed Jewish money-lenders, by producing false receipts as for payments already rendered. Some of his creatures traveled through Alsace, and wrote out such acquittances. Conscientious debtors had their scruples silenced by the clergy, who assured them that robbing the Jews was a righteous act. The timid were pacified by a rogue especially despatched for that purpose, who distributed orders and crosses, presumably in the name of the king, to those who accepted and presented the false receipts, and were ready to accuse the Jews of oppression and duplicity. Thus a menacing feeling, bordering on actual violence, developed against the Jews of Alsace. The debtors united with common ruffians and clergymen to implore the weak-minded king Louis XVI, to put an end to all disturbances by expelling the Jews from the province. To crown his work, the villainous district magistrate strove to exasperate the populace against them. He composed a venomous work against them (1779), "Observations of an Alsatian upon the Present Quarrels of the Jews of Alsace," in which he collected all the slanderous accusations against Jews from ancient times, in order to present a repulsive picture of them, and expose them to hatred and extermination. He admitted that receipts had been forged, but this was in consequence of the decrees of Providence, to whom alone vengeance was becoming. They hoped by these means to avenge the crucifixion of Jesus, the murder of God. This district judge aimed at the annihilation, or, at least, the expulsion of the Jews. But the spirit of toleration had acquired sufficient strength to prevent the success of such cunning designs. His base tricks were revealed, and, at the command of the king, Hell was imprisoned, and afterwards banished from Alsace. A decree of the sovereign ordered (May, 1780) that lawsuits against usurers should no