The Revolution did not stem the current of toleration. In 1789 the National Assembly met in Paris: a council of twelve hundred spiritual and secular fathers patriotically sworn to formulate a new creed--an object which, despite pandemonic wrangling and jangling and chaotic disorder of thought and action, they contrived to achieve in that memorable document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The National or, as it now calls itself, Constituent Assembly is the “station for all augury,” whither repair all mortals in distress and doubt. Petitions pour in from every side, and among these is one from the Jews, especially the down-trodden Jews of Alsace. They also come forward to claim a share in the new Elysium, to assert their rights as men. Mirabeau, who already towers high above his brother-councillors, and is looked upon as the one seer among many speakers--the one living force among fleeting shades--espouses the Jewish claim. Three years earlier he had published a work _On Mendelssohn and the Political Reform of the Jews_. He now sets himself to demolish the remnants of the ancient prejudice still cherished by some of the clerical friends of mankind. The task was not an easy one. Besides Mirabeau, the Abbé Grégoire, and Clermont-Tonnerre, there were scarcely any politicians of note in France who cared for the Jews. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, while abolishing the religious disabilities of Protestants, made no provision for the Jews. Even the French public of 1789 was not yet quite ripe for so revolutionary a measure as the admission of the Jew to that equality of citizenship which it declared to be the birthright of every human being. A statute of January 28th, 1790, enfranchised the Jews of the south of France who had always held a privileged position; but this exception on behalf of a few only emphasised the disabilities of the many. The bulk of the race, especially in Alsace, continued to be treated as outcasts, until the more advanced section of the Parisian public, under the leadership of the advocate Godard, appealed to the people of the capital for its opinion on the matter. ♦1790 Feb. 25♦ Fifty-three out of the sixty districts voted in favour of the Jews, and the Commune gave a practical expression to the feelings of the majority in the form of an address laid before the Assembly. But it was not till nineteen months after that a definite decision was arrived at, partly by the eloquent advocacy of Talleyrand, who pointed out to the Assembly that the only difference between ordinary Frenchmen and French Jews was their religion. In every other respect they were fellow-countrymen and brothers. If, therefore, religion were allowed to interfere with their enfranchisement, that would be a denial of the principles of the Revolution--a flagrant breach of all those laws of humanity and civil equality for which the French people were fighting. ♦1791 Sept. 27♦ These arguments prevailed in the end, and the French Jews were formally