The hopes of the Jews were not disappointed. The work of enfranchisement, commenced by philosophers like Montesquieu, and carried on by patriots like Mirabeau, was completed by Napoleon. Though deeply sensible of the disagreeable fact that usury and extortion had been the favourite pursuits of the Jews from time immemorial, Napoleon did not allow himself to be biassed by the mediaeval view of the matter. Like Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charlemagne, and Cromwell, he saw the advantage of securing the support of so numerous, so opulent, and so scattered a nation as the Israelites, and one at least of his motives undoubtedly was to conciliate the Jews of Old Prussia, Poland, and Southern Russia, in the hope of profiting by their sympathy and assistance in the contest in which he was then engaged. While depriving individual Jews, notorious for rapacity, of their civil rights, and restricting the operations of the Jews of the north-east of France by temporarily refusing to them the right to sequester the goods of their debtors, the Emperor decided to hear the Jewish side of the question. ♦1806 July♦ By his order an assembly of Hebrew notables from the French and German departments, as well as from Italy, was summoned in Paris. Twelve questions were put to the delegates concerning the Jew’s attitude towards the Gentile, the authority of the Rabbis, usury and conscription; and, on the answers proving satisfactory, Napoleon astonished the assembly with an announcement which no Jewish ear had ever hoped to hear in Europe. The _Sanhedrin_, or National Council of Israel, after a prorogation of seventeen centuries, was once more convoked. The Hebrew polity had outlasted the heathen Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, Feudalism, and the French Monarchy. Time and the seismic convulsions which had overthrown these mighty fabrics, once regarded as eternal, had respected the humble institutions of the outcasts of humanity. The constitutions of other nations were built upon the earth and were subject to the laws which govern earthly things; the constitution of the Jews was preserved in the archives of Heaven, and was therefore immortal. ♦1807 Feb. 9♦ And so, at a word from Napoleon, seventy-one delegates of the French and Italian Jewries were gathered together in Paris, elected by the synagogues of the two countries in accordance with the ancient forms and usages of Israel. ♦1807 March 2♦