=3. Progress of Events and of Legislation in Germany.=――The frequent laxity of observance, and the occasional conversions among the higher class of Jews, had the natural reactionary consequence among the lower class. These became more rigidly, and even repellently, orthodox. The temptations to cultivated society, which hardly assailed them, they regarded with bitter hatred and contempt, and they clung to their own distinctive ways and customs and modes of dress and speech, with a fervour of anger as well as of religion. Thus it came to pass that the main body of the Jews in Germany continued to be almost as little as ever German citizens, and social prejudice against Jews remained at its old high-water mark till Napoleon’s wonderful series of conquests, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, made a change in the position. In Westphalia, which was then created a kingdom, with Jerome Bonaparte for its king, and in all the Rhenish provinces which were annexed to France, the liberal _Code Napoléon_ took the place of that other written and unwritten code in which Jews were pariahs, liable to be condemned without evidence, and sentenced without appeal. Whether from dynastic reasons, or as a matter of conscience, the Corsican conqueror confirmed the doctrine of full and free emancipation which the Revolution had introduced. All subjects of the French Empire were to be legally looked upon simply as French citizens, and it was henceforward no one’s business to inquire whether such subjects professed the Jewish religion, or the Christian, or no religion at all. The humiliating _Leibzoll_, or body tax, which in Russia had been discontinued since 1790, was now definitely and altogether abolished, and, equally with Christians, office in the army and in all civil departments of the state was thrown open to Jews. Only positions directly under Government were still denied to them.