7.12. E. The Jews in France
Chapter 3 A Summary of Jewish History E. The Jews in France The first monstrous blood accusation was raised against the Jews in France. In Blois (during the eleventh century) a mounted servant professed to have witnessed a Jewish rider throw the dead body of a child into the water. Count Theobald at once imprisoned all the Jews of the city. As the servant was the only witness, his truth was put to the test by his crossing the River Loire in a boat filled with water, and as he did this successfully it was regarded as proof of the guilt of the Jews, who were condemned to death by fire. They were secured in a wooden tower surrounded with fagots; when this was done they were exhorted by a priest to save their lives by submitting to baptism, but in vain. Thirty-four men and seventeen women suffered death by fire, repeating Hebrew prayers.
“From these times there has been handed down a tragic Hebrew lay which affords a glimpse into the souls of those who thus suffered. It describes the immolation upon the funeral pile of a Rabbi and his family—a chant characteristically Jewish, pathetic, tenderly affectionate, but bitterly scornful to the last, and audacious in its imprecations. A few passages from this follow:
“ ‘Israel is in mourning, bewailing its brave martyred saints. Thou, O God, dost behold our flowing tears. Without Thy help we perish!’
“ ‘O Sage, who day and night grew pale over the Torah, for the Torah you have died.’
“ ‘When his noble wife saw the flames burst forth: “My love calls me,” she cried. “As he died, I would die.” His youngest child trembled and wept. “Courage!” said the elder. “In this hour Paradise will open.” And the Rabbi’s daughter, the gentle maid? “Abjure your creed,” they cry “A faithful knight stands here who dies for love of thee.” “Death by fire rather than renounce my God! it is God whom I desire for my spouse.” “Choose,” said the priest, “the cross or the torture.” But the Rabbi said: “Priest, I owe my body to God, who now requires it,” and tranquilly he mounts the pile.
“ ‘Together in the midst of the unchained flames, like cheerful friends at a festival, they raise high and clear the hymn of deliverance, and their feet would move in dances were they not bound in fetters.
“ ‘ “God of vengeance, chastise the impious!”
“ ‘ “Doth Thy wrath sleep?”
“ ‘ “What are the crimes which I am forced to expiate under the torch of these felons?”
“ ‘ “Answer, O Lord, for long have we suffered; answer, for we count the hours!” ’ ”1 1 Reinach, Histoire des Juifs.
Philip IV. bought a Jew for 500 francs from the Count of Chablis, and another Jew with his children from his brother, Charles of Anjou. On the accession of Philip Augustus, terrible times commenced for the Jews. He intended to overthrow the power of the barons and to make the throne supreme, and meant to attain his end by means of Jewish gold. In January, 1180, he caused all the Jews in his kingdom to be thrown into prison, and only let them free again on the payment of 15,000 marks in silver. The next year he banished all the Jews, confiscating all their landed property to the Crown. Later he favoured their return; but between the nobles and the King they led a miserable life, being sold like chattels with the estates of the nobles on which they live, and were continually exposed to cruelty and robbery.
Philip IV. (1306) commanded all the Jews to leave the kingdom within a month, with loss of all their property and debts due to them, on pain of death. About 100,000 left the land with only the clothes they wore, and means of provision for one day. The King himself appropriated all their gold, money, jewels, and treasure in silver. The synagogue at Orleans was sold for 340 livres; that in Paris he presented to his coachman. Nine years later Louis X. permitted the return of the banished people. In 1320 the shepherd scourge took place, marching with banners flying from town to town, like crusaders, joined as they went by highwaymen and other criminals. They attacked and destroyed the Jews, spoiling their property from the Garonne to Toulouse. five hundred Jews perished in the fortified city of Verdun, and massacres of Jews occurred in the neighbourhood of Gascoigne, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Albi; 120 Jewish communities were wiped out by them in the South of France. In 1321 a number of ill-used lepers revenged themselves by poisoning springs and rivers, accusing the Jews of having incited them to do it, and of giving them the poison. In consequence, Jews were again imprisoned, tortured, and done to death by fire. In Chinon a great pit was dug, and eight Jews and Jewesses burnt in it. All Jews in France were condemned to pay the sum of £15,000. How the sponge was wrung dry from time to time and why the poor people were permitted to return after spells of banishment it is easy to see.
Two centuries later the Jews were again accused of poisoning the wells and causing the plague, which in reality had travelled Westward from China. Under torture, by order of the Duke of Savoy, two Jews and a Jewess were forced to declare that the charge was true. All the Jews on the shores of the Lake of Geneva were burnt alive. The news was sent to Berne, where the Jews were again tortured and burnt; it passed to Basle, Strasbourg, Freiburg, Cologne, to Zurich, St. Gall, Schaffhausen, and many other cities; Jewish martyr fires lit up Southern France, Switzerland, and Germany. A little later, when the French King John became a prisoner in England, and France, greatly impoverished, was unable to raise a ransom, the Jews saw their opportunity, and proposed to the Dauphin a plan by which the exiled Frenchmen, and Jews also, might settle in France under conditions alike favourable to the State and to themselves. the King agreed to this, and granted great privileges to the Jews, and liberty to settle in the land for twenty years. A year later he made certain modifications in the privilege granted, and eight years later his son, Charles V., issued a decree of banishment, which was but to squeeze the sponge a second time after a lapse of only nine years; for on the payment of 15,000 marks he recalled the edict of banishment. In 1394 hatred of the Jews had grown to such an extent that they were again banished by Charles VI. And four hundred years passed before their return; since which time they have for the most part escaped persecution, though the bitter spirit of animosity still exists, as was apparent not many years ago in the trial and unjust sentence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, imprisoned in the barren rock prison of the Ile du Diable.