RESTORATION BLUES
JULY 1814
“Are you certain,” said Rabbi Abraham Vita de Cologna to Carel Asser, “that I can’t persuade you to stay another term?”
“I regret that you can’t. It’s been pleasant teaching here and revisiting the scene of old battles, but I’ve been summoned to a new post at the Hague.”
“Have you?” Vita’s voice held a note of surprise; Asser had never been one for posts. He’d grown stout and florid, and had clearly prospered since his time in the Paris Sanhedrin, but he’d done so as a private advocate, and he no more cared to take direction from others now than he had when he’d pulled a sword on David Sinzheim.
But Asser nodded. “I’ve been appointed to the commission to draft a constitution for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.”
Yes, thought Vita,
that would be enough to tempt Asser away from his chambers in Amsterdam and Paris, and certainly from lecturing in civil law at the École nationale rabbinique. It also meant that the Dutch Jews would remain emancipated – not that there was much doubt about that, but it was still a comfort at a time when the German states and Rome were rescinding their emancipation decrees and when what had been the Grand Duchy of Warsaw had abandoned even its tepid reforms and returned to the full rigor of Prussian law.
And a greater comfort is that France is going the way of the Netherlands. There were some, at the beginning, who’d spoken in favor of repealing the laws that had liberated French Jews after the Revolution, but it had quickly become clear that the Bourbons didn’t intend to listen. The new king and his ministers were inclined to rock the boat as little as possible, and besides, the feeling within the government was that the French Jews had earned their privileges. The Interior Minister had said as much to Vita a month ago –
you were Frenchmen under Bonaparte, and his Majesty wishes you to continue to be Frenchmen…
“The bargain worked,” he murmured. It had been a risky bargain – accept the co-option of Jewish communal institutions by the state and agree to a program of educating them as patriotic French citizens – but Sinzheim had managed to walk that tightrope, and so had Vita after he’d succeeded Sinzheim as President of the Central Consistory and Chief Rabbi of France. The French Jews had made their concessions at the Paris Sanhedrin but had conceded no more of the faith, and Sinzheim had used the consistorial tax to spread Jewish primary schools to every corner of the country. Even the requirement that the rabbinical school devote a third of its curriculum to secular studies had enabled it to play patron to half the Jewish natural philosophers and men of letters in Europe. The newspapers were calling Paris the Israelite Athens – a name that some rabbis found too Hellenistic to be comfortable, but when Acre and Tzfat were the other options, and when the bills the visiting professors paid to the Rothschilds for imported kosher wine were so awe-inspiring, Vita couldn’t argue against it…
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Asser said, and Vita looked up sharply from his reverie. “It won’t go back to the way things were before, that’s true. But you’ll find that you have to sail with the wind.”
“We are patriots now, we will be patriots tomorrow.”
“Patriotism meant something different under Bonaparte than under the republic, no? And it will mean another thing under the king. I doubt you’ve had your last visit from the interior ministry, and I expect your next visitor may come bearing lists.” Asser seemed about to say something more, but he left it at that. “Will I be seeing you tonight at our nagidah’s?”
“Madame de Rothschild, you mean?” Jacob Mayer Rothschild had been sent to Paris two years ago to open a branch of the family bank; his young wife had become the queen of the Jewish salon-keepers. Asser wasn’t the only one who Vita had heard calling her “our nagidah,” and most of those who did had the same note of sarcasm. European maskilim tended to be uncomfortable with women having too much freedom, especially if they had intellectual pretensions; Asser had less of that attitude than many, but he had his share.
He still wouldn’t miss one of her soirees, though. Few people would.
“I think so. I have work to finish at my office, but supper at the Rothschilds’ table is agreeable.”
“It is. If I were a young man seeking a patron, I’d bet that you
could convince me to stay here another term, just for the free meals. But the Interior Minister’s table is less agreeable, and nothing he serves is free.”
_______
As it happened, the commissioner from the Interior Ministry was waiting for Vita when he returned to his office, and he did bear a list.
“May I come in?” he said, polite as he always was. “If you have a moment, I have some matters to discuss with you regarding the management of the rabbinical school.”
Vita opened the door and let the commissioner precede him inside. “Does his Majesty disapprove of the way the school is being managed?”
“Oh no, of course not! His Majesty has every confidence in your management. The government holds you in the highest respect. But we have… reviewed the faculty appointments, and we believe there are some who it might be time to superannuate. We’ve taken the liberty, as well, of proposing candidates to be promoted to fill their posts.”
Might, proposing, candidates – the commissioner hadn’t phrased anything as an order, and Vita knew from experience that these lists were negotiable. The hard-line Bonapartists like Furtado had resigned already, and if he wanted to save a couple of the proposed retirees or veto one or two of the candidates, he could. He took the list in hand and scanned the names; at first glance, there were some that he
would negotiate. But the message was clear: the Bonapartists were to be replaced by royalists, and while individual lecturers might be on the table, that change was not.
Nor was the next change, because the commissioner wasn’t finished.
“We have also discussed within the ministry,” he said, “that we might ask your faculty for a ruling – no, not a ruling, an
opinion, or possibly a treatise. We have been unable to locate a commentary on Jewish theology as it relates to kings, and it would be of interest to us – what is the Jewish conception of kingship, what duties are expected of a king, from what source does the king derive his right to rule. Your faculty appears well qualified to prepare a brief on that subject, and it is a project we would most urgently care for you to undertake.”
Again, the commissioner spoke with the utmost politeness, one gentleman addressing another. But again, his intent was clear, and Vita suddenly realized that the bargain
had changed. Bonaparte had demanded a religious ruling that Jews should be patriots, but Louis le Désiré wanted more – he wanted the French Jews to confirm not only patriotism but royalism, and ultra-royalism at that, as an article of faith. The writings that could support a brief on the divine right of kings came instantly to his mind, and the commissioner, who was as well-versed in Jewish theology as many rabbis, no doubt knew them too.
Vita recalled his thought of only the hour before –
the French Jews had made their concessions at the Paris Sanhedrin but had conceded no more of the faith. It seemed that would not be true any more.
“Let me consult with the faculty, and with the presidents of the consistories,” he temporized. “A project such as this will require a consensus.”
“We certainly would not want it otherwise. Shall I expect your initial report in a month’s time?”
“That should be sufficient, yes.”
“In a month, then,” the commissioner said, and rose from the chair with his hat in hand. It was a long time before Vita could return to his work.
_______
“It is indeed a pleasure, Madame Rothschild,” said Vita, bowing over her hand. “But if you will excuse me, there’s an old friend here who I need to talk to.”
“Of course.” After two years in Paris, Hannah Rothschild was as familiar with the rituals of greeting as anyone, and she handled them with grace. She was tall, angular, not conventionally beautiful, but there was an energy about her that made her striking. And she was capable of far more than politeness alone; she’d built a stable of the foremost Jewish intellectuals in Paris, and she’d given ample proof that she could hold their own in conversation with them. She also carried on a wide correspondence, and Vita had often found her useful in keeping up with affairs across the Jewish world.
But at the moment, there
was someone he needed to talk to, and it wasn’t Asser, who stood across the room with a glass of Galilee wine in hand, deep in conversation with a judge of the Paris commercial court. He looked around the salon and found him – Rottembourg, perhaps the most prominent of Bonaparte’s Jewish carrières aux talents, promoted to general of divisions after the Russian disaster and newly confirmed in his rank by the king.
“What can I do for you, Rabbi?” he asked.
“Do I remember correctly that you know Abbé Montesquiou?”
“I met the man during the negotiations this spring, and of course I know he’s the Interior Minister, but I wouldn’t say we’re friends…” He looked at Vita with sudden comprehension. “Are you asking me to persuade him against his plans for your school? Because I don’t have nearly the influence with him to do that.”
Vita shook his head. “No. What I ask is that my replacement be a man of integrity, and I would like your help in persuading him to accept that man.”
“That, yes…” Rottembourg began, but stopped short. “Your replacement? You are resigning?”
“There is a point at which a man is asked to concede too much, and I am at that point. I don’t know how to comply with what the ministry expects and be true to the faith, so another man must figure out how to do that.”
Rottembourg was silent for a moment. “I once advised a young man to resign and go to the Holy Land. Can I presume to advise you differently? A man of your learning and wisdom is needed in France.”
“I was born in Italy, mon general, and I have a duty I can’t fulfill. The Holy Land, you say?”
In truth, Vita had thought no further than resigning – he’d had a vague idea that he might return to Mantua, but nothing more – but the Holy Land held a sudden attraction. And if he went there, he realized, he would become a member of their Sanhedrin. No one, as far as he knew, had been a member of both the Grand Sanhedrin of Paris and the Great Sanhedrin of Palestine; if he did, he would be the first.
The first – and suddenly the Rothschild salon seemed far away, and he thought of all the places where the hard-won rights of the Jewish community were being stripped from it –
but, I suspect, not the last.
