with the darkness, and lighted fires serve to modify a little the icy temperature of this cellar.  Here and there pillars seem to support a roof which is too high and too darkened for the eye of the visitor to distinguish.  On the sides are dark and damp recesses, where women assist at the celebration of worship, which is always carried on, according to ancient custom, with much wailing and strange gestures of the body.  The book of the law which is in use is no less venerable than the edifice in which it is contained.  It appears that this synagogue has never undergone the slightest repairs or changes for many centuries.  The successive generations who have prayed in this ancient temple rest under thousands of sepulchral stones, in a cemetery which is of the same date as the synagogue, and is about a league in circumference.

Paris has never possessed, properly speaking, a regular Jewish quarter; it is true that the Israelites settled down in the neighbourhood of the markets, and in certain narrow streets, which at some period or other took the name of Juiverie or Vieille Juiverie (Old Jewry); but they were never distinct from the rest of the population; they only had a separate cemetery, at the bottom or rather on the slope of the hill of Sainte-Genevieve.  On the other hand, most of the towns of France and of Europe had their Jewry.  In certain countries, the colonies of Jews enjoyed a share of immunities and protections, thus rendering their life a little less precarious, and their occupations of a rather more settled character.

In Spain and in Portugal, the Jews, in consequence of their having been on several occasions useful to the kings of those two countries, were allowed to carry on their trade, and to engage in money speculations, outside their own quarters; a few were elevated to positions of responsibility, and some were even tolerated at court.

In the southern towns of France, which they enriched by commerce and taxes, and where they formed considerable communities, the Jews enjoyed the protection of the nobles.  We find them in Languedoc and Provence buying and selling property like Christians, a privilege which was not permitted to them elsewhere:  this is proved by charters of contracts made during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which bear the signature of certain Jews in Hebrew characters.  On Papal lands, at Avignon, at Carpentras, and at Cavaillon, they had bailes, or consuls of their nation.  The Jews of Rousillon during the Spanish rule (fifteenth century) were governed by two syndics and a scribe, elected by the community.  The latter levied the taxes due to the King of Aragon.  In Burgundy they cultivated the vines, which was rather singular, for the Jews generally preferred towns where they could form groups more compact, and more capable of mutual assistance.  The name of Sabath, given to a vineyard in the neighbourhood of Macon, still points out the position of their synagogue.  The hamlet of Mouys, a dependency of the communes of Prissey, owes its name to a rich Israelite, Moses, who had received that land as an indemnity for money lent to the Count Gerfroy de Macon, which the latter had been unable to repay.  In Vienna, where the Israelites had a special quarter, still called the Jews’