Moses Mendelsohn was introduced to the Marquis via Nicolai and they became friends. The saga of the Schutzbrief unfolded, and it's worth giving in totem, not least because it shows the status quo of Jewish citizens in Frederician Prussia, so, translation time again.
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police." The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?" However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)
Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police."
The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?"
However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
The King assured him that Moses had received the protection privilege. The Marquis swore Moses had never received an answer to his petition. At last, it became known that a mere misunderstanding was at the bottom of this. The King said that the petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident. Moses should write another petition, and he would order the protection letter to be written for him. "Very well, Sire," said the Marquis, "I will create this petition with my own hand. But don't lose it again." So Moses after the Marquis' repeated requests wrote another draft of his petition on July 19th, and the Marquis added to it in his own name: "Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop the de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du coté de la demande."
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)