he "enlightenment" propaganda was in full swing, there suddenly
appeared, in the form of a resolution appended by the Tzar's own hand to
the report of the Council of Ministers, the following curt ukase:

All Jews living within the fifty verst zone along the Prussian and
Austrian frontier are to be transferred into the interior of the
(border) governments. Those possessing their own houses are to be
granted a term of two years within which to sell them. _To be
carried out without any excuses._

On the receipt of this grim command, the Senate was at first puzzled as
to whether the imperial order was a mere repetition of the former law
concerning the expulsion of the Jews from the villages and hamlets on
the frontier,[1] or whether it was a new law involving the expulsion of
all Jews on the border, without discrimination, including those in the
cities and towns. Swayed by the harsh and emphatic tone of the imperial
resolution, the Senate decided to interpret the new order in the sense
of a complete and absolute expulsion. This interpretation received the
Tzar's approbation, except that the time-limit for the expulsion of real
estate owners was extended for two years more and the ruined exiles were
promised temporary relief from taxation.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 40.]

The new catastrophe which descended upon tens of thousands of families,
particularly in the government of Kovno, caused a cry of horror, not
only throughout the border-zone but also abroad. When the Jews doomed to
expulsion were ordered by the police to state the places whither they
intended to emigrate, nineteen communities refused to comply with this
demand, and declared that they would not abandon their hearths and the
graves of their forefathers and would only yield to force. Public
opinion in Western Europe was running high with indignation. The French,
German, and English papers condemned in no uncertain terms the policy of
"New Spain." Many Jewish communities in Germany petitioned the Russian
Government to revoke the terrible expulsion decree. There was even an
attempt at diplomatic intervention. During his stay in England, Nicholas
I. was approached on behalf of the Jews by personages of high rank. Yet
the Government would scarcely have yielded to public protests, had it
not become patent that it was impossible to carry out the decree without
laying waste entire cities and thereby affecting injuriously the
interests of the exchequer. T