the
position of Jews to the notice of the ruling classes and, in many
cases, aroused a determination to repair their wrongs. You cannot
accept a man socially yet refuse him the most elementary rights
politically.[D]

_The Liberal Leadership of Heine and Boerne_

THE Revolution of 1830 brought into European prominence the two most
brilliant members of Rahel's coterie, Ludwig Boerne and Heinrich
Heine. Both had made their mark as litterateurs in the preceding
decade, but Boerne's "Letters from Paris" and Heine's "French
Conditions" (contributed to the _Augsburger Zeitung_) drew the
attention of all liberal Germany to the new hopes aroused by the
downfall of the absolutist monarchy in France. Henceforth they were
the dominating voices in arousing among the German Liberals the hope
of similar liberty, while in France itself they helped to make known
to French culture the deeper currents of German thought and
literature. In particular their brilliant wit and incisive sarcasm set
the tone for the feuilleton literature of all Mid-Europe. By their
very isolation they were enabled to regard men and affairs with a
certain detachment, and both wrote with an iridescent insolence which
can only be described by the Jewish technical word _Chutzpah_.
Treitschke complained of their frequent irreverences and flippancies
but in both respects Heine, "the wittiest Frenchman since Voltaire,"
was merely following in the footsteps of his predecessor, and Boerne,
like Diderot, knew that the most effective weapon against authority is
sarcasm.

Under the leadership of Heine and Boerne a whole school of liberal
journalists arose in Germany and Austria, many of them Jews like
Saphir and Hartmann, and they gave a tone to Mid-European journalism
which has lasted to the present day. They thus helped to
internationalize Liberalism of the French form, with its rather vague
and indefinite strivings after liberty, equality, and fraternity, as
contrasted with the Liberalism of the English type dominated by Jeremy
Bentham, which aimed at constitutional, economic, and social reforms
of a definite character. Young Germany, as represented by Heine and
Boerne, left the latter type of Liberalism severely alone.

Yet in the struggle for constitutional liberty, which led to the
revolutions of 1848, Jews took a considerable part on the more
practical side. Everywhere during that critical year Jews had a hand
in the upheaval against absolutism.[E]

_A