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Goethe gives us a very vivid description of Frankfort as he remembered it in his childhood days. He describes it as a town within a town, a fortress within a fortress. Then he tells us of a walled enclosure in this walled city, which was to him a very terrible place it was the Ghetto, or Jews' Quarter. Through it ran the Judengasse, or street of the Jews.
Little Mayer must have been nine years old when his father first took him along on one of his trips. It was a wonderful event they were gone three days, and when they returned the boy entertained the whole Judengasse with tales, slightly hand-illumined, about the wonderful things they had seen.
In the case of a timid woman, this sage's advice might actually have been followed. Madame Fontaine preserved her presence of mind, and left the Judengasse as freely as she had entered it. "I can borrow the money elsewhere," she said haughtily at parting. "Yes," cried a chorus of voices, answering, "you can borrow of a receiver of stolen goods." It was only too true!
The house of the Red Shield became a sort of center of trade for the whole Judengasse. And all the time the friendship with the Landgrave and his son had continued. Commissions were given to Mayer to buy certain coins and pictures. Finally he was entrusted to collect the rents of the Red Shield.
Coming from a ball one night, a young man fresh from the University, he saw that a fire had broken out in the Judengasse, and that people were standing about helpless and confused without a leader; he immediately jumped from his carriage, and, full dressed as he was, in silk stockings and pumps, organized on the spot a fire-brigade, which averted a dangerous conflagration.
But the Germans are more progressive and liberal than the Romans, for the gates that closed the Judengasse were removed in 1806, while those of the Ghetto still remain and are, as you have seen, in charge of the police, who subject every person entering or quitting the place to the closest scrutiny.
Even as far back as the 17th century the gates of the Judengasse were shut and locked only at nightfall, after which no Jew could venture into any other part of Frankfort without incurring a heavy penalty if caught, whereas here at the present time, in this age of enlightenment and religious toleration, the gates of the Ghetto are kept closed day and night, and the poor Israelites, victims of bigotry and unreasoning prejudice, are treated worse than the pariahs in Hindoostan!
This city is the original home of the Rothschilds, the great bankers, upon whom even princes wait when they are short of money. The family are Jews, who form a considerable part of the population of Frankfurt. The house in which several, if not all, the prominent sons were born, is shown in the Judengasse, or Jews Street. The laws were formerly very severe upon the Israelites.
"It closely resembles the Judengasse at Frankfort-on-the-Main," replied the Count, "and is quite as ancient though much larger.
She turned her steps towards the noble medieval street called the Judengasse then thickly inhabited; now a spectacle of decrepit architectural old age, to be soon succeeded by a new street. By twos and threes at a time, the Jews in this quaint quarter of the town clamorously offered their services to the lady who had come among them.
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