Bidspirit auction | (FRANCE). Lettres Patentes du Roi,

(FRANCE). Lettres Patentes du Roi, sur un Décret de l’Assemblée Nationale, portant que les Juifs, connus en France sous le nom de Juifs Portugais, Espagnols & Avignonois, y jouiront des droits de Citoyen actif. Donnée á Paris, au mois de Janvier 1790. [“Letters Patent of the King, Granting the Jews of France the Rights of Active Citizens.”] Two pages with integral blank leaf. Unbound. 4to. Caen, G. Roy, 1790.   The first document to grant (certain) Jews equality of citizenship in Europe.  Issued a few months after the start of the French Revolution and the ”Declaration of the Rights of Man.” This granted Sephardic Jews in France equal rights and offering full French citizenship:  “By decree of the National Assembly, the Jews, known in France under the name of Portuguese Jews, Spaniards and Avignonois, will enjoy the rights of active citizens).”  Louis XVI issued this Letter Patent as a result of political pressure and acts of violence against Jewish communities. It grants equal rights to Jews, but only those of Sephardic origin, who were mainly concentrated in the south of the country, with Ashkenazim not being considered.