an 1808 letter to his brother Jerome Bonaparte. Napoleon issued an imperial decree in 1806 that suspended payment of debts owed to Jewish moneylenders for one year to warn against usury to the supposedly-degenerate Jewish population, and he called a conference with Jewish leaders, the Grand Sanhedrin. Though the first meeting of the Grand Sanhedrin, on February 4, 1807, was ceremonial and solemn, the group was largely ineffective since nothing was done during the month they met to ameliorate the conditions on the Jews that would be imposed by the coming decrees. During the eight sessions, the Grand Sanhedrin was forced to condone intermarriage between Frenchmen and Jews so that the Jewish people might be absorbed into France, since Jews were considered substandard citizens and needed to be either absorbed or expelled. The group also had to support other actions to assimilate the Jews by removing their Jewish ties, such as approving military service to attach young Jewish men to France, rather than their religion and ethnic background. Such measures were a prelude to the passing of the three decrees on March 17, 1808. History After Napoleon’s emancipation of the Jews he "wanted to mandate what some proponents of emancipation had hoped would happen, namely the total assimilation, or biological fusion of Jews with the rest of the French people." To mandate the assimilation of Jews into French society, three decrees were issued on March 17, 1808. The "first two decrees restored order to the informal Jewish communities that had survived the revolution by establishing a hierarchical, centralized organization, under the aegis of the ministry of religions." The first two decrees set up the consistories that were designed to enforce the decrees. Some of their members were also part of the Grand Sanhedrin, which met in 1807. The consistories consisted of a grand rabbi, possibly another rabbi and three lay members who were residents of the town. The consistories acted to enforce Sanhedrin rules through the use of education; they also worked as informants to the government to monitor Jewish activity. There was one consistory for every town that contained 2,000 or more Jews. The Infamous Decree, also known as the "third decree," presumed all Jews guilty of chicanery (the use of trickery to achieve a political, financial or legal purpose) unless they were proven innocent, and it restricted Jewish commerce and money lending for ten years. The decree was