Louis X recalls the Jews expelled in 1306, against heavy payment and for only twelve years

Louis X recalled to France the Jews whom his father had expelled nine years earlier, in exchange for a heavy payment and for twelve years only, promising to restore to them a portion of their books and their cemeteries.

The recall was less an act of grace than a financial operation: the expulsion had dried up a fiscal resource, and the crown preferred to collect rather than confiscate once and for all. The revenues from old debts were divided between the king and the returnees. The term of twelve years says plainly enough what was intended to be granted to them: a lease, not a right.