Alphonse de Rothschild
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Alphonse James de Rothschild (born February 1, 1827 in Paris ; † May 26, 1905 there ) was a member of the French branch of the Rothschild family and worked as a banker .
family
He was born as the eldest son of Baron Jakob Rothschild and Betty von Rothschild (daughter of Salomon Mayer von Rothschild ). In 1857 he married his cousin Leonora de Rothschild (1837-1911), daughter of Lionel de Rothschild from the London branch of the Rothschild family.
The couple had four children: Bettina (1858-1892, wife of Albert Salomon von Rothschild ), René (born and died in 1861), Béatrice (1864-1934) and Édouard (1868-1949).
Life
After acquiring French citizenship, he became a member of the board of directors of the Banque de France in 1855 , with the Rothschild Frères bank being its first shareholder.
After his father's death in 1868, Alphonse de Rothschild inherited a large fortune, including equity positions in the Rothschild Frères bank and the Rothschild-owned Compagnie des chemins de fer du Nord .
Alphonse de Rothschild began his training in finance at a young age . His father hired him to invest in gold as an investment . In the 1860s, a suitable monetary system was sought in Europe and the United States of America . In France, the bankers Jacob Rodrigue Émile Pereire (1800–1875) and Isaac Rodrigue Pereire (1806–1880) were advocates of paper money in contrast to Alphonse de Rothschild, who wanted to preserve the French system of bimetallism . Alphonse de Rothschild's opinion was initially supported by Léon Say (1826-1896), a former employee of the Rothschild-owned Compagnie des chemins de fer du Nord, who in 1872 became French finance minister. The French system of bimetalism was nevertheless abolished when France, like the rest of Europe, joined the Latin Monetary Union and the gold standard was adopted in 1873.
During the Franco-Prussian War , Alphonse de Rothschild guarded the Paris fortifications during the Prussian siege of Paris (1870–1871). After the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the Rothschild Frères bank was commissioned to raise the reparations payments of five billion francs agreed in the Peace of Frankfurt to the German Empire . When Adolphe Thiers wanted to abolish the Décret Crémieux in 1871 , Alphonse de Rothschild was able to prevent this. From 1873 to 1911 he was president of the Consistoire central israélite , the highest organization of Judaism in France.
1880 Alphonse de Rothschild founded the company Société Le Nickel , a nickel - mines -Gesellschaft in New Caledonia . The collapse of the investment bank “Société Générale de l'Union” founded by Paul Eugène Bontoux (1820–1904) triggered the Paris stock market crash of 1882 and ushered in a recession in the French economy. In 1886 he acquired the company "Société commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la Mer Noire, Société Anonyme", which produced oil in Baku . When the Bank Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris went bankrupt in 1889 and shortly afterwards the Panama scandal broke out, this led to an official investigation in the French parliament in 1893. Alphonse de Rothschild was awarded the Grand Cross, the highest class of the Legion of Honor , in 1896 for his contribution to saving the French economy in a time of crisis . In 1898 Alphonse de Rothschild was chairman of the group Les Banques Françaises together with Eugène Goüin (1818-1909) .
In addition to a city residence on Rue Saint-Florentin 2 at Place de la Concorde in Paris, he was the owner of the Château de Ferrières east of Paris. Alphonse de Rothschild brought together an important art collection, particularly paintings and Islamic art, in the course of his life. He was also a generous patron and patron of numerous museums. In 1885 he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts . Another passion was his interest in thoroughbred horses . He founded the stud farm Haras de Meautry in Touques (Calvados) , emerged from the many successful horses and is still owned by the Rothschild family. From 1852 he was a member of the Jockey Club de Paris .
literature
- Frederic Morton : The Rothschilds. A family portrait. Secker & Warburg, London 1961.
- Virginia Cowles : The Rothschilds, a Family of Fortune. Alfred A Knopf, London 1973, ISBN 0-394-48773-7 .
- Anka Muhlstein : Baron James. The Rise of the French Rothschilds. Collins, London 1983, ISBN 0-00-216256-3 .
- Derek Wilson: Rothschild. The Wealth and Power of a Dynasty. Charles Scribner's Sons, London 1988, ISBN 0-684-19018-4 .
- Herbert R. Lottman: The French Rothschilds. The great banking dynasty through two turbulent centuries. Crown Publishers, New York 1995, ISBN 0-517-59229-0 .
- Niall Ferguson : The world's banker. The history of the House of Rothschild. Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1998, ISBN 0-297-81539-3 .
Web links
- Documents for admission to the Legion of Honor on the website of the French National Archives.
Individual evidence
- ^ Eugene N. White: The Crash of 1882 and the Bailout of the Paris Bourse. In: Cliometrica. 1, 2007, pp. 115-144.
- ↑ The company ( Russian Бни́то ; German: BNITO) was the second largest company represented in Russia and formed the European Petroleum Union GmbH in Bremen with two other companies and a capital of over 30 million marks in 1906 . The Rothschild family sold the company to Royal Dutch in 1911 . See the register of the Banque Rothschild , pp. 57–58 at the Archives nationales .
- ^ Archives diplomatiques. Recueil mensuel de diplomatie, d'histoire et de droit international. No. 65-68, 1861.
- ↑ The stud's buildings are listed: Manoir de Méautry Base Mérimée on culture.gouv.fr.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rothschild, Alphonse de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rothschild, Mayer Alphonse James de (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French banker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 1, 1827 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 26, 1905 |
| Place of death | Paris |