Confidants of Kings

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 538, 15 December 1928, Page 15

Confidants of Kings

Amazing History of the Wealthy House of Rothschild

■»OUNT CORTI, in “Tlie J Reign of the House of n Rothschild, completes / his astonishing history 1 of the Rothschild family, 2 the first instalment of

which he published last year. His story is admirably told. It is a romance in itself that a Jewish family with no extraordinary qualities other than shrewd-

otner tuau smcv>uness and common sense ' should for more than half a i century have domI mated European finI ance and so marI kedly Influence r European policy as Rothschild did from 1815 to 1865. But the book

Lord Rothschild shows that the reign is over, though the wealth of the family is still enormous. The political influence which they exercise

has declined, and the scale of American fortunes has dwarfed theirs. In-breeding-, which they adopted as a policy, carrying it to even more dangerous lengths than many ruling houses, is undermining their spiritual and physical capital. Up to the present the advantage of concentrating their power and wealth by marrying- within the family has overborne all other considerations. Bismarck once stated on this point: “I have known many members of the House and I have always been struck by their lust for gold; this is attributable to the fact tat each of his children as much as he himself has inherited, and that is surely absurd.” Bismarck knew the family well. He was particularly fond of old Amschel Rothschild, the son of the founder of the house, and said of him about 1850: I like him because he's a real old Jew pedlar, and does not pretend to be anything else; he is strictly orthodox and refuses to touch anything but kosher food at his dinners. “Take thome bread with you for the deer,” he said to his servant, as he went out to show me his garden in which he keeps tame deer. “Herr Beraun (Baron) tliith plant cost me two

thouthand gulden—on my honour it cotht < me two thouthand gulden cash. You can i have it for a thouthand; or if you like it 1 ath a prethent. . . .God knowth I like < you, Beraun, you’re a fine, handthoine fellow.” He is a short thin little man, ] and quite grey. < His servants cheated him, and his ‘■'conceited Frenchified and Anglicised nephews and nieces despised him/’ « Bismarck added. In its early days the family had been cosmopolitan. But as time went on its members came to identify themselves more and more with the social and national interests of the various countries in which they lived. In England they entered the peerage. In France Napoleon 111. went to their chateau. In Austria they secured admission to the jealously guarded Court circle, and even became close friends of the reigning family. The Empress Elizabeth, only a day before her murder in 1898, visited the Baroness Julie Rothschild at the latter’s villa at Pregny, when the following strange incident happened:— As she left, Elizabeth was handed the visitors’ book, and after signing her name in a firm handwriting, she turned over a leaf, to her hostess’s surpn.se. Her face, beautiful still in her old age, paled, and without a word she passed the book to the Countess Sztaray. To her dismay that lady read the name Rudolph (the > Austrian Crown Prince and son of Eliza- I beth who committed suicide m lSb»). This incident led the Empress on her < way home to talk about religion and :

death to the Countess Sztaray. When the latter observed that she looked forward to death without fear, Elizabeth one of them wants to leave to every one replied: “But I fear death, although I often long for it: the transition and the uncertainty make me tremble, and especially the thought of the terrible struggle one must undergo before reaching the other side.’’ The Rothschilds were the bankers and confidants of Sovereigns and Popes. Leopold I. of Belgium, who was a cautious ruler, remitted a sum of £200,000 to the House of Rothschild, which was to be placed at his disposal if he were actually compelled to leave Belgium. In the course of years at compound interest it increased by 1866 to the prodigious sum of £BOO,OOO. Scorn of Mankind The founder of the London branch, Nathan, was perhaps the ablest of the family. He was a very well-known figure in the City of London. The pillar against which he was accustomed to lean is 4till pointed out on the Stock Exchange. Of massive build, his head set between thick shoulders, he would stand there with his hands deep in his trouser pockeLs. apparently indifferent to what was ?oing on about him, but in reality observing everything very closely. . He had gradually come to despise mankind, having been led to this conclusion through observing the effect of the gold that flowed through his hand.