A Calculated Risk by Katherine Neville (best time to read books .txt) 📗

well there. Starting in Manchester in the year 1798, he’d exported English cottons to the continent, where his father and brothers sold the goods. By 1809, Nathan had become a naturalized Englishman, and in the following year he had opened his own bank. He was the middle son of the Rothschilds’ five, but by far the most aggressive.

Early in March of 1810, Nathan wrote to his father in Frankfurt that he wished the youngest brother, James, to be sent to Paris with the freedom to move about elsewhere in France—as well as in Spain, Italy, and Germany. Meyer Amschel was perplexed. How might a Jew be granted such a privilege? It was particularly difficult to secure the ability to live in Paris—for the Rothschilds were not only Jewish but Prussian, too.

But believing that the premonition of his dream was about to flower, Meyer Amschel put on his silk hat, his lace jabot, and his finest black suit, and went to pay a call upon his friend the Prince of Thurn und Taxis, to whose family the Rothschilds had lent large sums of money in the past. Perhaps it was time to call in the debt—in another fashion.

“Ah, Rothschild, you are looking very dapper today,” said the prince. “I can see in your countenance you’ve come for more than a social call. God willing, I shall find it within my power to grant whatever you wish.”

“Your Highness is very astute, as always,” said Meyer Amschel. “It’s rather difficult; I wish my son James to be granted permission to establish residence in Paris.”

“Ah, that indeed does pose a problem,” agreed the prince. “Even I cannot gain this permission, being a Prussian.”

“I know my request is difficult,” said Meyer Amschel. “But it is necessary that I accomplish it, for personal family reasons.”

“Since your ‘personal family reasons’ often have to do with the acquisition of more wealth, I suppose it’s in my own best interest to help you as much as possible. Have you any ideas on the subject? You rarely seem short of those!” The prince laughed.

“In fact, I’ve thought of a possible solution,” Rothschild modestly admitted. “If my son could travel in the equipage of a member of the nobility—someone whom Your Highness might be aware was planning a trip to France for some purpose—then the individual in question might be persuaded—”

“In fact, there’s such an event about to transpire in Paris, to which all of Europe may be traveling quite soon, as I’m sure you are aware,” said the prince, frowning slightly.

“You refer, perhaps, to the royal wedding?” suggested Meyer Amschel.

“If you can grace the marriage of that heathen Corsican upstart with such a kind description,” growled the prince. “Good Lord, he puts his wife away in the eyes of God and espouses another before the first is forgotten. It chills the blood, I say! Even the cardinals are not attending, but the European nobility scramble to such an event as if it were a cockfight. Well, Rothschild, if it would make you glad to have your son in such company … but I confess, I cannot think of any among my acquaintance—if you’ll excuse my saying so—who’d welcome the son of a mercantile Jew in his retinue on this sort of occasion. We’ll have to think hard to solve that one, for I myself will not attend the debacle.”

“Yes, Your Highness. We should have to find someone who wishes very badly to attend the wedding of Napoleon and the Archduchess Marie-Louise, but for some reason finds—perhaps through lack of funds …”

“Aha! Rothschild, I knew you’d not come to me without a plan! So it is my teakettle you want, and not my advice—is that it?” He chuckled.

This was a candid thing for the Prince of Thurn und Taxis to say—for in his role as chief postmaster of Central Europe, he’d often in the past been in a position to steam open official-looking letters and share their contents with Rothschild, to the benefit of both.

The prince clapped his hands twice, and an aide rushed to his side. The prince scribbled several names on a piece of paper and handed them to the aide.

“Go to the post and collect whatever you see pertaining to these,” he said. “And Rothschild, perhaps we’ll have your solution before the sun sets on another day.”

“Your Highness is most gracious and, if I may say so, a clever solver of problems,” said Meyer Amschel with a twinkle in his eye.

The Grand Duke von Dalberg had not wished to include young James Rothschild in his equipage to the royal wedding. Aware of the grand duke’s financial situation, the prince had proposed other terms to him. Rothschild would compeletely finance all the carriages, elaborate clothing, and travel expenses for the duke’s entourage to pass a lavish and lengthy stay in Paris—should the duke favor him by securing not one, but three open passports for Rothschild sons’ prolonged stay in France. With this, the duke enthusiastically complied.

By March of 1811, Carl and Solomon Rothschild were firmly planted in France, and James—the youngest of the brothers—was having pastries with Monsieur Mollien, the French minister of finance, in the minister’s study; it was filled with sunlight and with hyacinths gathered from the snowy gardens of the Tuileries.

“M. Rothschild,” said M. Mollien, wiping at the bit of thick pastry cream that clung to his upper lip, “I have just written to the emperor, advising him of what you’ve told me. But even now I can scarcely believe that such good fortune could be true.”

“Now you are making a jest with me,” said James. “Surely the French minister of finance does not expect me to believe that he considers the British to be cleverer at financial matters than the French.”

“Oh no! Surely not! They are fools, the British! All the world regards them so. I only mean to say it’s hard for anyone to imagine that the ministers in London—unless they are the basest of traitors—would seriously devalue the pound by ten percent and