Émile Pereire (3 December 1800,Bordeaux - 5 January 1875, Paris) and his brotherIsaac Pereire (25 November 1806,Bordeaux – 12 July 1880,Gretz-Armainvilliers) were major figures in the development of France's finance and infrastructure during theSecond French Empire.[1] ThePereire brothers challenged the dominance of theRothschilds in continental European finance, known at the time ashaute finance. Their attempt was temporarily successful, and even though it collapsed in the late 1860s, it contributed to a more developed and vibrant economic landscape. Like the Rothschilds, the Pereires wereJews, but unlike them, they wereSephardi ofPortuguese origin.
The brothers' grandfather wasJacob Rodrigues Pereira, one of the inventors ofsign language for the deaf, who was born in Spain and established himself in France in 1741, where he became an interpreter for KingLouis XV. Jacob Rodrigues Pereire (as he went by in French) married Miriam Lopès Dias, a Sephardic Jew fromBayonne, inBordeaux in 1766. Their son Isaac (1770-1806) was conscripted during theFrench Revolutionary Wars and in 1800 married Rebecca Henriette Lopès Fonseca (1777-1827), daughter of Mardochée Lopès Fonseca and Esther de Daniel Delvaille, both also Sephardic Jews fromBayonne who had moved to Bordeaux in 1788.[2]: 17 They had three sons, of whom the second, Mardochée Télèphe (1803-1820) died in young age.
In 1824 Emile Pereire married his cousin Herminie Rodrigues, whose mother was Henriette's sister.[2]: 40 They had five surviving children: Fanny (born 1825), Cécile (born 1829), Claire (born 1834), Isaac-Emile (known as Emile II, born 1840) and Henry (born 1841).
In 1830 Isaac Pereire married Rachel Laurence Lopès Fonseca, a cousin of both him and Herminie;[2]: 63 they had two sons, Eugène (born 1831) and Georges (born 1836). After Laurence's untimely death in 1837 he remarried with his niece Fanny in August 1841. Their three surviving children were Gustave (born 1846), Henriette (born 1853) and Jeanne (born 1856). Two other boys, Jules (1843) and Julien (1845) died in infancy, and a disabled one, Edouard, died in 1876 at age twenty-one.[2]: 170
Eugène, Emile II, Henry and Gustave all studied atÉcole Centrale Paris. Several of the Pereire children married into established families of Frenchhaute finance and business elite. Claire in 1853 married Georges Thurneyssen, son of the Protestant banker and Pereire business partner Auguste Thurneyssen. Eugène in 1859 married Juliette Betzi Fould, daughter of Emile Fould, the Pereires' notary and himself a cousin ofAchille Fould. Emile II in 1864 married Suzanne Chevalier, daughter ofMichel Chevalier's brother Auguste. Henriette marriedEugène Mir [fr], a businessman and politician.
Eugène Pereire, Isaac's elder son, led much of the remaining family business upon his father's death in 1880. His granddaughterNoémie Halphen marriedMaurice de Rothschild from the family of the Pereires' longstanding competitors. Gustave's sonAlfred Pereire was a noted historian and bibliographer.
Emile and Isaac Pereire moved from Bordeaux to Paris in 1822 and 1823 respectively, where they initially lived in the house of their uncleIsaac Rodrigues-Henriques [fr], a banker. They became followers ofSaint-Simonism. They kept their commitment to Saint-Simonian beliefs despite their break withBarthélemy Prosper Enfantin in the early 1830s.[3]
The Pereire brothers founded a leadingbusiness conglomerate. Enterprises created or sponsored by the Pereires included:[2]
The Pereires were also instrumental in the creation and/or development of businesses they did not effectively control. These included:
Even though the Pereires were not involved, their success with theCrédit Mobilier was taken as a model for the creation in 1856 of theBerliner Handels-Gesellschaft, theAllgemeine Deutsche Credit-Anstalt [de], and theStockholms Enskilda Bank.[1]: 152
The Pereires also sponsored coal mining developments in Lorraine and Northern France.[4]
The Pereires were deeply involved in French politics. Emile Pereire was member of Parliament (député) for the département ofGironde between 1863 and 1869. Isaac was similarlydéputé for thePyrénées-Orientales between 1863 and 1869, and for theAude in 1869–1870. Isaac's sonEugène was also adéputé in theTarn during the same period.[1]: 270
They also maintained a lifelong involvement in public debates through the media. In the 1820s Emile wrote regularly inLe Globe and from 1830, inLe National.[1]: 38 In November 1871, Isaac acquired the conservative newspaperLa Liberté fromÉmile de Girardin, and heavily influenced its editorial line in the later 1870s.[2]: 226
In the mid-1860s, the Pereires' alliances in thehaute finance began to fray. Their attempt to challenge the issue monopoly of theBanque de France through the restructuring of theBank of Savoy, the note-issuing bank of the formerDuchy of Savoy which had come under French rule following theTreaty of Turin (1860), was resented by the Pereires' former associateAdolphe d'Eichthal [fr].[1]: 162 In 1866–7, the Pereire group underwent a severe crisis largely triggered by the burden of their developments inMarseille.[2]: 211 The Pereires were forced to relinquished control of theCrédit Mobilier on 14 September 1867, at the demand of the Banque de France.[2]: 213 Even so, they kept some of their wealth and properties, but had to face numerous lawsuits in the ensuing years and in 1872 were compelled to sell their art collections.[1]: 392
In any case, the Pereires' heyday came to an end with the demise of the Second Empire, with which they had been deeply associated. One of the Second Empire's key political protagonists,Persigny, would thus write in his memoirs:[1]: 309-310
I wanted an instrument that would free the new regime (the Second Empire) from the tutelage under which financiers usually hold governments, and which would be particularly dangerous as I felt the hostility of the great financial powers-that-be against the new regime. Without a doubt, had the Credit Mobilier not been there to steer and move them forward, the policy of the Empire, as it would have been forced to compromise with the Haute Banque, could not have been as bold and unconstrained as it was.[5]
— Persigny, Mémoires (1896)
In 1852 the Pereires bought a vast estate inGretz-Armainvilliers and commissioned their favorite architectAlfred Armand [fr] to build a palatial country house there in the early 1860s, theChâteau d'Armainvilliers, to rival theRothschilds' nearbyChâteau de Ferrières; it was bombed by mistake by theUS Air Force in 1944 and demolished in 1950.[2]: 185
In 1854 they purchased thehôtel particulier on 15Place Vendôme to make it the headquarters of theCrédit Mobilier, and kept it as such until 1867. The same building was transformed into a luxury hotel in 1898 byCésar Ritz and is now theHôtel Ritz Paris.
In 1855 they acquired their urban mansion, theHotel Pereire on 35-37rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, initially built in 1713, and had it extensively renovated until 1859, also by Armand.[1]: 389 [2]: 180 That property was purchased by the British government in 1947 and is now theEmbassy of the United Kingdom in Paris.
Their villa inArcachon, built in 1863–1854 in their real estate development there, was demolished in 1959.[6]
The Pereires were active in real estate development and created some of the most iconic urban landscapes of the era. These included theGare Saint-Lazare, first opened in 1842 as one of the main railway stations in Paris;[1]: 92, 385 theParc Monceau neighborhood in Paris, on grounds around the park which they purchased from theOrléans family in 1861;[2]: 156 theRue de la République [fr] inMarseille, started byJules Mirès [fr] and continued by the Pereires; and the holiday resort ofArcachon, developed from 1862.[1]: 390
TheBoulevard Pereire [fr] in Paris, above the Pereires’ligne d’Auteuil [fr], was given their name in 1863, an extremely rare distinction for living individuals.[1]: 194 The nearbyPlace du Maréchal-Juin [fr] was calledPlace Pereire until 1973. In the same neighborhood, thePereire Metro Station andPereire–Levallois RER station also carry their name. Other public spaces bearing the Pereires' name are inArcachon (Plage Pereire,avenue du Parc Pereire,allée Emile Pereire),Bayonne (place Pereire),Bordeaux (rue Emile Pereire),Rueil-Malmaison (rue Pereire), andSaint-Germain-en-Laye (rue Pereire). The formeravenue Pereire [fr] inAsnières-sur-Seine has been renamed after native sonHenri Barbusse.
The Bourbon roseMadame Isaac Pereire, bred in 1881 byArmand Garcon, is named after Isaac's second wife, Fanny.
![Original station of the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Saint-Germain [fr] on Place de l'Europe [fr], 1837](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSaint-Lazare_Europe-4.jpg)
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![The rue Impériale (on the right), now Rue de la République [fr] in Marseille](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMarseille_Rue_Republique_old.jpg)
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![Memorial plaque on Place du Maréchal-Juin [fr] in Paris, named Place Pereire until 1973](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aPlaque_Fr%25C3%25A8res_Pereire%2c_Promenade_Pereire%2c_Paris_17.jpg)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."Pereire".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.Authority control databases: National |
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