-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- An excerpt from: Money Powers of Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries Paul H. Emden - 1938 D. Appleton-Century Company, Incorporated New York – London 428 pps. –First Edition – Out-of-print ----- MONEY POWERS OF EUROPE FINANCING THE NAPOLEONIC WARS "IT will be a short war and certainly ended in two or three campaigns," Pitt said, shewing thereby that he did not correctly appreciate the situation; Burke's prophecy, "It will be a long and dangerous war," was truer, as for two and twenty years, from 1793, war had been waged almost unceasingly on land and water against an enemy whose name was first the French Revolution and subsequently Bonaparte (in addition to which there had been from 1812 to 1814 the conflict with the United States). At last, on the 18th of June, 1815, Wellington had finally broken the power of Napoleon, the most powerful enemy England had yet known. Side by side with the war proper was organised a commercial struggle on a large scale. The blockade was exceedingly well calculated and directed at the very point where England was most vulnerable; Napoleon's intention was to exclude her from the European market, to destroy her credit, and by means of a social revolution to break up the State from within—attack was trained on the gold reserve of the Bank of England. Before mobilizing his enormous forces he had most carefully studied the foundations of British finance and commerce, and yet he made a grave mistake-perhaps his gravest-and his scheme miscarried utterly. The important question in a campaign is not who wins most often, but who wins last, and so England emerged triumphant. But before matters had proceeded thus far, the country had been compelled to accomplish in financial affairs deeds no less heroic than those performed on the battle-field and by the Fleet. It is true that the ease with which the gigantic burden was borne excited the admiration and envy of all Europe, but the results were not achieved quite so simply as appearances led onlookers to believe, and there were times when England's sufferings were almost overwhelming. The huge cost of the war, the enormous sums which had to be found for interest on the rapidly growing National Debt and the payment of subsidies to Foreign Allies, could not be met without the utmost exertions on the part of the working section of the population. From 1805 the country had to raise in taxes and for interest on loans never less and often more than a hundred million a year, and in 1813 the amount even rose to C'76,346,023 -a burden almost unthinkable for a country whose inhabitants then numbered under twenty million. Recourse was had to every kind of financial acrobatics in order to find the most urgently needed funds, and not infrequently it became necessary to resort to the youthful Sinking Fund. Everyone had to work much harder than ever before; by this means industrial production was increased, and as the British Fleet was the undisputed mistress of the seas, it was possible to extend markets farther and farther. By the introduction of power looms into the woollen and cotton mills, by the use of steam-driven machinery, technicians had rendered outstanding services, thanks to which it was possible to produce more efficiently. Nor did the whole of the amount raised by taxation and loans go up in the smoke of gunpowder, for vast sums were employed in industrial labour. Furthermore, in order to wage war Europe had to have money, and there was only one country which could supply it-England: the strongest of the powers allied against Napoleon was the power of British finance. But this country was very wise; she did not lend, she gave, and in place of loans granted subsidies—a much simpler transaction, which at the same time eliminated possible disappointments; and the very cautious Pitt paid his subsidies for the most part not in cash but in ammunition, clothing and other equipment. In this way, by a fortunate combination of prudence and luck, England managed to survive the war, Napoleon's blockade scheme and her own financial difficulties. But peace did not bring plenty; it sobered and disillusioned, and much wringing of hands accompanied the complaint that "a transition from a state of extensive warfare to a system of peace has occasioned a stagnation of employment and a revulsion of trade." With the cessation of hostilities the huge orders for military supplies dropped off, the armies were no longer vast consumers of the increased agricultural produce. The merchants who up to now had been able without fear of competition to dispose of all their goods of every kind both at home and abroad, suddenly found themselves with enormous stocks on their hands of which for the time being they could not dispose, and as the purchasing power of the Continental nations had decreased very considerably, it was impossible in the near future to count on them as potential buyers. At the same time the fact that they were cut off from the rest of the world had forced these countries to improve their own technical processes; as regards iron and cotton they remained dependent upon England, but in other industries, beginning to export on their own account, arose an unpleasant competition, which made itself felt in the world markets. Accordingly, at the end of the war the new industrial organisation which had grown so considerably found itself to an appreciable extent without customers, and at home a dislocated budget and inconvertible depreciated paper currency gave rise to the most serious reflections, with the result that the nation was faced not with the expected boom, but, for the moment, with a crisis. Compared with the rest of Europe, however, conditions in England were absolutely brilliant; there had been no invasion, and the internal economic structure had gained quite enormously in strength. Even though recovery was slow and for a time impeded by an unfortunate social policy which gave rise to numerous riots, yet it was thorough,. and the foundation was laid for the future outstanding importance of the City of London. Every economic centre of Europe was disorganized by the prolonged war, not least Amsterdam, which, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had been the focus of the world's trade and consequently also of the money turn-over. The Napoleonic Wars had taught the world a lot, chiefly that England was the only safe country. And so the ' world's disillusioned and timid capitalists now hastened to London; "Away from Amsterdam" and "Away from Paris" became the slogan, as they turned to the country whose mercantile marine carried by far the greatest part of the world's cargoes and had business relations with all, even the most distant parts, of the globe. It was not merely that the City of London, so to speak, got level with Amsterdam, but rather that it assumed a position never yet occupied by any town in the history of trade and commerce. International capital was deposited in English banks and invested in English undertakings and English funds; London became the clearing house for international settlements, Consols the gilt-edged security; and sterling, synonymous with gold, became the standard currency of the world. pps. 1-4 ===== FINANCING THE PEACE THE OUVRARD—BARING—HOPE COMBINE To put France in a position to pay a war indemnity was the first great task facing a Europe at last at peace, and in the solution of this problem every country, England above all, was interested. For the first time in history, therefore, finance became an international affair; it did not become completely cosmopolitan until after the Crimean War, but the age of international loans had begun. If we compare the state of Europe in 1815, after a war of twenty-two years, with that in 1918, after a struggle lasting a bare four and a quarter, we must, even without delving too deeply, come to the conclusion that in those days conditions were extremely satisfactory. As no country had a properly developed banking system-banks as we understand them to-day did not, in fact, exist at all-the accumulated reservoirs of movable capital were not yet at the disposal of the Governments, and consequently statesmen were not able either to use or to abuse those resources for the purposes of war. England, the paymaster of Europe, had shouldered an enormous load of debt, and in addition had, in order to make them useful allies, financed most of the other countries (not, be it observed, without profit to herself), yet in spite of all this had with astounding rapidity extricated herself from her sore distress. As early as 1817 a beginning was made with the redemption of the smaller notes, and a new gold coin, the sovereign, was introduced; the guinea, vanished in 1797, survived only on paper: in Professional fees and the bills of fashionable dressmakers. In the spring of 1819 the younger Sir Robert Peel was elected chairman of the Currency Committee appointed to devise a way out of the monetary troubles. During the discussions on this financial question differences of opinion arose between the father-the elder Sir Robert, who took his stand on a more absolute system of inconvertible paper currency, and the son, who feared that this would entail still greater injury to trade than the inequality existing between the paper pound and the gold pound. In the Commons the older politician rose to put his views before the House. "To-night I shall have to oppose a very near and dear relation," he explained, "but, while it is my own sentiment that I have a duty to perform, I respect those who consider that duty to be paramount to all other considerations . . . though he is deviating from the proper path in this instance, his head and heart are in the right place, and I think they will soon recall him to the right way." The son replied, in the speech with which he introduced his Bill, "Many difficulties presented themselves to me in discussing this question. Among them is one which it pains me to observe—I mean, the necessity I am under of opposing myself to an authority to which I have always bowed from my youth up, and to which I hope I shall always continue to bow with deference."[1] His Bill was carried, and owing to this-Peel's first Bank Act of 18ig (which was to be followed in 1844 by the real Peel Act) — the Bank of England resumed payments in cash, and a sound currency system was restored; Canning called this achievement "the greatest wonder he had witnessed in the political world." In France the position was not happy, yet far from being as bad as people were inclined to think. Napoleon had been a past-master in the art of making the war pay its own expenses; but after the inflation policy of the various revolutionary Governments and the sins of the ancien regime, the credit of the State seemed to have vanished altogether. At the start Louis XVIII was financed by England, and the much worried Herries—financial Herries, "the general purveyor of everything to everybody for every purpose"—groaned aloud when, at a time when home money was almost at its tightest and foreign currency still more so, he had to raise as best he could a hundred thousand pounds[2] in cash, notes or bills for the King's journey to his restored throne and for his first expenses. But hardly had Louis been installed and left to his own devices when he proved that the time of his exile had passed him by without profit, and that like all the other Bourbons he had really learnt nothing and forgotten nothing;[3] he did the most foolish thing possible for a man in his position to do-raised a compulsory loan of a hundred million francs from various of his wealthy subjects and thus forfeited all confidence and possibility of credit. Europe, on the other hand, dealt more leniently with the vanquished country. The burden imposed on France was not too heavy to be borne: seven hundred million francs[4] were to be paid in five annual instalments, and although the last three years of the war had cost this country nearly two hundred million sterling, yet England only demanded a hundred and thirty-five million francs[5], a very moderate sum indeed, not even what the Chancellor of the Exchequer could raise in one day when he invited subscriptions to a loan. In addition to these "indemnities for the past" France had to produce as "guarantees for the future," another hundred and fifty million francs[6] a year towards the support of the Army of Occupation under the command of the Duke of Wellington, who resumed the truly military point of view that in no case was the Army to remain in France to collect debts, its real task was to ensure the peace of Europe. In spite of the modesty of these demands, where the money was to come from was at first a mystery; one thing and one only was clear-intrinsically wealthy but for the time being sucked dry, France could not raise out of her own resources the sums required. In the very initial stages of the negotiations the possibility of a loan had been envisaged, but the scheme had been rejected, for it was thought possible that England herself might need the assistance of the money market, and besides, it seemed almost out of the question that anyone in his sober senses could be found willing to subscribe for a French Rente. The chances of payment of the war indemnity appeared indeed so remote that Metternich would have been only too pleased to sell the share allotted to Austria at thirty per cent. The Chancellor's pessimism looked like being justified: a single instalment was paid, and in 1816 France had come to the end of her money and her wits. Talleyrand and his Finance Minister, Baron Louis, were followed however by Armand-Emanuel de Richelieu and Baron Corvetto, who understood finance, and with whom it was easier to negotiate, and now a man came to the fore who, with astounding eloquence and the gift of inspiring confidence, induced the Ministers to accept the principle that taxes kill and that debts give new life: that it is necessary to hypothecate the future in order to be able to survive in the present. Again and again he insisted that once France had got rid of her immediate liabilities, she would find confidence everywhere, and he eventually converted the dumbfounded ministers to the idea of borrowing abroad in order to pay debts abroad. The man who propounded this in itself so simple but in those days completely revolutionary idea (adopted fairly frequently during the next hundred years) was Gabriel Julien Ouvrard, a man who had had experience of many financial battles and bore the scars of more than one of them. In the Haute Finance of Paris no one, it is true, seriously believed that the Allies would consider themselves satisfied if they received bonds. Not till dire necessity knocked at the door and it was not even possible to raise and pay the current expenses for the Army of Occupation did Ouvrard's suggestion receive-if not approval-at least a hearing, and he was instructed, as a beginning, to procure sixty million francs. This he blankly refused to do: "No one in the world can at the present moment procure sixty millions for France," he retorted, "but the raising of a loan of a thousand millions, so that the claims of the Allies can be settled once and for all-that is child's play." The next question which had to be, and was, addressed to him was who could possibly come into consideration for the purpose of undertaking and carrying out such a gigantic transaction. This difficulty also Ouvrard was readily able to solve; there was only one firm that could do it—Barings; through Hopes, his business friends in Amsterdam, he knew the house very well, he had often done business with them, and if he had any luck at all, Hopes themselves might possibly join in. Now at last the matter had made a start, and the only thing left was to win the approval of the man on whose opinion so much depended in England, and whose word was final in the camp of the Allies-Wellington. The Duke came to Paris, stayed with Ouvrard, and on the 8th of January, 1817, the important and decisive conference took place; the loan was decided upon, and Ouvrard was instructed by Richelieu to carry it through. Barings were willing and Hopes joined in; but as even these most experienced bankers were not quite sure how much the market might be willing to take, it was necessary to proceed slowly and most cautiously, and in 1817 a three hundred and fifty million franc five per cent loan was offered at 53 per cent and immediately subscribed in full. There was proof that the credit of France might still be trusted; the new security was soon quoted far above the issue price. Perhaps it would have been possible to achieve an even more striking success if the Baring-Hope combine had been willing to give a share in the transaction to the house which stood next to them in importance, but had at that time not yet fully stretched its wings. If the decision had lain with Alexander Baring alone, he would perhaps not have been so reluctant, but Ouvrard, and Labouchere, the head of Hopes, thought that they had adequate grounds for their refusal, and so Rothschilds remained outside. Their Paris branch was naturally most anxious to participate in this the greatest of all financial deals since the conclusion of peace; not merely because he wanted to make money, but because he felt that his prestige was at stake, James found it unbearable that he should be left out in the cold and tried every possible way of getting a share. When he had finally realized that the main stairway was definitely closed to him, he entrusted his intimate business friend David Parish with the rather thankless task of getting him admitted by the back stairs; but this attempt likewise was doomed to failure. Nevertheless the Rothschilds made an enormous amount of money-perhaps more than anyone, if not out of the issue, yet out of the loan itself. They foresaw a huge success, had too much good sense to play the injured party, and consequently bought in enormous quantities everything that came on offer in the market; for this purpose they had at their disposal relatively large sums, since their safes still continued untransferred indemnity funds. And so France herself financed their speculation in French Rentes. Largely as a result of these purchases quotations rose from 53 to 66—a most welcome success for all concerned, but finally the proud combine was forced to realize that, by means of their enormous holdings, it was Rothschild who now controlled the markets. Thus they had shown what they were able to achieve single-handed, and how dangerous they might be as enemies. In the arrangements for the third instalment of the loan, which fell due in 1818 and amounted to two hundred and seventy million francs, Barings came off worse. It had been agreed that the Allies should receive roughly a hundred and sixty-five million in cash and the rest in Rente bonds which, when the quotation stood at 74, the combine had agreed to take up at 70, so that there seemed to be a chance of a not inappreciable profit. The many issues, however, had followed too closely on one another, and had robbed the market of its resilience, and if a strong hand which did not care about the combine or its well-being should conceive the idea of trying to upset quotations, anything might happen, especially if the seller had enough bonds at his disposal to make delivery. A cleverly engineered bear attack did in fact meet with complete success; in less than a week the French loan had dropped from 74 to 68—that is, below the price at which the Combine had bought, and Alexander Baring began to think that after all it might have been wiser not to have listened to Ouvrard and Labouchere, but to have allied himself with James de Rothschild. It goes without saying that if the worst had come to the worst Baring would have been able to keep to the conditions of his contract, but to carry out a transaction which from the outset was bound to end in a loss was far from his intentions, nor did it agree with his principles as a financier. Unwilling to impugn his bargain, he managed to find a very adroit way out of his dilemma; twice the issue had been a brilliant success and the original applicants had made such exceptionally welcome profits without incurring the slightest risk that the majority of the allied statesmen, Metternich at their head, had taken an interest in this third issue also, to an extent which far exceeded their official one; to put it plainly-they had participated personally. This was where Baring cleverly put in his spoke: if he was expected to carry Out his obligations, then he was entitled to demand a similarly high conception of business morality from all his associates; so he made it clear to them that dealings on margin were permissible on a rising market only. Metternich raged a good deal, but Baring had the undoubted right to insist, and as none of the statesmen-stags was willingor able-to pay up, new arrangements were made on a different price basis. But Metternich had a good memory, and something had departed from the glory of the name of Baring in Austria. In spite of this set-back, the final settlement of the great war indemnity transaction was not long delayed. The five per cent French Loan, which in 1815 had fallen to its lowest at 52-30, rose in 1818 to 80.[7] As was to happen again in 1871, France had recovered with amazing rapidity; by 1818 the last penny had been paid, and since with the execution of the final receipt the peace of Europe was ensured -till next time-Wellington and the Army of Occupation could be recalled. Everybody was satisfied. The only one who did not make anything out of the huge deal was Ouvrard. As had happened so often under Napoleon, so now the Bourbons charged him with fraud, and refused to pay his commission. The tragic fate of having brilliant ideas and of earning nothing for himself when they were put into practice accompanied Ouvrard all his life. pps. 5-12 --[notes]— 1. The author is aware that by giving this detailed description he has strayed from the straight road which he intended to follow into a side path, delightful as it may be. But the political controversy between father and son, fought out on the floor of the House, seemed to him to be a model of correct parliamentary discussion, and he could not bring himself to omit it. 2. A further Cxoo,ooo was procured by John Charles Herries, at the time Commissary-in- Chief and in 1827 Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the instructions of Castlereagh, and handed to the new King on his arrival in Paris. Louis XVIII personally settled up for this £200,000 which was repaid with interest soon after the second Restoration. 3. " Ils n'ont rien appris ni rien oublie" was the description which Rear-Admiral Panat applied to the Bourbons in 1796. 4. frs- 700,000,000 equals £28,000,000, both at par. 5. frs. 135,000,000 equals £5,400,000, both at par. 6. frs. 150,000,000 equals £6,000,000, both at par. 7. In 1830 it stood at 110 per cent, whilst the 5 per cent French Rente rose between 1817 and 1830 from 57 to 110, English 3 per cent Consols were only able to recover from 62 to go. The whole nation and the individual had in France a far lighter burden to bear than victorious England. ===== GABRIEL-JULIEN OUVRARD AN inscrutable character, spurred on by a keen spirit of enterprise, Ouvrard entered into gigantic transactions, provisioning of armies, negotiation of credits, control of banking-and rose to be a power of the first magnitude, but examined more closely he was merely a clever financier who resorted to the tricks of a flat-catcher. The opinions formed of him by his contemporaries were as poles asunder. Richelieu regarded him as his confidential adviser, Lamartine thought him one of the greatest of financial geniuses, Thiers suspected him of shameless common cheating. Each warned the other against him, then proceeded to do business with him. Seven times he was arrested, on one occasion spending five years in prisons. A princely position was followed by a disgraceful bankruptcy, but like a magician who is able to transmute ideas into gold he rose again, made another enormous fortune, and again lost it. In spite of all his gifts this man, a speculator by talent, conviction and profession, was unsuccessful because his imagination ran riot and he lacked all sense of proportion. His aim at the start was merely his own personal advantage, but gradually he came to collaborate in all the great transactions of his time. First heard of in Paris toward 1793, when he was twenty-three, from that time onwards each of the many successive Governments was in some way or other compelled to come to grips with him. Being entirely free from political or dynastic prejudice, he financed the Hundred Days, then immediately after the fall of Napoleon placed his services at the disposal of Louis XVIII. The men of the Revolution, the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire and the Restoration asked his advice, entreated his help, and then charged him with some crime and prosecuted him. He served, cheated, and survived them all. Ouvrard was barely nineteen when he concluded his first speculation; using his father's credit he bought up all the paper he could get hold of in the neighbourhood of Clisson, his native place, and secured the whole output of the factories for two years. His calculations turned out to be correct, as during the Revolution the Press regained its liberty, the consumption of paper increased, and as at the same time the supply of labour decreased, prices soared. This first deal was followed by others in sugar, coffee and cotton, and by the time he arrived in Paris he was a millionaire several times over. Speculators in the necessaries of life, however, received short shrift in those days; the events of 1789, a year of famine, were still within the memory of all, and Ouvrard escaped this fate only by joining the Army. When the fall of Robespierre had put an end to the reign of terror, he managed to leave the army, and in the Rue d'Amboise, on the former business premises of Rougemont & Hottinguer, he in his turn opened a bank. Conditions in France were very bad. The Revolution and the war had destroyed industry and commerce, taxes were impossible to collect, and debts were piled upon debts. The property of the Church and of the Nobility had been confiscated, but as the value of landed estate was nil, this proceeding could neither remedy the state of the Exchequer nor help the Government to obtain long-term credits. The former National Debt had been wiped out at one stroke and new notes, called assignats, were issued, but no one would have them, and their value sank so low that eighteen hundred francs in paper had to be paid for one louis d'or. There set in the greatest inflation the history of political economy had yet known (though even its ineffectual fires pale before the conditions ruling in Germany in the early 'twenties of the present century). The only man who made any practical suggestion for placing the note circulation on a sounder footing was Ouvrard, but in those days he was too young and too unknown to find anyone to listen to him. He succeeded, on the other hand, in 1797 in capturing the greatest contract as yet offered by the Republic, the provisioning for several years of the French Fleet, and this transaction was followed by one still greater-the commissariat of the Spanish Fleet. The Expedition to Egypt in 1798 entailed yet further financial difficulties for France; at the time of its greatest distress the Directory asked Ouvrard for ten million francs, which he procured at once. Simultaneously he submitted to the Government a new plan; "in order to be rid of its embarrassment," he informed then, "France needs a Rente indebtedness; . . . by means of an issue of irredeemable Rentes capital at present dormant will be mobilised and put at the disposal of industry; . . . only by following the example of England and treading the path of credit will France be able to escape bankruptcy." Napoleon, incomparable as statesman and soldier, but a poor economist, held diametrically opposed views; the only means of revenue for the State which he knew were taxes and conquest. He had no idea of what was meant by credit, and thought it was nothing but an illusion, an invention of theorists, and on the strength of this view he again and again prophesied the imminent collapse of England. Finance to him meant usury, but however much he might despise it, he could not get on without it, and when he wanted to start on his march across the Alps, Ouvrard was requested to find twelve million. About this time, in 1800, Ouvrard stood at the very zenith of his power and was enormously wealthy, a Prince of Finance. His offices in Paris resembled a Ministry, his chief-of-staff was Carnbaceres, the future Chancellor of the Empire and Prince of Parma, and "tout Paris" could be seen at his town house, the Palais Montesson, in the Rue de Provence, and at his country estate of Le Raincy, formerly the property of the Orleans. Depending upon the strength of his position he ventured a dangerous step: he refused to find the twelve million and demanded repayment of the ten million advanced to the Directory. Napoleon was not to be provoked with impunity. An inquiry was at once ordered; Ouvrard was charged with having defrauded the State in connection with his supplies to the Fleet. His books were confiscated, and he was to be tried by Court Martial. But he was too important a man, and far too urgently needed for proceedings to be carried to the bitter end; First Consul and banker came to terms and Ouvrard undertook the provisioning of the French Army which started out for Italy. >From this time onward a tragic-comic fate bound the two men together. Napoleon hated Ouvrard; after every transaction he exposed him as a cheat, he ruined him several times, and yet, as he could not get on without him, he had again and again to ask for his financial assistance, and in spite of all his experiences the financier again and again gave it. The unscrupulous statesman and the unscrupulous man of affairs were linked together with golden chains at which each tugged in vain. The strangest plan conceived and negotiated by Ouvrard for Napoleon (meanwhile become Emperor), was the transfer of the Hispano-Mexican silver treasure from South America to Europe—a transaction as gigantic as it was fantastic. In the Peninsular War Spain had been forced to take sides against England, and was to pay Paris an annual subsidy of seventy-two million francs. Even if she had seriously intended to pay, Spain would never have been able to raise such a sum. When diplomatic reminders were without success, Ouvrard was in 1805 entrusted with the task of trying to get in the money. He saw at once that it was hopeless to attempt to extract the amount from the Spanish budget; but the country owned gold and silver mines in Mexico and Peru, and enormous stocks of silver lay in the store-rooms of Mexico. So this ingenious man conceived the idea of making those treasures available, and, in spite of the war and the risk of capture, of bringing them to Europe—not in cash, but in the shape of produce bought in North America, the proceeds of the sale of which were to be applied for the benefit of Spain and used to pay the subsidies. The banker succeeded in engineering his grandiose scheme most ably, and in order to interest Charles IV personally in the transaction, the Spanish King was made a sleeping partner in Ouvrard & Co. Prudent and cautious business men like Henry Hope and P. C. Labouchere frankly thought Ouvrard insane when he suggested the transaction to them; they had neither the time nor the money for chimeras, and were at first unwilling to let an old business associate, when he showed an inclination "to capitalise his optimism at the expense of his veracity," have his say. But when he explained everything to them in the utmost detail, borne out with entirely unobjectionable figures, they listened most attentively and finally joined in and induced their associates in London, the Barings, to come in too. Brilliantly represented in South America by David Parish, they made eight hundred and sixty thousand pounds out of the deal, while Ouvrard—lost the whole of his fortune. Once again Napoleon had picked a quarrel with him, cancelled the Spanish agreement entered into with him after it had run for two years, and out of hand confiscated all his property. For the moment Ouvrard's part was played out and Napoleon, now at the zenith of his power, believed that he would never again require the financier. But in this he was mistaken. When the Emperor returned from Elba, he had forgotten his former hostility towards Ouvrard, for he wanted money; fifty-four million francs were procured by the twentieth day, against bonds, the possession of which smoothed Ouvrard's way when two years later he undertook the raising of the great French loan. With the same equanimity with which he financed the Hundred Days and subsequently the Restoration, he was banker (and perhaps even more) to Josephine Beauharnais; as Madame Bonaparte she was occasionally not unwilling to accept his aid, for which she showed her gratitude, when she became Empress, by informing her old friend of her husband's threats against his liberty. As he had received timely warning, Ouvrard was able before his arrest to take a smart revenge: intentionally he left on his desk a note from which Bonaparte learnt in the unmistakable writing of his wife that even after her marriage she had repeatedly received money from him. Napoleon's vanity was the more deeply hurt because he knew that his own spies had read the perfumed document before he saw it. Josephine, who can be reproached with nothing but having been trop femme, was just as little enamoured of her husband as was her friend, Madame Tallien (the former Therese Cabarrus) of hers; both had the same elastic views of conjugal fidelity, and the only gifted child of Ouvrard, his son, Doctor Cabarrus, had to be known by his mother's maiden name. Ouvrard's vast wealth faded away so often, bad luck clung to him so closely, and eventually assumed such dimensions that many were scared of joining in any transaction in which he was interested, and a contract with the Government in 1823 involved him in fresh ruin. In a lawsuit without end he claimed sums amounting to sixteen million from the State, but the latter raised a counterclaim. After two years' detention on remand on the charge of fraud and bribery he was discharged, but only to exchange his confinement for imprisonment for debt. Old-standing claims had been brought forward successfully, and as the ruined man could not pay, he stayed in Ste. Pelagie, the Paris Fleet, till 1830, immediately afterwards again becoming a millionair e-this time in a struggle against the Rothschilds. Since the days of the French indemnity loan he had continually found these latter in his way. Amongst the many enemies whom the five Rothschild brothers made in the days of their unprecedented rise, the financiers of standing, with name and tradition behind them, were the least dangerous; they gave in without a fight and resignedly made place for the newer blood. Ouvrard, on the other hand, was a fighter, made of the same tough fibre as the Rothschilds. Just as Napoleon persecuted Ouvrard, so the latter made the house of Rothschild, especially James in Paris, the object of his insatiable hatred, and it was a great stroke of luck for the bankers that this able and gifted enemy was so inconsistent, so unreliable, and so very speculatively inclined, for he was perhaps the only one who might have constituted a serious danger. But twenty-two years older than James, he was too worn out by his many ups and downs to be able to wage a successful war against them; at the same time, whenever opportunity offered (in the negotiations for the French, Spanish and Italian loans), he took up the cudgels and made difficulties for them, and the most singular thing about it is that he even made money out of his opposition. Others who crossed the path of the mighty ones did not come off so well. It must be admitted, however, that Ouvrard was occasionally better informed than the Rothschilds; he, in some way or other, got wind of the Polignac Ordinances in 1830; James de Rothschild, intentionally misled by the Minister, was completely unprepared for the debacle and lost many millions on his Rentes, but Ouvrard, at the head of an important Bear Syndicate, became wealthy once more and for the last time. Thereafter he sank into oblivion, and died in London in 1846, at the age of seventy-six, if not exactly poor, yet leaving an estate which stood in no proportion to his enterprises. The enormously active life of Ouvrard, the most prolific in ideas of the early nineteenth century financiers, ended with a quite inconsiderable personal triumph. Both he and David Parish, his companion in so many battles with and for the golden bullets, met with passing success, but no lasting results were granted them. pps. 13-19 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! 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