the world of private banking

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THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
evolved over the course of time. As long as these banks remained private they were
not obliged to publish a balance sheet and for a long time remained preoccupied
with keeping their business secret. They have therefore left very few archives.
Only four or five have apparently preserved any papers, which are moreover very
incomplete, and when they were entrusted to the National Archives were quickly
transferred into storage at Roubaix. This has rendered it difficult for most French
and foreign researchers to consult them. As for historical works based on the
consultation of archives, these are very few in number. The main works are those,
already rather dated, by Bertrand Gille on the house of Rothschild; but this house
held an exceptional place in the world of the Haute Banque, and is therefore not
truly representative of the whole of the group. Unfortunately, Gille’s study also
finishes in 1870.
In this chapter, which aims above all else to incite a revival in research into
an historic subject which is too little studied, we wish first to recall how, as soon
as they were formed at the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the
nineteenth, the majority of the houses were businesses with international interests.
We will then attempt to analyse the period during which they reached their peak
(1840–60) and understand the importance of their foreign activities in the very
complex totality of their operations. Finally, we shall question the alleged decline
of the Haute Banque at the end of the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth,
and its real position, at least in the international field.
The Men: a World Open to Foreigners
According to the lists established in the middle of the nineteenth century, the
banking families which made up the Haute Banque could overall be taken to be of
foreign origin. It is certainly true that those which were of the Protestant or Jewish
religions were often from foreign countries.
The Protestant families, who were the most numerous, were often descended
from French Huguenots who had been refugees in the Swiss cantons, or especially
Geneva, not a canton till 1814, before establishing themselves in Paris, often only
after some time: from 1723 in the case of the Mallets, at the end of the century
B. Gille, Histoire de la Maison Rothschild, vol.I, Des origines à 1848, and vol. II
(1848–1870) (Geneva, 1965 and 1967). On the Haute Banque also refer to H. Bonin, ‘The
Case of the French Banks’, in R. Cameron and V.I. Bovykin (eds), International Banking,
1870–1914 (Oxford, 1991).
The Rothschild archives have been deposited in the National Archives, where they
are classified under series AQ as are the Mallet papers (which we have consulted). The
Mirabaud papers, which we have also consulted, have recently been deposited in the
National Archives, where they are currently being classified, and in their turn transferred
to Roubaix. The archives of the house of Seillière, subsequently Demachy et Seillière, are
preserved in Paris by the recently formed Foundation for the History of the Haute Banque.