the world of private banking

28
THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
service after 1840 were the young British Queen Victoria and her consort Prince
Albert. 114
Their courier service also meant that the Rothschilds were in a position to
provide a unique news service. Major political events as well as confidential
information could be relayed from one city to another well ahead of official
channels. In 1817, James offered to relay details of French diplomatic despatches
from Paris to London – made available by a ‘friend’ in government circles – so
that they reached Nathan before the despatches themselves reached the French
ambassador. 115 In 1818, a British diplomat bound for the Aix Congress was
‘struck very much’ by Nathan’s ‘correct information as to the details of our party
and his knowledge of the persons likely to compose it, some of whose names I
believe had not even transpired at the Foreign Office’. 116 When the Duc de Berry
was assassinated in February 1820, it was the Rothschilds who broke the story
in Frankfurt and Vienna. 117 Likewise, when Princess Charlotte died in 1821, it
was again the Rothschilds who spread the news to Paris. 118 Canning disliked the
fact that the Rothschilds constantly scooped British ambassadorial reports; but he
could hardly afford to ignore news like the Turkish capitulation at Ackerman. 119
The Rothschilds also broke the news of the French revolution of July 1830 to Lord
Aberdeen in London and Metternich in Bohemia. 120
It was not long before statesmen and diplomats began themselves to make
use of the Rothschilds’ network of communication, partly because it was quicker
than the official courier systems used for relaying diplomatic correspondence, but
also because messages of a non-binding nature could be sent from government
to government indirectly via the brothers’ own private correspondence. By the
early 1830s, the Rothschilds were providing a vital channel of semi-official
communication between Paris, London and Vienna at a time of acute international
tension. It is not hard to see why they were willing to provide this service. Clearly,
114
RAL, T23/157, Stockmar to Lionel, 20 July 1840; RAL, T18/270, XI/109/46/1/31,
Anselm, Frankfurt, to Lionel and Billy [Anthony], London, 2 March 1844; RAL, T51/28,
XI/113/2B/2, Anson, Osborne House, to NMR, 23 July 1845; Cf. Davis, English Rothschilds,
p. 132f.
115
RAL, T27/280, XI/109/7 (also T62/ 85/4), James, Paris, to Salomon and Nathan,
18 June 1817.
116
Kynaston, City, vol. I, p. 54f.
117
Corti, Rise, p. 242; Gille, Banque et crédit, p. 262.
118
P.F.H. de Serre, Correspondance du comte de Serre 1796–1824, annotée et publiée
par son fils (Paris, 1876), vol. IV, p. 249.
119
A. Aspinall (ed.), The Letters of King George IV, 1812–30 (Cambridge, 1938), vol.
III, p. 175.
120
Corti, Rise, pp. 424f., 427f.; F. Balfour, The Life of George, 4th Earl of Aberdeen
(Paris, 1922), vol. I, pp. 254f.; N. Gash, Mr Secretary Peel (London, 1961), p. 638; F. von
Gentz, Briefe von Friedrich von Gentz an Pilat: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Deutschlands im
XIX. Jahrhundert, ed. by K. von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Leipzig, 1868), vol. II, pp. 288f.