Word: jakob
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...five-story "House with the Green Shield" (he had been born in the humbler "Red Shield House" that gave the family its name-Rot Schild) and sent his bumptious sons off to the financial strongholds of Europe to try their hands at business. Nathan settled in London, Jakob in Paris, Salomon in Vienna, Kalmann in Naples, and Amschel stayed home to help Father. The turning point in Meyer's career came when he ingratiated himself with Prince William of Hesse by selling him rare coins at a bargain. The prince reciprocated by giving Meyer the job of investing...
...London, where Son Nathan's speculations multiplied them and won the family a small fortune and big reputation. When the British asked Nathan to smuggle gold to Wellington's troops trapped in Portugal during the Napoleonic wars, he shipped the gold straight to France, where Brother Jakob slipped it through the Pyrenees. Nathan found out about Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo before anyone else in Britain, thanks to a courier who sped a Dutch newspaper to him. He used the news to make a killing on the London stock market, where he customarily leaned in stoic solitude...
With these triumphs, the Rothschilds earned wide acclaim for shrewdness, reliability and profitability, quickly became lenders to the great. Jakob's loans helped France conquer Algeria. From Vienna, Brother Salomon raised millions for the Habsburgs, who-after some hard prompting at a highly anti-Semitic court-in 1822 rewarded the Rothschilds and all their descendants with the title of baron and their noble coat of arms. From Naples, Brother Kalmann floated huge loans for the Papal States and the King of Naples by placing them with the other Rothschilds...
Supported by his indebted friend Metternich, Salomon won the right to sell lottery bonds to the public in order to build the Austrian Empire's first important railway. Brother Jakob, who had a lease on both the Bourbons and Napoleon III, laid down France's first railways (on which he made a great profit by artificially running up prices of the shares). The British Rothschilds ignored the country's industrial boom, but propped the young government of the U.S. with loans and, in combination with de Rothschild Frères, made loans to Brazil. "Money...
...their wealth and power, the prideful Rothschilds never forgot-or were allowed long to forget-their origins. After King Louis XVIII refused to receive Jakob's wife at court because she was not Christian, Jakob withdrew his support of the Bourbons; he was lucky to get out just before the revolution of 1830 toppled them. Because of Russia's pogroms, the Rothschilds refused to grant loans to the czars. In many ways governments began to feel respect for, or fear of, the Rothschilds. Amschel became treasurer of the German Confederation, and Jakob the Austrian consul in Paris. Nathan...