The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-06

and tunneiiing and put the roanoco
 in condition--a work estimated at
 s7,ooo. GOO francs
 we will hand this completed road | bed over to you. You will lay the | rails, build the stations, furnish loco motives, cars and 90 forth, and. In Q word. start the railway running the expense of which is estimated at s0.000,oo0 francs. Tn return for this service we will abandon to you during forty years all the profits of the rail-
 way-if there be any. At the end of your lease we also promise to pay you
 back the cost of your material at valuation" Chamber of Deputies Interfered. Thecontract was on the point of be- ing signed when the Chamber or Deputies interfered. It refused posi- lively to permit the clause of paying back the cost of the material and the doubtfuiDess of the enterprise In the minds of their contemporaries may De gathered from the editorial exolama- | ton of The Journal de Debats in July, 1s4s, when the Rothschilds waived the clause: M. Rothschild solicits the privilege of ruining himselfv
 How near these ana other early l French railways came to ruin Is a
 mater of complicated French history.
 The stocks rose and fell on the Bourse; the Government came to their rescue; |
 mcnary constructions; the Govern ment undertook other constructions; the railways came to the rescue of the Government, and new conventions
 were made as the years rolled on, par ticularly at the end of the forty years period, in 1ss3 It is a complicated subject, but it may be summed up by since the year 1879, the Company Of
 the North still remains in possession | of its lease, while the names of Roths- child and Fould must be mentioned
 throughout with the rise of French | railways.
 been aided by the Orleans family. found themselves in a dangerously
 conspicuous situation on the breaking
 out of the Revolution in 1S4S. Their | chateau at Suresnee was burned and pil1aged by the same mob that burned
 and pillaged the Chateau of Nsuilly,
 the favorite residence of Leuis Phil
 ippe and his sons; but of the two the
 house of Rothschild was the more
 firmly founded, because the Baron
 James had in one large portfolio suf- fcient hostages to bring the govern | ment to terms.
 An Incident of 1s47.
 | It is one of the facts which remain hidden and unknown, covered by the
 accumulated rubbish of French his
 tory; yet at the time 1t was wonder fully picturesque. In 1847. during the
 settled government of Louis Philippe,
 the Rothschild house had undertaken la loan of 230,o00,000 francs, designed
 for public improvements. Some TO- 000, 900 francs of it had been paid over
 to the French State, and 1t is quite possible that between November. 1S47, when the loan was conceded, and Feb | ruary 1S4s, when the revolution broke out, the Rothschilds might have placed
 the whole loan with a credit. Did tho far-seefng Baron James have 1 the doubt of coming trouble? In any
 case the incoming revolutionists found the treasury empty and Baron James point blank refusing to hand over to | them the balance of the 23o,oC0,o00 | francs. T do not know you." he said. "I never promised you anything" They might have put him in prison. but they much preferred the cash. Therefore, they gave Baron James a guard of hon. or for his damaged Suresnee villa. They passed the word of order that the Rothschilds were good people. They
 made new propositions for new loan to the new republic. Baron James
 looked round about him. He saw that his friends of the Orleans family had
 gone out for good. The interest of
 house in the stability of things in France was enormous. He was will | ing to risk much for settled order. | Therefore, he loaned the new republic | 13, ,000, ,000 francs at per cent.
 Present-day critics of the Roths- childs in France have argued that as Baron James had time. between No-
 vember. 1S47. and February, 1s4s. to have placed the whole of the previous 23O, ,000, 900 francs loan with the public
 at profit to himself of 1S,000,00
 francs, his keeping of. the major part
 of it in his portfolio till the breaking
 otu of the revolution constituted a
 breach of faithnot toward the Govern
 meth of Locis Philippe, that was de- lighted to leave an empty treasury to
 its destroyers-but toward the new
 Republic, with whom he had no con tract-but, in some occult way, toward
 France. The fact. however, that he
 might have made some 1s,000.000
 francs and yet refused to make 1t, Is open to a much more favorable con- struction.
 Preferred Another Set of Financlers. Louis Napoleon was already on his way to France When he first came in he certainly had need of money; and his preference seemed to be for an- other set of financiers. the Pereires,
 Millauds, Solars and Mires, who pro- ceeded to create a whole new system of finance in the nature of mutuality and association and the opening of popular subscriptions to let the peo- pie in. Gut of these ideas grew the Credit Foncier and. later on, the Cred it Mobiliier and the great modern French system for which the latter name stands as a representative. During this period Baron James let the new system work It's will, while shaking his head gravely; and his most picturesque known operations had to do with real estate. The al-
 most supernatural foresight of the Rothschilds called his attention to the
 work of Baron Hausmann in. trans
 forming Paris by the opening of great
 avenues. He foresaw the fashiona-
 ble movement West In what is now
 the Etoile quarter he began to buy up
 land immensely; and Alphonse. the son
 whom he had chosen to follow him. | followed in his footsteps. It is time l to speak of Alphonse. Baron James
 was weakening physically; and he died
 in 1868, leaving 1t to his second son, l Alphonse, to steer the French house | through the war with Germany, the perils of the Commune and the difficult period of recovery an dpayment of in-
 demnities by France.
 | French credit was at a low ebb at | the end of the Franco -Prussian war. Two weeks atfer Napoleon III fell, new governement had confessedly picked up authority where 1t had 1 found it-in the street" Six months previously, in return for the privilege
 of emitting 100000 francs worth of legal tender paper, the Bank of France l had engaged itself to discount all