Jacques Laffitte
With the surge of industrialization, the importance of banking and finance in the Paris economy also grew. As Stendhal wrote at the time, the bankers were the new aristocracy of Paris. In 1837, Jacques Laffitte founded the first business bank in Paris, the "Caisse générale du commerce et de l'industrie". In 1842, Hippolyte Ganneron founded a rival commercial bank, the "Comptoir général du commerce". The banks provided the funding for the most important economic event of the July Monarchy, the arrival of the railroads. The brothers Émile and Issac Péreire, the grandchildren of an immigrant from Portugal, founded the first railway line to Paris. James Mayer de Rothschild, the chief rival of the Péreire brothers, was the most famous banker of the July Monarchy. He gave loans to the government of Louis-Philippe and played a key role in the construction of the French mining industry and railroad network.