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The Rothschild Dynasty<br />

VII<br />

FOREWORD<br />

The Rothschild family generally taken to mean <strong>the</strong> fa<strong>the</strong>r and his<br />

five sons is truly a story of opportunity seized; a determined will<br />

to carry out its gains and its entry into a world of <strong>the</strong> aristocracy<br />

that did not want <strong>the</strong>m. Some might consider it effrontery to talk<br />

about <strong>the</strong> huge fortune that fell into <strong>the</strong> hands and <strong>the</strong> control of<br />

Mayer Amschel Rothschild as an "opportunity," while o<strong>the</strong>rs<br />

regard it as nothing less than misappropriation of funds entrusted<br />

to his care, hardly an "opportunity" in <strong>the</strong> generally accepted<br />

meaning of <strong>the</strong> word.<br />

Never<strong>the</strong>less, for Mayer Amschel it was a godsend that<br />

lifted him out of a life of pawn-broking and selling second-hand<br />

goods, to <strong>the</strong> highest echelons of power, a remarkable<br />

achievement when one considers <strong>the</strong> history of <strong>the</strong> period, in<br />

which Jews were constrained by many civil laws designed to act<br />

as a permanent barrier between <strong>the</strong>m and <strong>the</strong> people of <strong>the</strong><br />

principalities and nations in which <strong>the</strong>y lived. Class distinction<br />

was ano<strong>the</strong>r huge barrier, which would have been daunting for<br />

even a non-Jew who was not a part of <strong>the</strong> ruling aristocracy.<br />

Mobility of classes was unheard of and separation was<br />

harsh and strictly enforced, especially in Frankfurt on <strong>the</strong> Main,<br />

Germany, where <strong>the</strong> Rothschild <strong>dynasty</strong> began its remarkable<br />

history. Mayer Amschel Rothschild had little if any formal<br />

education; his family did not have a motto, but what he did have<br />

was tenacity of purpose and a strong belief in his religion. His<br />

was a bourgeois home, an "alien" home in <strong>the</strong> alien ghetto of<br />

Frankfurt.<br />

Through guile, and what some unkind critics called<br />

"innate cunning," Mayer Amschel Rothschild reached right into<br />

<strong>the</strong> heady world of aristocratic families who shunned him, and<br />

who indeed, despised him. But for <strong>the</strong> "good fortune" (or<br />

"misfortune" — depending on which side one is on) of meeting

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