THE Rothschilds obtained their first footing in Naples when Metternich of Austria sent troops to occupy the town in 1821, to support its King against revolutionary upheaval caused by the Carbonari, a masonic secret society. Metternich persuaded the Rothschilds to raise a loan to pay for the costs of the invasion and upkeep of the Austrian troops, and this was actually arranged to be done as a loan to Naples, not to Austria! For this purpose, Karl Rothschild, Solomon’s brother and old Amschel’s son, who had already done considerable service in the Frankfort House, was sent in that year to Naples. Naturally in the double role of a member of the Rothschild family and a servant of Metternich, he soon became very powerful, and “contrived to make himself indispensible to the Neapolitan Court in financial matters” (A, Vol. I., p. 297). This was all the easier as the costs of the occupation of the Kingdom by Austrian troops ruined the State and made it more subject to the favours of the Rothschilds in the matter of loans. The Papal States were among those to appeal to the Jew for loans, who, in 1831, lent them sixteen million francs, whilst his patron Metternich tried to get the ghetto gates in Rome abolished; but the Pope re-erected them. This was followed in 1845 by a smaller loan, but it is to be noted to their credit that neither of the two Popes, Gregory XVI. or Pius IX., who were reigning at these periods, were Jew-friendly on that account. It was Gregory who decorated the anti-Jewish Gougenot des Mousseaux as a reward for writing his work exposing the nature of the Jew and which exposes the practice of Ritual Murder by them; and it was Pius who refused audience to the Jew Montefiore on his journey back from bribing the Khedive and the Sultan over the Jewish Ritual Murders of Damascus and of Rhodes in 1840. (U, p. 23 seq.). Nevertheless, Karl Rothschild obtained the Papal order of St. George (!) with the privilege of kissing the Pope’s hand instead of his toe! (A, Vol. II., p. 51). Faugh! When Pius IX. had sought safety from the revolutionaries of 1848, he needed Rothschild loans to enable him to regain his temporal power: they did not grant him the loan until he promised to pull down the ghetto walls in Rome and establish freedom of movement and abolition of special taxes for Jews; this he refused to do until 1850, when the loan of thirty-three million francs was granted to him, on that condition. Payments of interest soon got into arrears (Daily Telegraph, 2nd Nov., 1935), which may be the reason that long after the Rothschild House in Naples had been closed down, the Rothschilds remained guardians of the Papal Treasure! When Louis Napoleon came to be Emperor of France in 1852, both he and Cavour in Sardinia were strenuously endeavouring to free their respective countries from Rothschild influence, although they still resorted to Jews; Louis Napoleon started the Credit Mobilier in 1852, whilst Cavour, whose secretary was the Jew Artom, employed the Jewish Bank of Hambro. Karl’s influence was therefore prevented from spreading too widely, and when Garibaldi conquered Naples and united Italy under Victor Emanuel, the former King of Sardinia, the Naples House of Rothschild was closed down (1861), and Karl retired to Paris where he remained in close familiarity with the Bourbon Royal Family of Naples who had gone there to live after their dethronement. In Paris, the ex-King and Queen of Naples were on intimate social terms with Alphonse Rothschild (My Past, by Countess Larisch, Chapter VIII.). Rothschilds have married into several Italian families of Jews; thus, Anselm Rothschild’s daughter married Baron Raymondo Franchetti in 1858, with descendants; Gustav Rothschild’s daughter married Baron Emanuel Leonino in 1896, and in the same year the daughter of Jas. Edward Rothschild married Baron David Leonino. |