In business, through his bank in Paris and ownership of the Anzin Coal Co. in the Department of Nord, he contributed significantly to the economic development of France in the early stages of industrialization.

Claude Perier shifted the center of his business affairs to Paris, where he took up residence beginning in 1794 (rue Saint-Honoré) and mingled with leading French financiers.

[1] Claude Perier died on 6 February 1801, leaving his remarkably large family of ten children to share his enormous estate valued at 5,800,000 francs.

Casimir, who was twenty-four years old at the time, inherited shares in the Anzin Company, land at Grenoble (Department of Isère) and in common with his brother Scipion, the property in Paris on the rue Saint-Honoré.

During service with the army in Italy from 1799 to 1800, he began to consider a military career, but his father's death and legacy, the lure of Paris, and his close friendship with his older brother Scipion took him in a much different direction.

Casimir and Scipion Perier purchased the Chaillot firm in 1818 and used its workshops to upgrade Anzin with more efficient Cornish high-pressure engines patented in France by Arthur Woolf.

[4] The Anzin Coal Company, which was established in 1757 as a closely held, family-owned firm managed by a self-perpetuating board of six directors, fell on hard times during the Revolution until rescued in 1795 by heavy investments from wealthy representatives of la grande bourgeoisie .

[6] Casimir Perier's policy as a banker was to spread his capital investment over a wide range of characteristic early nineteenth century business enterprise.

Casimir's largest investment in Paris real estate during the Restoration was made in 1829-30 when he agreed to pay 744,600 francs for properties on the rue Saint-Honoré owned by Francis Egerton, Duke of Bridgewater.

[8] Casimir Perier's wide-ranging business interests and investments help to explain his opposition in the Chamber of Deputies to financial policies of Restoration ministries.

In 1817, he opposed the policy of the Richelieu ministry for raising loans to pay the war indemnity demanded by the allied coalition after Napoleon's final defeat.

[10] Perier entered the Chamber of Deputies for Paris in 1817, taking his seat in the Left Centre with the moderate opposition, and making his first speech in defense of the freedom of the press.

Perier's violence in debate was not associated with any disloyalty to the Bourbon Restoration, and he held resolutely aloof from the Republican conspiracies and intrigues which prepared the way for the revolution of 1830.

Under the Martignac ministry, there was some prospect of a reconciliation with the court, and, in January 1829, he was nominated a candidate for the presidency of the chamber; but in August with the elevation to power of Jules, Prince de Polignac, the truce ceased, and on 15 March 1830, Perier was one of the 221 deputies who repudiated the Ordinances put forward by Charles X.

[11] Averse by instinct and by interest to popular revolution, Perier nevertheless sat on the provisory commission of five at the Hôtel de Ville during the Three Glorious Days of July 1830, but he refused to sign the declaration of Charles X's dethronement.

Perier reluctantly recognized in the government of Louis Philippe's constitutional monarchy the only alternative to the continuance of the Revolution, but he was no favorite with the new king, whom he scorned for his trucking with the Paris 'mob'.

The Canut Revolt at Lyon was suppressed after hard fighting; and at Grenoble, in face of the quarrels between the military and the inhabitants, Perier declined to make any concession to the townsfolk.

"[13] As a minister, Perier refused to be dragged into armed intervention in favor of the revolutionary government of Warsaw, but his policy of peace did not exclude energetic demonstrations in support of French interests.