His grandfather and the French bank founder, James Mayer de Rothschild, had stipulated "that the three branches of the family descended from him always be represented."

Because of cousin Maurice's perceived flamboyant playboy image and his conduct in political and business activities, Édouard considered him to be something of a black sheep.

They tolerated each other for the sake of the business but by the middle of the 1930s their differences reached a point where Édouard and cousin Robert decided to force Maurice out of de Rothschild Frères bank.

He inherited Haras de Meautry, a thoroughbred horse breeding farm in Touques, Calvados about 130 miles north of Paris.

[3] In July 1940 Petain's French Government ordered the confiscation of the property of Baron Edouard de Rothschild and Louis Louis-Dreyfus.

[4][5] In 1939, Édouard's son Guy joined the French Army and his daughter Jacqueline escaped with her husband Gregor Piatigorsky to the United States.

[6] With his wife and second daughter Bethsabée, Edouard de Rothschild left France, escaping via Lisbon, Portugal to New York City.

With the Allied liberation of France in 1944, Édouard de Rothschild and his wife returned home,[1] where he died in Paris in 1949 at the age of eighty-one.