Following the Napoleonic Wars, he played a major role in financing the construction of railroads and the mining business, contributing to France's emergence as an industrial power.

[5] They patronized major personalities in the arts, including Gioacchino Rossini, Frédéric Chopin, Honoré de Balzac, Eugène Delacroix, and Heinrich Heine.

As an acknowledgment of the many years of patronage extended by Baron James and his wife Betty, in 1847 Chopin dedicated his Valse Op.

His response to the marriage of his niece, Hannah Mayer to a Christian, displayed at once his demand for obedience and his faithfulness to the family's Jewish beliefs.

It remained in the family until 1950, when it was sold to the United States government; today it serves as the consular section of the American Embassy.

The property remained the home of his inheriting male descendants until 1975, when Guy de Rothschild gave it to the University of Paris.

Beyond his business activities, de Rothschild was an avid collector of art, fuelled not only by a desire to show himself the equal in taste and possessions of any of the French aristocracy but by a genuine interest.

The purchase of Greuze's painting, La Laitière, in 1818 formed the basis of a magnificent art collection which he supplemented often in frenzied buying sprees from the grand sales of the Paris hotels.

Initially, the majority of horses belonging to Baron James raced under the colours of their trainer, Thomas Carter, in amber vest, lilac sleeves and grey cap.

The streets of Paris, from the Rue Laffitte across to Père Lachaise Cemetery, were lined with unknown thousands of citizens, who paid tribute to the banker.

De Rothschild had remained active in business throughout his life, expanding his railways, industries, factories, shipping, and mining interests so successfully that by the time of his death, the capital of the Paris house perhaps even exceeded some of his other prominent family members.

Sons Alphonse and Gustave took the reins of a vast French business empire, whose industrial interests spread as far afield as Africa and the South Sea Islands.