ABSTRACT

Emile and Isaac Pereire (1800-1875 and 1806-1880 respectively) headed a dynasty of bankers, quickly establishing themselves as Saint-Simonian and ‘Schumpeterian’ entrepreneurs on an international scale.1 Indeed, we find in their European railway construction policies both the universalist dimension of the Saint-Simonian ideology and the varied innovative practices, particularly in terms of financial products and processes and of entrepreneurial organisation, which are at the core of the Schumpeterian approach. From the beginning of the 1850s, the Pereire brothers, supported by Napoleon III and the new imperial government, managed to balance their regional action in Southwestern France, and their national action in the midst of the boom in railway construction of the Second Empire, with ambitious policies of transnational intervention. Their international strategy mainly took shape between 1852 and 1867, a very important period in the genesis of railway construction in Europe, starting with the creation of the Crédit mobilier, a long-range innovation with major European consequences, to the Crédit mobilier’s bankruptcy following relentless attacks by a coalition led by the Rothschilds, who disgraced the brothers in the eyes of the emperor.