SUSAN DUNN
595
The House of Rothschild seems to have been made to order to but–
tress the myth of the Jewish economic domination of Europe. James
Rothschild, the head of the Paris branch of the family, was routinely re–
ferred
to
as Rothschild the First. Hannah Arendt remarked with some
amazement that the Rothschild family, unique in their fabulous wealth,
came to represent the "whole economic and political significance of the
Jewish people," providing a virtually inexhaustible source of anti-Jewish
propaganda. And yet Arendt also points out that the Rothschild family's
aversion to citizenship in one single country could explain, if not justify,
accusations of Jewish statelessness. Arendt noted that Meyer Amschel
Rothschild, the founder of the House, preferred the advantages of being
an inter-European family to the responsibilities of citizenship in one na–
tion. "The establishment of his five sons in the five financial capitals of
Europe - Frankfurt, Paris, London, Naples and Vienna - was his way out
of the embarrassing emancipation of the Jews.... To the outer world,
this one family also became a symbol of the working reality ofJewish in–
ternationalism in a world of nation-states and nationally organized peo–
ples. Where, indeed, was there better proof of the fantastic concept of a
Jewish world government than in this one family, nationals of five differ–
ent countries, prominent everywhere?"
For Michelet, Jewish wealth, epitomized by the immense fortune of
the Rothschilds, proved that Jews could neither understand nor share in
the French system of values, for , he finally admitted, the true glory of
France lay in her poverty. Michelet deftly transformed France's relative
industrial backwardness into a virtue, making the improbable claim that
France's spiritual wealth outshined England's industrial success. "No," he
wrote, "it is not the industrial machines of England that give life to the
world.
It
is the breath of France in whatever state she may be, the latent
heat of her Revolution that Europe always carries within her." Poverty
strangely became one of the key themes in French nationalism. "Work
then, 0 France,
to
remain poor!" Whereas England assiduously devoted
herself to increasing her own wealth, the national mission of France was
the salvation of the world , a Christ-like task that she could undertake be–
cause of her boundless generosity and could accomplish because of her
martyr- like capacity for sacrifice: "If it were possible
to
amass all the
blood, the gold, and the various offerings that each nation disinterestedly
bequeathed to the welfare of mankind, France would be a pyramid
climbing toward heaven. But your pyramid, 0 nations, the mass of all the
sacrifices you have made through the ages would rise no higher than a
child's knee! So do not say, 'France looks so pale,' for she has given her
blood for you." The citizens who constituted this messianic nation were
of course not bankers and financiers, but most definitely their opposite,
humble peasants. The peasant "is not only the most numerous part of the
