Betty von Rothschild (1805-1886)

Betty von Rothschild was born in Frankfurt on 15 June 1805, the daughter of Salomon von Rothschild (1774-1855) and Caroline Stern (1782-1854). She received an education of music and dancing lessons, drawing classes, and trips to Alpine spas, latterly in Vienna, the city where her father was to establish his financial and industrial business in the 1820s.

Life in Paris

In July 1824, at the age of 19, Betty married her uncle, the Paris-based banker James Mayer de Rothschild (1792-1868). When she arrived in Paris in the summer of 1824, following a honeymoon in Switzerland, she rapidly became a great asset to her husband and immediately began to win social acceptance; in a role in which she gave the impression of having natural skill, making her salon a place for people from different backgrounds to enjoy good food, conversation and entertainment. James and Betty entertained regularly, hosting at least four dinners (with between ten and sixty guests) per week. Lady Granville, wife of the British Ambassador commented “just out of her nursery she [did] the honours of her house as if she had never done anything else”.

Betty was to rule over one of the most elegant salons in Paris. Guests to the rue Laffitte in the 9th arrondissement of Paris included politicians, painters, artists, musicians, and royalty. She was noted for her patronage of the arts. She secured the services of Frédéric Chopin as piano teacher to her family soon after his arrival in Paris, and she commissioned a portrait from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in 1841, although it was not completed until 1848. She became a close friend of the French queen, Marie-Amélie; others who frequented her salon included Heinrich Heine, Honoré de Balzac, Gioacchino Rossini and the Goncourt brothers. From the 1850s she and James spent time at the vast Château de Ferrières outside Paris, which James commissioned from Joseph Paxton, where spectacular entertainments, including the choir of the Paris Opéra conducted by Rossini, were frequently arranged.

Unlike her husband, she maintained Jewish traditions in the household. Betty and James had five children: Charlotte (1825–1899), who married  her cousin Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812–1870); Mayer Alphonse (1827–1905), who married his cousin Leonora (1837–1911); Gustave (1829–1911), who married Cécile Anspach; Salomon James (1835–1864), who married his cousin Adèle von Rothschild (1843–1922); and Edmond (1845–1934), who married his cousin Adelheid (1853–1935). Betty was a devoted mother, regularly spending hours with her children and their tutors studying a wide variety of subjects that bridged a classical curriculum with modern interests and Jewish tradition. These studies were a unique form of continuing education for Betty whose intelligence and energy were frequently noted by family members.

Legacy

Betty was a generous, warm-hearted woman. Keenly aware of the importance of education to enable poor girls and boys to earn a respectable income, she devoted time and money to providing vocational education and moral instruction to girls. Her efforts resulted in significant benefits to thousands of young women as well as to the creation of the first modern Jewish women's organization in France. Betty worked with her husband to establish a charitable foundation in Paris in 1852, of which the first manifestation was the construction of a hospital on the rue Picpus. The scope of activities of the Fondation Rothschild was extended by her children, who had inherited their mother's social conscience and the Fondation later built social housing tenements to improve the living conditions of workers. Other activities supported by Betty included an orphanage, assistance to those suffering from tuberculosis, and the development of the Assistance Publique. Betty's patriotism surfaced during the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1871. In hastily constructed 'ambulances' in the courtyard of her homes as well as in the Fondation Rothschild Hospital, she provided medical care for wounded soldiers and for the malnourished and sick. She remained in the besieged Paris for months assisting those in need.

After the death of James in 1868,  Betty spent several months each year in Cannes. In 1881 she purchased and rebuilt the Villa Marie-Thèrese in the town. Here as in Paris, a number of foundations and institutions bore testimony to her philanthropy. She died in the Château de Boulogne in 1886, and is buried in Père-Lachaise cemetery. In 1889, her son Edmond founded the settlement in Ottoman Palestine of Bat Shlomo [Solomon's Daughter], named in her memory.

For further information about Betty, see The Life & Legacy of Baroness Betty de Rothschild, Laura S. Schor (Peter lang Publishing Inc., New York, 2006).