Who was Mme Isaac Pereire?

‘Mme Isaac Pereire’ is a beautiful deep pink Bourbon rose with a powerful sweet fragrance, but also hints of scandal.

The rose was bred in 1881 by a young garden labourer in Rouen called Armand Garçon. Originally, he named it ‘Le Bienheureux de la Salle’ after a Christian order of brothers devoted to providing free education for the poor. Garçon did not have the resources to grow and market his roses commercially, so tended to sell the rights to more established breeders.

False claims

This was where Jacques Julien Margottin came in. A nurseryman from Paris, Margottin was a successful breeder himself (in 1851 he had introduced the famous ‘Louise Odier’, which is also still popular today).

Margottin enlisted the support of one of his customers. Mme Fanny Pereire was the recently widowed wife of the rich Parisian financier, Isaac Pereire. On buying the rights to Garçon’s rose, Margottin changed its name to honour her – though, as with so many ‘Mme’ roses of the time, it was her husband who seemed to get the honour.

In 1882 Margottin exhibited the rose in London as a fresh creation of his own, under its new name, winning a prize. Garçon’s friends at the Rouen Central Horticultural Society were furious and wrote in protest pointing out that it was the custom to honour the original breeder and Margottin was falsely taking the credit. Garçon was restored as breeder, but the name of the rose remained unchanged. It still carries Mme Pereire’s name today. But let’s learn a bit more about her.

Left: Portrait of Madame Franny Pereire by Alexandre Cabanel. Right: Helen M. Davies new book detailing her remarkable life

Mme Isaac Pereire

“Herminie and Fanny Pereire – elite Jewish women in 19^th century France” is a new book by academic Helen M. Davies that casts more light on this remarkable woman.

Fanny was born in February 1825, the daughter of Émile Pereire (1800-1875) and Rachel Herminie Rodrigues (1805-1874). Émile and his younger brother Isaac (1806-1880) started their careers as journalists but then became involved in enterprise and finance.

They were non-observant Sephardic Jews and protégées of banker James de Rothschild. In 1837, with his support, the brothers launched France’s first passenger railway – between Paris and St Germain-en-Laye. More followed.

“Bankers, railway entrepreneurs, urban developers, hotel magnates, department store owners, ship-builders and owners of utility, transport and insurance companies – even of sardine canneries among other enterprises – the Pereires did as much as anyone else to shape the 19^th century financial, commercial and industrial landscape of France and contributed to that of other countries in Europe.” – Helen M. Davies

The Pereire brothers Issac (left) and Émile (right)
Image: ville-marcheprime.fr (Public Domain)

Family affair

As their wealth grew Emile and Isaac Pereire moved up into the upper echelons of French society. Their families were close – very close. For a long time they lived in different apartments within the same buildings, one above the other, most notably in a private mansion on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which is today the British embassy in Paris.

Left: The Pereire’s home on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris. Now the British Embassy. Right: The Pereire family in 1875
Images: Chabe01 (Public Domain) and Visages du temps jadis, éditions Larousse, 1976 (Public Domain).

Isaac had two sons with his first wife – his cousin, Laurence. When she died in June 1837, 12-year-old Fanny stepped in to help look after her younger cousins.

Four years later, in 1841, her 35-year-old uncle proposed to her. They agreed to marry – even though the marriage required dispensation from King Louis-Philippe. Emile and Herminie were upset. But the two brothers were eventually reconciled. The genetic challenge was harder to overcome.

Children

Infant mortality was high at the time, of course – about one in six children died before their first birthday. But little was known about the dangers of sexual relationships between close relatives. Fanny’s first son died in infancy; her second at birth. She had four other children, one of whom was profoundly disabled and another who became virtually paralysed with muscular rheumatism.

Left: The Pereire villa in Arachon in earlier 1900. Right: The Pereire chateau in Gretz-Armainvilliers.
Images in Public Domain

Beyond raising children, Fanny and her mother, Herminie, played a significant role in supporting their husbands in their banking success, with lavish and carefully choreographed entertainments at their luxurious Paris mansion, country chateau and seaside villa. “In this family the women share the sceptre with the men,” wrote one former friend of the two women.

Fanny had a good eye for art and helped Isaac build a valuable art collection to entrance guests.

‘All visitors, and God knows there were many of them, were dazzled and fascinated. And with good reason! Gold streamed, chandeliers blazed, carpets were reminiscent of forest moss. The most beautiful furniture rubbed shoulders with the most famous sculptures and paintings.” – Jean Autin, Les Frères Pereire

Crédit mobilier bank

In 1852 the brothers launched the Crédit mobilier bank and as its influence spread their wealth grew even greater. But in 1866-7 crisis hit the bank and it collapsed, to the fury of litigious shareholders.

Much of the art Fanny had accrued was sold off to help settle debts. The bank was eventually rebuilt, and though it was never again as strong, Fanny still had significant wealth at her disposal. She used it generously.

In the deadly winter of 1879-80, when temperatures plunged as low as -23.9°C, she gave 50,000 francs to charity and set up a free canteen in Paris that served up to 2,400 hot meals a day to the poor.

Philanthropy

After Isaac’s death in 1880, she created several small local hospitals in the name of the Fondation Isaac-Pereire that employed part-time specialists in surgery, ophthalmology, urology and dentistry and two GPs. By her death 30 years later these hospitals were providing half a million free consultations a year.

She also supported science, including helping to finance inventor Clément Adler. In 1890 he flew his steam-powered flying machine 50 metres – hovering at 20cm above the ground – on the grounds of her estate in Armainvilliers. This was 10 years before the Wright Brothers made their famous Kitty Hawk flight.

All of this philanthropy was against a backdrop of rising anti-Jewish sentiment. By the turn of the century Jews in France faced hideous anti-semitism. If she reacted to it, it was to become more observant in her faith.

Mme Fanny Pereire died in 1910, aged 85. This remarkable woman was at the heart of commercial life in Europe in the second half of the 19^th century. With her husband, she helped play a key role in France’s industrialisation. She was talented, caring and generous. She had an eye for good art…  and, it seems, an eye for a beautiful rose.

‘Mme Isaac Pereire’ rose in the Storyteller Garden. Image: Martin Stott

Fanny’s rose

Not everyone likes ‘Mme Isaac Pereire’. Jack Harkness said of it: “This has shaggy double flowers in which strident pink fights a losing battle against the inroads of magenta; from it rose a sport, ‘Mme Ernst Calvat’, which is more resolute in maintaining its pink identity. These two are generally applauded and extolled as examples of the beauty of old garden roses. I cannot see why. Like Johnny the soldier, I am at a loss to understand why the rest of the platoon persists in marching out of step.”

I think, Jack, because it is a stunning rose, with a beautiful colour, shape and scent. I love it and so do many other rose growers.