Editing Jacques Laffitte (section)

===Business career during the Restoration===
During the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]], "Jacques Laffitte and Company" was one of the wealthiest private banks in Paris and a leading firm among the select group of twenty or so banking houses known collectively as the "''haute banque parisienne''".<ref>See Bertrand Gille, ''La banque en France au XIXe siècle'' (1970). Rondo Cameron, ''Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization'' (1967), Chap. IV, provides a valuable survey of the French banking structure, 1800–1870. The bank's name was changed to "Jacques Laffitte and Company" in December 1817, at which time Laffitte's brother, Pierre Laffitte (1765–1846), Alphonse Perregaux and Jean Charles Clarmont were associates. The bank's capital was increased from 2 million to 6&nbsp;million francs. See Monnier, ''Jacques Laffitte'', p. 129.</ref> Besides Laffitte, the group included the banks of [[Casimir Pierre Périer|Casimir]] and Scipion Perier [[:fr:Scipion Perier|fr]], [[Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert|Benjamin Delessert]], [[Baron Jean-Conrad Hottinguer|Jean Hottinguer]], Adolphe Mallet, François Cottier [[:fr:François Cottier|fr]], [[Antoine Odier]], Jacques Lefebvre [[:fr:Jacques Lefebvre|fr]] and Michel Pillet-Will [[:fr:Michel-Frédéric Pillet-Will|fr]]. 

The capital resources of such early 19th century banks were limited, but they associated for underwriting major government loans and for financing promising private business ventures. Laffitte associated with Delessert, Hottinguer, James de Rothschild and others to compete in 1817–18 with the powerful foreign banks of Baring Brothers (London) and Hope & Company (Amsterdam) for underwriting shares in France's loans of liberation. Earlier, in 1816, he took the lead with Delessert in founding the ''Compagnie Royale d'Assurances Maritimes'',a pioneer joint-stock insurance company with a capitalization of 10 million francs. Laffitte was president and Casimir and [[Scipion Perier]] were among the administrators of this capital mobilizing venture. In 1818, along with fellow banker and industrialist Benjamin Delessert, Laffitte was a key figure in the establishment of the first French savings bank, the ''Caisse d'Épargne et de Prévoyance de Paris''. Practically all of the members of the board of regents of the Bank of France, where Laffitte was then governor, were listed as administrators of the new bank. Laffitte was reaching the peak of his good fortune by 1818. He was sufficiently wealthy by then to be able to purchase the 17th century [[Château de Maisons]] (Department of Yvelines), near Paris, designed by the famous architect [[François Mansart]]. Before the Revolution, the beautiful château was the property of Louis XVI's brother, the comte d'Artois, who would come to the throne in 1824 as Charles X. Possessing Maisons, and being able to entertain notables of French society there in the former royal château, was a personal triumph for Laffitte, the son of a Bayonne carpenter. It was "''le rêve d'un parvenu''" (the dream of a newly rich) at a time when family history, titles and property holdings mattered so much.<ref>Monnier, ''Jacques Laffitte'', p. 136.</ref>

In 1821–1822, Laffitte was the moving spirit behind the formation of the ''Compagnie des Quatre Canaux'', a joint-stock company that mobilized the capital assets of ''haute banque'' members to help finance a major canal construction program initiated by the government.<ref>See Reed Geiger, ''Planning the French Canals'' (1994).Table 3, p. 167, shows "1822 Canal Loan Contracts."</ref> Laffitte's consortium obtained one-half of the total value of the loans made to the government. The top four lenders for the Four Canals Company were Jacques Laffitte & Co. (11,736,000 francs), H. Hentsch, Blanc & Co. (11,736,000), Pillet-Will & Co. (10,976,000) and André & Cottier (7,870,000). Laffitte's bid for an even larger share in the loans had been rejected by the [[ultra-royalist]] ministry of Count [[Joseph de Villèle|Jean-Antoine Villèle]]. In 1825, Laffitte's ambitious financial planning was frustrated a second time when Villèle refused to authorize his proposed ''Société Commanditaire de l'Industrie'', a private investment bank designed to provide bank credit for large-scale industrial development in France. The ''Commanditaire'', with Laffitte as its president, was to be capitalized at 100 million francs. It had the backing of French industrialists, many ''haute banque'' members in Paris and leading banking houses in [[London]], [[Geneva]] and Frankfurt. Casimir Perier and the famous woolens industrialist [[William Ternaux]] were to have been its two vice-presidents. ''"L'esprit d'association"'' (the spirit of association), which was a broad slogan of the time among liberals for promoting economic progress, would have been exemplified by the company.<ref>Alexandre De Laborde, ''De L'esprit d'association dans tous les intérêts de la communauté'' (Paris, 1818).</ref> But the ''Commanditaire'' was ill-timed politically: Laffitte was then a leader of the liberal opposition to the government of Charles X. Also, the plan was seen as too ambitious, even audacious, by the conservative regents and government administrators of the influential Bank of France. Laffitte would need to wait and try again after the July Revolution of 1830.<ref>Gille, ''La banque en France'', pp.114–16; Monnier, ''Jacques Laffitte'', pp. 173–76.</ref>