Introduced: 1881
Type: Bourbon
Parentage: Unknown

‘Mme. Isaac Pereire’

Sometimes, a rose’s name does double duty – especially when the woman it commemorates has a famous husband. Fanny Pereire (1825 – 1910) was clearly proud of her marriage to Isaac Pereire, one of France’s most successful 19th century financiers. Rather than asserting her independence the year after he died, she honored him – and herself as well – by paying the nurserymen Jules and Charles Margottin to introduce this rose as ‘Mme. Isaac Pereire.’

Or perhaps Fanny simply wanted to differentiate her maiden and married names. Isaac, you see, was the brother of her father, Emile Pereire. Today, such a marriage would raise eyebrows. But in the speculative, supercompetitive heyday of France’s Second Empire, inseparable brothers Emile and Isaac apparently liked to keep it all in the family.

Although the Pereires worked for the Rothschilds early in their careers, animosities developed between the two families after the Pereires built their own railroad, the Paris-St. Germain line. Major contributors to the modernization of France, they also founded the first investment bank, the Credit Mobilier (which crashed spectacularly); developed hotels and other opulent buildings of Paris’ seventeenth arrondissement; built the first French steamship company to offer regular service to New York; and created a seaside resort at Achachon. It’s said that Pereire-Rothschild tensions ran so deep, the local stationmaster at Armainvilliers – where both families had country estates -- booked train times so the business magnates didn’t cross paths.

For all of their high style, the Pereires didn’t live in a glamorous bubble. They helped lead the St. Simonian movement, which supported the rights of laborers. Isaac, who was awarded the Legion of Honor for his philanthropy, promoted his ideas through his own daily newspaper, La Liberté; and he founded a generous prize for writing on social economics.

In a photograph taken during her later years, Mme. Isaac Pereire – sumptuously attired in silk, with her silver hair loosely atop her head -- appears to be a good-natured, grandmotherly sort.  Her namesake rose, in contrast, suggests her family’s audacious nature. Its powerful scent, cherished as one of the most fragrant among old roses, comes at you with all the subtlety of – appropriately enough – an oncoming train.

Copyright © 2008 By Molly and Don Glentzer
No portion of this material may be reprinted without permission.

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Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter / Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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