Liliane Bettencourt,
heir to the L’Oréal
cosmetics fortune, is one of the world’s richest women. Married to
Andre Bettencourt, a politican, Liliane became tired of her bourgeois
life. She met and was attracted to Francois-Marie Banier. Banier was
an artist and photographer and a member of artistic society that
fascinated Liliane. Infatuated with him, she presented him with
hundreds of millions of euros worth of real estate, paintings, and
cash. Andre didn’t complain about the money. He said it was her’s
to do as she wished.
Liliane’s
daughter, Francoise, thought differently about Banier and the family
fortune believing that he was taking advantage of her mother. She had
not been particularly close to her mother, probably because Liliane
was not a maternal person and was absent during the early years of
Francoise’s life taking a tuberculosis cure, The rupture never
healed. When Liliane started becoming confused. (She is presently
suffering from Alzheimer’s.) Francoise filed a law suit against
Banier.
The lawsuit devolved
into a major scandal involving corporate secrets, WWII relations with
the Nazis, Swiss Bank accounts, and political payoffs.
This is a
fascinating book. The unusual characters, tangled emotions, and high
level political maneuvering makes the book read more like fiction
than history. The book is very well researched, going in depth on the
background of the characters as well as the trial.
For me, the book
started rather slowly with the history of the L’Oréal
Company founded by her father Charles Schueller, a brilliant chemist
and business man. This history is important to the rest of the story,
so it’s necessary in order to understand the later trial, but it
did make the early chapters slow when you’re interested in the
scandalous trial.
I received this book
from Net Galley for this review.
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