Someone really should make this story into an opera

With all its intrigues, unlikely relationships, financial and political shenanigans, deception, bitter revenge and wronged families, one could hardly imagine a more complicated, scheming, scandalous and decadent plot appearing in any of the masterworks of Puccini, Mozart, Donizetti, Giordano or Verdi.

I have long been fascinated by the saga of the "world's richest woman" in her dotage, her unlikely (gay) suitor upon whom she bestowed billions, her bitter and wronged daughter, the Machiavellian "advisors", the whiff of political scandal that threatened to bring down the French government, the sinister attorney, and the ingenious butler who exposed it all...

The Daily Beast:

The French have a colourful term - s’encanailler - which roughly means slumming, hanging out with rakish types from a different social milieu. That was undoubtedly part of the magnetism that drew [billionaire L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt] to [little-known gay photographer] François-Marie Banier...

“Liliane was rich, she was beautiful, and she was bored to death,” said her former lawyer Georges Kiejman... [but] "when Banier arrived on the scene, he immediately put some spice into her life."

Brash, provocative, iconoclastic, he had none of the kowtowing deference that she was accustomed to. He would criticize her clothes, her hairstyle, playfully call her names at times, even as he flattered her and praised her beauty, her intellect, her sensitivity. Banier also talked to her about books and philosophy and art, things that were not part of [her late husband] André’s dinnertime conversation. And he brought her out of her shell, introducing her to artists, writers, and actors, escorting her to art galleries, museums, theatres, auction houses. As Liliane put it, “he renovated me.”...

From National Public Radio (NPR):

Emotionally and fiscally, their interests dovetailed: Banier opened up the stimulating art world to Bettencourt by escorting her to galleries, introducing her to his bohemian friends, reading aloud to her from Stendhal's Charterhouse, and being thrillingly irreverent in denouncing the giant Monet in her mansion as "hideous." Entranced, she lavished him with money and gifts, including paintings by Picasso and Matisse, apartments, and millions in life-insurance policies. For 25 years, Bettencourt played the generous Galatea to Banier's Pygmalion, with the total of her largesse teetering to an incredible one billion euros.

In 2007, Bettencourt's only child, her daughter Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, filed a criminal suit against Banier for abus de faiblesse (abuse of weakness), claiming that this "Rasputin" had ruthlessly exploited her then 84-year-old mother's oncoming dementia. Meyers, a quiet woman described by a friend as "an austere Carmelite nun," says her hand was forced when an eavesdropping chambermaid told her she had heard Banier asking to be adopted by Bettencourt.

The scandal, which electrified France for a decade, came to be known as the Bettencourt Affair.

From Mediapart:

[Pascal Bonnefoy, the long-serving butler to Mme Bettencourt] produced damning testimony against François-Marie Banier, who he said "destroyed" the Bettencourt family, humiliated Liliane by calling her "a bitch", and whose "arrogant" behaviour included urinating over plants at the Bettencourt home.

He also launched a scathing attack on Patrice de Maistre, the billionaire's wealth manager, and others in her close entourage who he said "hide behind a tired and fragile woman" while leading her astray.

"I could not accept the unacceptable, and for me it was like the scene of a car accident and not stopping to help," he said in his statement to police detectives. "I could not continue without doing anything and still be able to look at myself in the mirror. I had served Monsieur and Madame Bettencourt during so many years, and I could not let all these people around Madame carry on without reacting."...

...The transcripts of the tapes, which were handed by Bonnefoy to Liliane's daughter Françoise and then to police, principally concerned conversations between Liliane Bettencourt and her wealth manager, her tax lawyer and solicitor, and François-Marie Banier. They were made between May 2009 and May 2010, recorded on a digital Dictaphone placed behind a chair in Bettencourt's private office in her town mansion home in Neuilly-sur-Seine, just west of Paris.

Bonnefoy said he was prompted into making the recordings after he was subject to a campaign of ostracism led by Banier...

From The Guardian obituary today:

The saga resulted in not only a public family feud but a major political scandal and courtroom drama when the investigation was extended to look at whether Sarkozy and other figures in his party had also taken advantage of the elderly Bettencourt, asking for money from her after it was declared that she had dementia.

The money, alleged to have been given in brown envelopes, was said to have funded Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign.

The “Bettencourt affair” tarnished the latter half of Sarkozy’s presidency, and when he lost the 2012 election he was placed under formal investigation for illegal campaign financing and taking advantage of Bettencourt. But the charges against Sarkozy were dropped in October 2013 due to lack of evidence.

In 2015, the photographer Banier was convicted of exploiting Bettencourt and sentenced to three years in jail, fined €350,000 and ordered to pay €158m in damages. He appealed and last year received a suspended prison sentence and a fine but did not have to pay the vast damages.

..and The Guardian, again, from 2010:

[Georges Kiejman, speaking in court, commented:] "This is a family story; the daughter is trying to use this court to settle a psychological conflict with her mother. It's a 57-year-old little girl complaining 'my mummy doesn't love me. She loves him more than me'."

Kiejman added: "That Madame Bettencourt should have the misfortune of finding the brilliant Mr Banier more amusing that her own daughter – and between you and me that's no surprise – is not for this court to decide."

The court certainly did decide. Banier was shamed, but kept his fortune. Sarkozy survived, albeit with his reputation tarnished. Liliane was to remain in the care of her daughter, and the L'Oreal fortune was secured. No idea what happened to the butler.

I await the first production of this Machiavellian operatic masterpiece, opening at a concert hall near you...

RIP Liliane Henriette Charlotte Bettencourt (née Schueller, 21st October 1922 – 21st September 2017)