by Ruth Brandon
For the public, the affaire Bettencourt’s chief scandalous revelation (perhaps less a revelation than a confirmation of what we always suspect but can rarely prove) was the way the very rich and very powerful casually assume that the laws governing everyone else are, for them, purely optional. Taxes need be paid only by the disorganized, limits on political contributions are routinely ignored, public servants can always be bought, and the happy recipients of cash-stuffed envelopes naturally do all they can to forward the interests of their paymasters.
The tax aspect, at least, would not have shocked Eugène Schueller. He was paranoid about taxation, ending his life as a supporter of Pierre Poujade, the anti-tax, anti-intellectual small shopkeepers’ hero, whose protectionist Union de Défense Commerçants et Artisans gained fifty-three seats in the 1955 elections. In the perfect economic system, to which Schueller devoted his intellectual energies for the last thirty years of his life, taxation would be related not to income but to energy use. As for democratic accountability, he regarded it with contempt. A self-proclaimed authoritarian, Schueller thought government should be run in the same way as an efficient company, by those who had proved their fitness to lead by rising to the top. When political power was at the mercy of the popular vote—just as when a company found itself at the mercy of the trade unions—weak, inefficient leadership would invariably result. Few of today’s public figures would actually utter such thoughts out loud. But one consequence of the affaire Bettencourt has been to show that many public figures actually conduct their lives upon such assumptions.
Both the affaire Bettencourt and the affaire Banier from which it sprang are about money—specifically, the huge fortune belonging to Schueller’s daughter Liliane. But one can’t help noticing that the one person who doesn’t really figure in the drama is Liliane herself. She is simply a huge fountain of cash, which the various men in her life have tapped into in order to fulfill their desires. First there was her husband, André Bettencourt, whose political progress she financed and supported. Where did the cash come from, which stuffed those envelopes he kept ready, each election season, for the procession of political beggars? M. Bettencourt was a vice president of L’Oréal, but it was his wife who owned the company—and the money. Then there was François-Marie Banier, who befriended Liliane in 1987. Banier, a poor boy, dreamed of becoming rich; she fulfilled his dream. And now her financial adviser, Patrice de Maistre, appears to have his own ideas regarding her money.
The striking thing about Madame Bettencourt is that she seems to accept that this is simply how the world works. It is agreed by all that she is, or was, “a brilliant woman.” Unlike other brilliant women, however, and despite all her apparent advantages, she never had a career of her own, but confined her role to furthering the careers of other people. The butler’s recordings show a pitiful puppet whose strings are pulled alternately by Banier and de Maistre. According to Bettencourt’s onetime nurse, emboldened by the recordings to testify, Banier uses his emotional thrall to get his hands on yet more of Madame Bettencourt’s money; de Maistre instructs her, word for word, on what she must say when she meets the important politicians who are his friends, and he makes out checks for her to sign, impatiently explaining how the benefits they will buy are cheap at the price. For his pains, he has received the Légion d’Honneur. But no conceivable benefit accrues to Liliane Bettencourt.
Anyone who knows about Eugène Schueller and his ideas will recognize that this fate—to have all the money and none of the power—might have been precisely, albeit unintentionally, designed by the father Liliane idolized. Just as the Nazi scandal was a consequence of his politics, so the affaire Bettencourt is a consequence of his social theories. Schueller, as we have seen, had decided opinions on many subjects, among them the place of women in society. Women, in his view, were there to support men. They were for making homes and breeding children; they should never compete in the man’s world of work. This is the mold in which Liliane was cast, and she did not question it. First her widowed father’s dutiful daughter, then her husband’s supportive wife, she now, it seems, exists for the benefit of Banier, de Maistre, and their friends. It is for men to dictate the program. Liliane, true daughter of her father, merely facilitates it.
It is deeply ironic that the source of all this money should be cosmetics, the same commodity that constituted Helena Rubinstein’s escape route from a similar situation. For Rubinstein and her clients, lipstick, powder, rouge, and the rest of the arsenal symbolized women’s claims to an equal footing in public life. In this sense, the affaire Bettencourt is simply another episode in the standoff between Helena Rubinstein and Eugène Schueller. More than half a century after their deaths, it continues.
[1] Piquantly, after Banier photographed Natalia Vodianova for Diane von Furstenberg, working “in silence, intense and intimate,” he commented: “I am not accustomed to having somebody give me something.”
[2] More recent events appear to indicate that this request may simply have been a quid pro quo for services rendered. See below for a discussion of recent developments.
[3] Once again, recent developments have shed a new light on events. Before they fell out, Mme. Bettencourt made over 30 percent of L’Oréal to her daughter, retaining only 1 percent. But that 1 percent of course represents the balance of power between Nestlé and the family, and its future is therefore of acute concern to a good many people who are anxious, lest it fall into the wrong hands.
Acknowledgments
Caroline Davidson, Geoff Garvey, Dr. Lucy Glancey, Abbie Greene and Nick Growse, Nick Humphrey, Sylvia Kahan, David Kuzma at Rutgers University Library Special Collections, Brian Morgan, Luke Shepherd, Ann Treneman, Monica Waitzfelder, Lindy Woodhead, and Randall Wright have given me invaluable help during the writing of this book. I am deeply grateful to them all. My thanks, too, to all at HarperCollins for their professionalism and patience.
I am especially indebted to my agent, Clare Alexander, who was instrumental in shaping this book, and my editor, Ben Loehnen, who sharpened its points.
Notes
Chapter 1 : Beauty Is Power!
1. Vogue, February 1915.
2. Yeb 63b, Ber 57b, see www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/jp-fem4.htm.
3. Greg, “Why Are Women Redundant?” National Review, April 1862.
4. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 13.
5. Rubinstein, The Art of Feminine Beauty, p. 6.
6. Carter, With Tongue in Chic, p. 174.
7. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 246.
8. Life, July 21, 1941, pp. 37–45.
9. Quoted in Peiss, Hope in a Jar, p. 95.
10. All this detail—and everything else about HR’s life in Australia—comes from Woodhead, War Paint.
11. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 25.
12. Woodhead, War Paint, p. 41.
13. HR to Rosa Hollay, June 1915, Bulmer papers. Thanks to Ann Treneman for help regarding this source.
14. Advertisement from Table Talk, quoted in Woodhead, War Paint, p. 51.
15. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 151.
16. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 26.
17. Ibid., pp. 28, 13.
18. Phillips, Skin Deep, p. 29.
19. Rubinstein, The Art of Feminine Beauty, p. 14.
20. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 32.
21. Rubinstein, The Art of Feminine Beauty, p. 15.
22. Carter, With Tongue in Chic, p. 175.
2
3. Rubinstein, The Art of Feminine Beauty, p. 16.
24. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 33.
25. Ibid., p. 34.
26. Ibid., p. 33.
27. HR to Rosa Hollay, July 20, 1915, May 1920, Bulmer papers.
28. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 100.
29. Ibid., pp. 39–40.
30. S. N. Behrman, Portrait of Max, quoted in George Landow, “Max Beerbohm Creates a Great Fuss,” http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/mb/rouge1.html.
31. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 42.
32. HR to Rosa Hollay, December 8, 1914, Bulmer papers.
33. HR to Rosa Hollay, March 1923.
34. According to Fabe, Beauty Millionaire, p. 68.
35. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 32.
36. Rubinstein, The Art of Feminine Beauty, p. 19.
37. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 92.
38. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 70.
39. HR to Rosa Hollay, May 9, 1915, Bulmer papers.
40. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 104.
41. Figure given by the American Chemical Society; quoted in Woodhead, War Paint, p. 100.
42. New York World, September 11, 1910; Lillian Wald, The House on Henry Street, 1915, p. 192; both quoted in Banner, American Beauty, p. 217.
43. American Magazine, December 1922.
44. Gray, “People Who Want to Look Young and Beautiful,” pp. 32–33.
45. HR to Rosa Hollay, November 12, 1914, Bulmer papers.
46. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 224.
47. Ibid., p. 233.
48. Vogue, May, 1, 1915.
49. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 61.
50. HR to Rosa Hollay, July 13, 1915, Bulmer papers.
51. Quoted in Woodhead, War Paint, p. 122.
52. HR to Rosa Hollay, 1921, Bulmer papers.
53. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 181.
54. Times (London), March 20, 2002.
55. The New Yorker, June 30, 1928.
56. Life, July 21, 1941.
57. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 93.
58. All this detail from Woodhead, War Paint, pp. 166–70.
59. Rubinstein, My Life for Beauty, p. 72.
Chapter 2: The Authoritarian
1. 1936, Skin Deep correspondence, Rutgers University Special Collections.
2. There are two principal sources of information on Eugène Schueller’s life. He gave a full account of his life history in evidence before the court that tried him for civil collaboration after World War I (Dossier instruit par la cour de justice du département de la Seine contre Eugène Schueller, Archives Nationales [cote Z 6 N L 11.108]). And some years later he told his story, differing slightly in some details, to journalist Merry Bromberger, who recorded the interview, along with others, in his Comment ils ont fait fortune (How They Made Their Money). Where no other source is credited, I have relied on these for what follows.
3. Abescat, La Saga des Bettencourt, p. 83.
4. Dalle, L’Aventure L’Oréal, p. 63.
5. Interview with Liliane Bettencourt, Egoïste, no. 10, 1987.
6. Ibid.
7. Curie, Madame Curie, pp. 305–10.
8. Abescat, La Saga des Bettencourt, p. 64.
9. Schueller, De L’Innocuité des teintures pour cheveux.
10. Skin Deep correspondence, Rutgers University Special Collections.
11. Interview with Liliane Bettencourt, Egoïste, 1987.
12. Bromberger, Comment ils ont fait fortune, p. 78.
13. Schueller, Le Deuxième salaire.
14. Testimony of Jacques Sadoul, Archives Nationales de France (CARAN): Dossier instruit par la cour de justice du département de la Seine contre Eugène Schueller (côte 26 NL 11.108).
15. Bromberger, Comment ils ont fait fortune, p. 78.
16. Ibid., p. 86.
17. Schueller, L’Impôt sur l’énergie, p. 115.
18. Corson, Fashions in Hair, p. 615.
19. Ibid., p. 619.
20. Schueller, L’Impôt sur l’énergie.
21. HR to Rosa Hollay, December 1915, October 1922, 1921, Bulmer papers.
22. O’Higgins, Madame, p. 28.
23. Coiffure de Paris, October 8–10, 1909. Translation is the author’s, as are all translations not specifically attributed.
24. Schueller, La Révolution de l’économie.
25. Sadoul’s evidence, Dossier instruit par la cour de justice du département de la Seine contre Eugène Schueller.
26. Schueller, Faire Vivre, p. 24.
27. Ibid.
28. Schueller, La Révolution de l’économie, p. 35.
29. Ibid., p. 6.
30. Schueller, Le Deuxième salaire.
31. Schueller, La Révolution de l’économie, p. 202.
32. Ibid., p. 35.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 219.
35. Bromberger, Comment ils ont fait fortune, p. 91.
36. Votre Beauté, December 1934.
37. Votre Beauté, January 1936.
38. Lecture, Salle Pleyel, December 6, 1941, Archives Nationales, cote Z 6 N L 11.108.
39. Bromberger, Comment ils ont fait fortune, p. 73.
40. Schueller, Le Deuxième salaire, p. 5.
41. Dalle, L’Aventure L’Oréal, p. 23.
42. Charles E. Sorensen, David L. Lewis, and Samuel T. Wilkinson, My Forty Years with Ford (New York, 1956), p. 29.
43. Albert Lee, Henry Ford and the Jews (New York, 1980), p. 99.
44. Schueller, Le Deuxième salaire.
45. Ibid.
46. Dunlap, Personal Beauty and Racial Betterment, p. 20.
47. Ibid., p. 36.
48. Ibid., p. 58.
Chapter 3: What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?
1. Bromberger, Comment ils ont fait fortune, p. 73
2. Schueller, Le Deuxième salaire.
3. Koestler, Scum of the Earth, p. 32.
4. Dalle, L’Aventure L’Oréal, p. 20.
5. Potton, On a trouvé un chef.
6. Lecture, Salle Pleyel, December 6, 1941.
7. Schueller, La Révolution de l’économie, p. 219.
8. Ibid., p. 122.
9. Testimony of Georges Mercadier, Archives Nationales (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).
10. Lecture, Salle Pleyel, December 6, 1941, Archives Nationales (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).
11. Charbonneau, Les Mémoires de Porthos I, pp. 16–17.
12. Lecture, Salle Pleyel, December 6, 1941, Archives Nationales (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).
13. Addressing the political bureau of MSR, November 23, 1941. Abescat, La Saga des Bettencourt, p. 105.
14. Schueller, La Révolution de l’économie, p. 202.
15. This was true even though the Germans confiscated 42 percent of French GDP, and workers’ buying power was halved by 1943. See Lacroix-Riz, Industriels et banquiers sous l’Occupation, p. 565.
16. Schueller, La Révolution de l’économie, quoted in Rochebrune and Hazéra, Les Patrons sous l’Occupation, p. 771.
17. Quoted in Lacroix-Riz, Industriels et banquiers sous l’Occupation, pp. 561–65.
18. Ibid., pp. 327–28.
19. Letter, Schmilinsky to Baron Dr. von Mahs, October 29, 1941: Archives Nationales (cote AJ40 vol 775). Quoted in Lacroix-Riz, Industriels et banquiers sous l’Occupation, p. 436.
20. Charbonneau, Les Mémoires de Porthos, p. 334.
21. Péan, Le Mystérieux Docteur Martin, p. 249.
22. Amouroux, Les Beaux jours des collabos, p. 362.
23. Schueller interrogation, February 19, 1948, Dossier instruit par la cour de justice du département de la Seine contre Eugène Schueller (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).
24. “Un be
au-père encombrant,” Le Monde, February 12, 1995.
25. See, for example, Charbonneau, Les Mémoires de Porthos, p. 342.
26. Abescat, La Saga des Bettencourt, p. 103.
27. Abellio, Sol invictus, p. 213.
28. Schueller interrogation, February 19, 1948, Archives Nationales cote Z 6 N L 11.108.
29. Rochebrune and Hazéra, Les Patrons sous l’Occupation, p. 753.
30. Giesbert, François Mitterrand, p. 96.
31. Abellio, Sol invictus, p. 213.
32. Charbonneau, Les Mémoires de Porthos, p. 344.
33. Abellio, Sol invictus, p. 213.
34. Ibid., p. 215.
35. Schueller interrogation, February 19, 1948, Archives Nationales (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).
36. Archives de Paris, Comité régional industriel d’épuration d’entreprises de la Seine, affaire Schueller, 1946.
37. Peiss, Hope in a Jar, p. 242.
38. Woodhouse, War Paint, pp. 274–75.
39. Current Biography, 1943, ed. Maxine Block.
40. Gilman, Making the Body Beautiful, p. 180.
41. Guenther, Nazi Chic?, pp. 98–101.
42. Dossier instruit par la cour de justice du département de la Seine contre Eugène Schueller (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).
43. Evidence given in Schueller’s trial for industrial collaboration, December 6, 1948. These of course were the official figures. They tell us nothing about the black market. Archives Nationales (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).
44. Archives Nationales (cote Z 6 N L 11.108).