Le crime des riches

A series of linked scenes among affluent winterers on the Riviera depicts salons, villas, and social rituals that conceal greed, boredom, and moral decay. The narrator sketches portraits of ostentatious hosts, scheming lovers, and neglected dependents, revealing how wealth fosters corruption, violence, and clandestine transgressions. Descriptions emphasize sensory detail of landscapes and interiors while satirical commentary exposes hypocrisy, debt, and theatrical self-presentation. The work combines anecdote and character study to argue that luxury breeds pathological behaviors and social anarchy.