BORDEAUX, France — For five weeks, a French version of “Downton Abbey” has been unfolding in a courtroom here, providing a rare glimpse into the discreet lives of the ultrarich.
The real-life drama, set in an Art Moderne mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an exclusive town west of Paris, features a cast that includes long-serving chambermaids, cooks and butlers who tended to one of the world’s richest women, whom they call “Madame.” There are also high-powered lawyers, advisers and confidants accused of exploiting her fading mental state to plunder cash, artworks, life insurance and a private Seychelles island.
The woman, Liliane Bettencourt, the 92-year-old heir to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune, lives in the secluded mansion in the shadows of memory — too frail and deaf to attend the trial.
But she has been very much front and center in the courtroom here in southwestern France, where both her lifestyle and her state of mind have been at the heart of the trial, as prosecutors and defense lawyers paint vastly different portraits of Madame.
Was she an ailing widow exploited by sweet-talking predators and, as the prosecutor contends, manipulated “like a marionette?” Or was she a self-confident woman who did what she wanted in the spirit of a well-worn L’Oréal slogan: “Because I’m worth it”?
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The final recording played in the courtroom offered cringe-inducing details of a discussion between Mr. Banier and Mrs. Bettencourt’s wealth adviser about the finances for a private island in the Seychelles that she had ceded to a shell foundation benefiting Mr. Banier. Though Mrs. Bettencourt was present during the conversation, she said virtually nothing.
Last week, the prosecutor recommended that charges be dropped against five of the 10 defendants, including the former finance minister, Éric Woerth, because of insufficient evidence. But he demanded the maximum sentence for Mr. Banier, including the prison term, a €375,000 fine — about $425,000 — and the potential seizure of some of his properties in Paris and Morocco.
In the waning days of the trial, Arnaud Dupin, Mrs. Bettencourt’s lawyer, expressed gratitude to the mansion employees. He slowly read aloud the names of those fired when Mr. Banier was still a confidant.
“For Mr. Banier, they were the petit personnel,” Mr. Dupin said. But for the sake of Mrs. Bettencourt, he said, they showed courage and were “the principal adversaries who could no longer tolerate abuse.”
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