Book review for the day

Rico says that when he started out to read Sleeping With The Enemy, he was sure that Coco Chanel would turn out to be a righteous French partisan. Wrong. The bitch was a righteous French collaborator (the title was literal; she was sleeping with German officers), and was lucky (thanks, apparently, to intervention by her old friend Winston Churchill) to avoid a trial for treason after the war. Fortunately, she didn't get her perfume (photo) company back from the Jewish family who'd bought it from her, so you can still buy and enjoy it...
But one previously unknown (to Rico, anyway) part of history that Rico found fascinating was how much money there was back in the Twenties, before the Crash.
From the book:

Bendor's (the Duke of Westminster) extraordinary wealth surely enhanced his attractiveness to Chanel. This cousin to King George V owned Eaton Hall, an estate of some eleven thousand acres, where legions of gardeners cultivated roses, carnations, orchids, and exotic fruits and vegetables all year round. A railroad spur on the estate connected it to the main line. Bendor even owned a private train to go from Eaton Hall up to London, where he owned Grosvenor House (later leased to the US government for its embassy) and Bourdon House, plus income-producing properties around London's Kensington Gardens and vast holdings in Australia and Canada.
For Bendor's sea voyages, he could choose between the Cutty Sark, a converted naval vessel, and the spacious schooner Flying Cloud. There were stables of horses; hunting lodges in Scotland and France; Rolls-Royce and Bentley automobiles. The family jewels included the Westminster tiara and the Arcot diamonds.

and

Life with Bendor, for a time at least, amounted to an ever-lasting holiday celebration. They were gracious hosts to royal cotillions with fifty or sixty guests in attendance. At these musical dinners, an orchestra in red coats and patent leather slippers played far into the night. A battalion of valets and femmes de chambre, butlers, cooks, kitchen staff, gardeners, and attendants for every sport worked around the clock for the pleasure of the Duke's guests— no guest ever needed to lift a finger at Eaton Hall. Its fifty-four bedrooms, stables, and seventeen Rolls-Royces were ruled over by Bendor's stern and commanding steward, Percy Smith. He held responsibility for the staff, the hall, and the masterpieces by Rubens, Raphael, Rembrand, Hals, Veláquez, and Goya that decorated the walls...
In 1928, the fairy tale continued as Chanel hunted wild boar with Winston Churchill at Westminster's lodge, Mimizan, south of Bordeaux. Churchill, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his son, Randolph, are portrayed in a Daily Mail news clipping showing Coco in a greatcoat, bowler hat, and booted, with a riding crop in hand. She stands like a queen between the two Churchills, surrounded by a pack of beagle hunting dogs...

Rico says he only has half-vast holdings, and the Goyas that decorate his walls are cans of beans in the kitchen cabinets...