Long life: Who’s top of the Louis XIV league of show-offs?

Great wealth has always bred envy and resentment among the rest of us, which is why even in ancient times people liked to believe that it would be its possessors’ undoing. Thus one of the myths about King Midas of Phrygia was that, having sought and been granted the gift of turning everything he touched to gold, he died of starvation because his food underwent the same metamorphosis. Legend also had it that King Croesus of Lydia, still to this day a byword for unimaginable riches, lost his kingdom to the Persians, who then burnt him to death.

Sadly, such myths tend to be untrue, just inventions of the poor to raise their spirits. For on the whole the very rich are perfectly happy and lead fuller, longer lives than everyone else. They may, however, feel a little uncomfortable with their wealth, which is why, especially at a time of austerity, they hesitate to flaunt it.