The Lemoine Affair is about a scandal involving Henri Lemoine, who claimed in 1905 that he could produce diamonds by heating coal. He was able to convince a governor of the De Beers Mining Company and several members of Parisian high society to give him large sums of money to be able to build a factory to make diamonds. The scam wasn't uncovered until 1908, but he fled France before he could be prosecuted.

The book consists of excerpts of accounts supposedly written about the scandal by the leading French novelists at the time, including Balzac, Flaubert and Saint-Simon, but it lampoons their writing styles, and these authors also skewer Flaubert's "insipid" works and questionable character.

I enjoyed reading this novella, but I suspect that anyone who is familiar with these authors would absolutely love it. ( )