It deals with property speculation and the lives of the extremely wealthy Nouveau riche of the Second French Empire, against the backdrop of Baron Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris in the 1850s and 1860s.

The book opens with scenes of astonishing opulence, beginning with Renée and Maxime lazing in a luxurious horse-drawn carriage, very slowly leaving a Parisian park (the Bois de Boulogne) in the 19th century-equivalent of a traffic jam.

It is made clear very early on that these are staggeringly wealthy characters not subject to the cares faced by the public; they arrive at their mansion and spend hours being dressed by their servants prior to hosting a banquet attended by some of the richest people in Paris.

The flashback complete, the rest of the novel takes place after Saccard has made his fortune, against the backdrop of his luxurious mansion and his profligacy and is concerned with a three-cornered plot of sexual and political intrigue.

In order to counter this lack, he toured a large number of stately homes around France, taking copious notes on subjects like architecture, ladies' and men's fashions, jewellery, garden design, greenhouse plants (a seduction scene takes place in Saccard's hothouse), carriages, mannerisms, servants' liveries; these notes (volumes of which are preserved) were time well spent, as many contemporary observers praised the novel for its realism.

An unexpurgated translation by the poet and critic Alexander Texeira de Mattos was published in a limited edition in 1895 under the French title, with an English equivalent (The Hounds' Fee) in parentheses.