Back in the good old days, before anyone had ever heard the name Kardashian, the month of August signaled the smart set’s exodus from the French Riviera for cooler climes. The great unwashed, as they were then called, would arrive in droves, their proletarian vacations financed by the socialist French government. Hence, the hasty departure of the rich and famous. 

I’m exaggerating a bit, as the migration of the social classes wasn’t as blatant or as obvious as all that. But crowds did start to flood the Riviera in August during the late ’50s and ’60s, which was when the mass tourism that ruined the most beautiful places in Europe began. So, those of us with boats on the Côte d’Azur floated down to Italy—Venice, to be precise. 

I cannot describe how wonderful life in Italy used to be for those of us who went to Rome, Florence, Siena, or Venice. The hotels were magnificent, the service impeccable, the food the best in the world, and the people among the nicest and friendliest. Italians had more style than anyone, and their music was the most romantic, just as their opera was perfect and their beautiful buildings to die for. I competed in tennis at the Foro Italico, a sports stadium built in Rome under Mussolini and inspired by the Roman forums. I remember not caring that much about losing because I knew that a Roman evening promised much more than passing a round in the Italian championships. People back then dressed to the nines and dined alfresco, and every beautiful street in Italy was lined with wonderful trattorias serving food that was inexpensive and very good. 

That marvelous life came to an end with the arrival of something that was even worse for Rome than Attila the Hun: mass tourism. Millions of Chinese and Americans flooded the narrow streets, photographing everything while marching in step, blocking traffic while arguing over the price of every cheap trinket imaginable, and bringing traffic to a halt while taking nonstop selfies on the Spanish Steps and on the piazzas. I was recently in Rome and watched in horror as the crowds swelled. Next to the Keats and Shelley museum, I watched a group pose for photos in front of advertisements for Italian luxury brands. When I spoke to the museum’s curator, she told me no one had bothered to visit recently, an indicator of the way our culture is heading.

Which brings me to the recent wedding of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, which took place in Venice and had some people upset. The New York Times headlined it as “The Triumph of Tacky.” The paper asked what happened to understatement and restraint? Well, I can tell them: I used to attend some very grand balls in Venice, parties given by local nobles, such as Countess Volpi in her magnificent palazzo, and Lord Howard, a childhood friend of mine. Lily Volpi may have had a useless son who blew the great fortune she left him, but she really knew how to entertain while keeping it low-key. 

Resentment over income inequality was never obvious in the Venice I knew, when minimalism and quiet luxury were in vogue. In the early ’60s, I attended two of the grandest Venetian balls of the time, and I was struck that, as we disembarked from our ferrying gondolas to the palazzo Volpi, the crowds began to cheer. Poor Venetians lined up to look at the rich and famous (Paul Newman was the only Hollywood star there), and applauded. 

As much as those with more understated taste might condemn the Bezos couple for their crassness, I will not. Envy is one of the few sins I am not guilty of committing. Although fully aware of the atrocious taste the newlyweds exhibited, bad taste is neither illegal nor a sin. As the former chess world champion Garry Kasparov put it, capitalism’s unequal distribution of prosperity is far better than socialism’s equal distribution of misery. Bezos didn’t inherit his wealth, but the ghastly Alexander Soros did, and he is spending his even ghastlier father’s money on extreme left-wing causes. 

Bezos’s over-the-top nuptials in one of the world’s most stunning cities mixed Hollywood vulgarity with sporting heroes and Silicon Valley billionaire freaks. Even the horrible Kushner man married to The Donald’s daughter was there. The beauty of the setting could not erase the odiousness of some of the guests, such as the fat Jewish Belgian fashion designer Diane Halfin, now known as Princess Furstenberg as well as Mrs. Barry Diller. But again, so what? 

The envious scribblers at the Times claimed that the wedding had reduced the city of Marco Polo to a mere photo background for the rich and their entourages. That argument sounds pretty pathetic to me. The wedding brought business to shops and restaurants and the hard-working merchants were rewarded. So I ask once again: Why were we applauded 50 years ago and this lot jeered? I’ll tell you why. Envy is the prime mover of socialism. Back then, Venetians were too poor to be envious, and too proud to embrace socialism. ◆