Parvenue:
a woman who, having risen socially or economically, is considered to be an upstart or to lack the appropriate refinement for her new position [Dictionary.com]
In the example, parvenues is used. The author may be referencing the above regardless of gender. Noted in “Learning an old lesson from the Tudors: Grifters gonna grift,” Philip Kennicott, WaPo:
“The Tudors” is a smart and fascinating exhibit that will also be seen at the Cleveland Museum of Art (beginning Feb. 26) and the Legion of Honor in San Francisco (beginning June 24) after it closes in New York on Jan. 8. It raises a question that haunts other blockbuster museum displays of human treasure: Why is power in the past tense so interesting and alluring, while the powers that govern us today are so repellent? Put another way, why is art so effective at washing away the gritty, noxious reality of human ambition, despite the obvious fact that the pharaohs, kings and courtiers of the past were no more substantial than the posers and parvenues of today?
