CHAPTER XIII.

OLD MONACO AND NEW MONTE CARLO

“Old Monaco and New Monte Carlo” might well be made the title of a book, for their stories have never been entirely told in respect to their relations to the world of past and present. Certainly the question of the morality or immorality of the present institution of Monte Carlo, called by the narrow-minded a “gambling-hell,” has never been thrashed out in all its aspects. Instead of being a blight, it may be just a safety-valve which works for the good of the world. It is something to have one spot where all the “swell mobsmen” of the world congregate, or, at least, pass, sooner or later, for, like “Shepheards” at Cairo and the “Café de la Paix” at Paris, Monte Carlo sooner or later is visited by all the world, the moralists to whine and deplore all its loveliness being wasted on the evil-doer, the preacher out of curiosity (as he invariably tells you, and probably this is so); the sentimental young girls and their mammas to be seen and to see and (perhaps?) to play, and the pleasure-loving and the care-worn business man--for nine years and nine months out of ten--to play a little, and, when they have lost all they can afford, to withdraw without a regret. There is another class, several other classes in fact, but it is assumed that they need not be mentioned here.

Unquestionably there are many tragedies consummated at Monte Carlo, and all because of the tables, and it is also true that the same sort of tragedies take place in Paris, London, and New York, but it isn’t the gambling craze alone that has brought them about, and, anyway, one can come to Monte Carlo and have a very good time, and not become addicted to “the game.” To be sure not many do, but that is the fault of the individual and not the “Administration,” that all-powerful anonymous body which controls the whole conduct of affairs at Monte Carlo.

Some one has remarked the seemingly significant coat of arms of the present reigning Prince of Monaco, but assuredly he had very little knowledge of heraldry to assume that it had anything to do with the pleasure-making suburb of the capital of the Principality. It seems well enough to make mention of the fact here, if only to explode one of the fabulous tales which pass current among that class of tourists who come here, and, having hazarded a couple of coins at the tables, go home and mouth their adventures to awed acquaintances. Their tales of fearful adventure, and the anecdote that the blazoning of the arms of the reigning prince represents the layout of the gaming-tables, are really too threadbare and thin to pass current any longer.

To many the Riviera means that “beautiful, subtle, sinister place, Monte Carlo,” and indeed it _is_ the most idyllically situated of the whole little paradise of coast towns from Marseilles to Genoa, and perhaps in all the world.

Whatever the moral aspect of Monte Carlo is or is not, there is no doubt but that it is one of the best paying enterprises in the amusement world, else how could M. Blanc have lived in a palace which kings might envy, and have kept the most famous string of race-horses in France. Certainly not out of a “losing game.” He himself made a classic bon mot when he said, “_Rouge gagne quelquefois, noir souvent, mais Blanc toujours_.”

M. Blanc was a singularly astute individual. He knew his game and he played it well, or rather his tables and his croupiers did it for him, and he even welcomed men with systems which they fondly believed would sooner or later break the bank, for he knew that the best of “systems” would but add to the profits of the bank in the long run. He even answered an inquisitive person, who wanted to know how one should gamble in order to win: “_The most sensible advice I can give you is--‘Don’t.’_”

One reads in a local guide-book that the chances between the player and the bank, taking all the varieties of games into consideration, is as 60 to 61, and that the winnings of the bank were something like £1,000,000 sterling per year. This would seem to mean that the players of Europe and America took £61,000,000 to Monte Carlo each year, and brought away £60,000,000, leaving £1,000,000 behind as the price of their pleasure. The magnitude of these figures is staggering, and so able a statistician as Sir Hiram Maxim refuted them utterly a couple of years ago as follows:

“If the bank actually won one million sterling a year, and its chances were only 1 in 60 better than the players, it would seem quite evident that sixty-one millions must have been staked. However, upon visiting Monte Carlo and carefully studying the play, I found that instead of the players taking £61,000,000 to Monte Carlo, and losing £1,000,000 of it, the total amount probably did not exceed £1,000,000, of which the bank, instead of winning, as shown in the guide-book, about 1½ per cent., actually won rather more than 90 per cent.; therefore, the advantages in favour of the bank, instead of being 61 to 60, were approximately 10 to 1.”

This ought to correct any preconceived false notions of percentages and sum totals.

The law of averages is a very simple thing in which most people, in respect to gambling, and many other matters, have a supreme faith; but Sir Hiram disposes of this in a very few words. He says: “Let us see what the actual facts are.

“If red has come up _twenty times_ in succession, it is just as likely to come up at the twenty-first time as it would be if it had not come up before for a week. Each particular ‘coup’ is governed altogether by the physical conditions existing at that particular instant. The ball spins round a great many times in a groove. When its momentum is used up, it comes in contact with several pieces of brass, and finally tumbles into a pocket in the wheel which is rotating in an opposite direction. It is a pure and unadulterated question of chance, and it is not influenced in the least by anything which has ever taken place before, or that will take place in the future.”

Thus vanish all “systems” and note-books, and all the schemes and devices by which the deluded punter hopes to beat M. Blanc at his own game. It is possible to play at “_Rouge et Noir_” at Monte Carlo and win,--if you don’t play too long, and luck is not against you; but if you stick at it long enough, you are sure to lose. There was once a man who went to Monte Carlo and played the very simple “_Rouge et Noir_” in a sane and moderate fashion, and in three years was the winner by twenty-five thousand francs. He returned the fourth year, and in three weeks lost it all, and another ten thousand besides. He gave up the amusement from that time forward as being too expensive for the pleasure that one got out of it.

As a business proposition, the modestly titled “Société Anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Étrangers” (for it is well to recall that the inhabitants of Monte Carlo are forbidden entrance, _their_ morals, at least, being taken into consideration) is of the very first rank. It earned for its shareholders in 1904-05 the magnificent sum of thirty-six million francs, an increase within the year of some two millions. It is steadily becoming more prosperous, and the businesslike prince who rents out the concession has had his salary raised from 1,250,000 francs to 1,750,000 francs per annum, on an agreement to run for fifty years longer.

By those who know it is a well-recognized fact that the bank at Monte Carlo loses more by fraud than by any defects in its system of play. From the pages of that unique example of modern journalism, “Rouge et Noir--L’Organe de Défense des Joueurs de Roulette et de Trente-et-Quarante,” are culled the two following incidents:

A certain gambler, Ardisson by name, bribed a croupier to insert a specially shuffled pack into the “Trente-et-Quarante” game one fine evening, during an interval when attention was diverted by a female accomplice having dropped a roll of louis on the floor. After eight abnormal “coups,” the bank succumbed,--“_la société se retire majestueusement_” the informative sheet puts it,--180,000 francs out of pocket. The swindler--for all gamblers are not swindlers--and his accomplice, or accomplices, made their way safely across the frontier, and the only echo of the event was heard when the guilty croupier was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment,--a period of confinement for which he was doubtless well paid.

Another incident recounted in this most interesting newspaper was that of one Jaggers, an Englishman from Yorkshire, where all men are singularly knowing. This individual discovered that one of the roulette-wheels had a distinct tendency toward a certain number. His persistency in backing that number attracted the attention of the bank’s detectives, who marvelled at his continued run of luck. Eventually the authorities solved the problem, and now the roulette-wheels are interchangeable, and are moved daily from one set of bearings to another.

Once it was planned to explode a bomb near the gas-metre in the basement, and in the excitement, after the lights went out, to rob the tables and players alike. This plan was conceived by a gang of ordinary thieves, who needed no great intelligence to concoct such a scheme, which, needless to say, was nipped in the bud.

Some years ago the game was played with counters which were bought at a little side-table. A gang of counterfeiters made these in duplicate, and had a considerable haul before the trick was discovered. The museum of the Casino has many of these unstable records, but a change was immediately made in favour of five-franc pieces, louis, and notes of the Banque de France, which are no more likely to be counterfeited for playing the tables at Monte Carlo than they are for general purposes of trade.

Formerly one could wager a great “pillbox” roll of five-franc pieces done up in paper,--twenty of them to the hundred,--but to-day the envelope must be broken open. Some one won a lot of money once with some similar rolls of iron, which, until the daily or weekly inventory on the part of the bank, were not discovered to be foreign to the coin of the realm.

There are two sides to the life and environment of Monaco and Monte Carlo; there is the beautiful and gay side, for the lover of charming vistas and a lovely climate; and there is the practical, dark, and sordid side, of which “the game” is the all.

Much has been written of the moral or immoral aspect of the place, and the discussion shall have no place here. The reader will find it all set out again in his daily, weekly, or monthly journal sometime during the present year, as it has appeared perennially for many years.

Monaco is old and Monte Carlo is new. The history of Monaco runs back for many centuries. The Phœnicians built a temple to Hercules here long before its political history began; then for a time it was a rendezvous for pirates, and finally it fell to the Genoese Republic. Jean II. became the seigneur, and left it to his _propre frère_, Lucien Grimaldi, the ancestor of the present house of Grimaldi, to whom the princes of to-day belong. Thus it is that the Prince of Monaco, though the sovereign of the smallest political state of Europe, belongs to the oldest reigning house. Monaco is a relic of the ages past, but Monte Carlo is a thing of yesterday.

Monte Carlo is the result of the labours of M. Blanc, who, though not the creator of the vast enterprise as it exists to-day, was the real developer of the scheme. He attained great wealth and distinction, as is borne out by the fact that he lived luxuriously and was able to marry his daughters to princes of the great house of Napoleon.

Blanc showed his business acumen when he got a concession from the Prince of Monaco to run a gambling-machine at Monte Carlo. He got the concession first, and then bought out a weak, puny establishment which was already in operation, after having made the proprietors a proposition which he gave them two hours to accept or reject. The contract closed, he arranged immediately to begin the new Casino with Garnier, the designer of the Paris Opera, as his architect. Opposite it he built the Hôtel de Paris, which has the deserved reputation of being the most expensive hotel in existence. Like everything else at Monte Carlo, you get your money’s worth, but things are not cheap. The Prince of Monaco generously gave his name to the place, and the enterprise--for at this time it was nothing more than a great collective enterprise--was christened Monte Carlo.

Everything comes to him who waits, and soon the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Railway extended its line to the gay little city of pleasure, in spite of the pressure brought to bear by other Riviera cities and towns to the westward. Thus the place started, almost at once, as a full-grown and lusty grabber of the people’s money, always wanting more; and the world came on luxurious trains, whereas formerly they made their way by a cranky little steamboat from Nice, or by the coach-and-four of other days.

Like most successful handlers of other people’s money, Blanc was a reader of man’s emotions. He knew his customers, and he knew that many of them were the scum of the earth, and he guarded carefully against allowing them too much freedom. He may have feared his life, or he may have feared capture for ransom, like missionaries and political suspects, and for this reason M. Blanc went about with never a penny on his person. He carried a blank cheque, however, printed, it is said, in red ink--for the old-stager at Monte Carlo still likes to regale the _nouveau_ with the tale--and good for several hundred thousand francs. The “man in the box” had very explicit instructions never to pay this cheque, should it turn up, unless he had previously received a telegram ordering him to do so. It will not take the sagacity of a Dupin or a Sherlock Holmes to evolve the reason for this, but it was a clever idea nevertheless.

In case any of the curious really want to know how the game is played, the following facts are given:

Blanc’s organization was well-nigh a perfect one, and, though its founder is now dead, it remains the same. The staff is a large one. At the head is an administrator-general, who has three collaborators, also known as administrators, one who conducts the affairs of the outside world, has charge of the supplies for the establishment, and the arrangements for the pigeon-shooting, the automobile boat-races, the care of the gardens, etc.; another holds the purse-strings and is a sort of head cashier; and the third has charge of the tables and their personnel.

Under this last is a director of the games, three assistant directors, four _chefs-de-table_,--which sounds as though they might be cooks, but who in reality are something far different; then come five inspectors, and fourteen chiefs of the roulette-tables, and all of them are a pretty high-salaried class of employee, as such things go in Europe.

The chiefs of the roulette-tables draw seven and five hundred francs a month, for very short hours and easy work.

There are two classes of dealers,--croupiers at the roulette-tables and _tailleurs_ at “_trente-et-quarante_,” each of whom receive from four to six hundred francs a month, according to their experience.

The apprentices, who some day expect to become croupiers,--those who do the raking in,--receive two hundred francs a month. All, however, are under an espionage in all their sleeping, waking, and working moments as keen and observant as if they were bank messengers in Wall Street.

Each roulette-table has a _chef_ and a _sous-chef_ and seven croupiers, who are expected, it is said, to keep their hands spread open before them on the table between all the turns of the wheel. A story is told, which may or may not be true, of a croupier who was inordinately fond of taking snuff. It seemed curious that a coin should always adhere to the bottom of his snuff-box whenever he laid it down upon the table, and accordingly that particular croupier was banished and the practice forbidden.

Another had built himself a nickle-in-the-slot arrangement which, with remarkable celerity, conducted twenty-franc pieces from somewhere on the rim of his exceedingly tall and stiff collar to an unseen money-belt. Every time he scratched his ear, or slapped at an imaginary mosquito, it cost the bank a gold piece. Now high collars are banished and mosquito-netting is at every door and window.

No employee is allowed to play, nor are the Monégasques themselves. All nations are represented in the establishment, French, Italian, Russians, Belgians, and Swiss. Once there was a croupier who spoke English so perfectly that he might be taken for an Englishman or an American, but he proved to be a native of the little land of dikes and windmills, where they teach English in the schools to the youth of a tender age.

The French language reigns and French money is used exclusively. You may cash sovereigns and eagles at the bureau, and you may do your banking business at the counters of the “Crédit-Lyonnais,” which discreetly hangs out its shingle just over the border on French territory, though not a stone’s flight from the Casino portals. You know this because beneath their sign you read another in bold, flaring letters, as if it were the most important of all, “_On French Soil_.”

The three towns of the Principality of Monaco each present a totally different aspect; but, in spite of all its loveliness, one’s love for Monte Carlo is a sensuous sort of a thing, and it is with a real relief that he turns to admire Monaco itself.

Its story has often been told, but there always seems something new to learn of it. The writer always knew that its flora was to be remarked, even among those horticultural exotics scattered so bountifully all over the Riviera, and that, apparently, the Monégasques had the art instinct highly developed, as evinced by the many beautiful monuments and buildings of the capital; but it was only recently that he realized the excellence of the typographical art of the printers of Monaco. These craftsmen have reached a high degree of proficiency and taste, as evinced by that most excellent production, the “_Collection de Documents Historiques_,” published by the archivist of the Principality, and the “_Résultats des Campagnes Scientifiques Accomplies sur son Yacht, par S. A. le Prince Albert de Monaco_.”

Authors the world over might well wish their works produced with so much excellence of typography and so rich a format and impression.

Monaco, small and restricted as it is, is full of surprises and anomalies. It has a ruling monarch, a palace, an army,--of sixty odd, all told,--a bishop and a cathedral all its very own, though the Principality is but three and a half kilometres in length and slightly more than a kilometre in width, its only rival for minuteness being the former province of Heligoland.

The reigning prince has a military staff composed of two aides-de-camp, an ordnance officer, and a chief of staff. He has also a grand and honorary almoner, a chaplain and a chamberlain, several state secretaries, a librarian, and an archivist,--besides another staff devoted to his oceanographical hobby. There are, of course, many other functionaries, like those one reads of in swashbuckler novels, and the list closes with an “Architect-Conservator of the Palaces of His Serene Highness.”

After the prince comes the Principality, and it, too, has a long list of guardians and office-holders. There is a governor-general, who is usually a titled person, a treasurer, and, of course, an auditor, and there is a registrar of the tobacco traffic and a registrar of the match trade, two monopolies by which all well-regulated Latin governments set much store.

Finally there is the municipal governmental organization, with the regulation coterie of little-worked office-holders. They may have their bosses and their games of “graft” here, or they may not, but they are sure to have a never-ending supply of red tape if you want to cut a gateway through your garden wall or sweep your chimney down.

There is also an official newspaper known as _Le Journal de Monaco_.

The church is better represented here than in most communities of its size. A monseigneur is chaplain to the prince, and Monaco, through the consideration of Leo XIII., in 1887, is the proud possessor of its own cathedral church and its dignitary.

To arrive on the terraces of Monte Carlo at twilight, on a spring-time or autumn evening, is one of the great episodes in one’s life. You are surrounded by an atmosphere which is balsamic and perfumed as one imagines the Garden of Eden might have been. All the artificiality of the place is lost in the softening shadows, and all is as like unto fairy-land as one will be likely to find on this earth. The lovely gardens, the gracious architecture, the myriads of lights just twinkling into existence, the hum of life, the moaning and plashing of the waves on the rocky shores beneath, and, above, a canopy of palms lifting their heads to the sky, all unite to produce this unparalleled charm.

When one considers that fifty years ago the Monte Carlo rock was as bald and bare as Mont Blanc or Pike’s Peak, it speaks wonders for art, or artificiality, or whatever one chooses to call it, that it could have been made to blossom thus.

On a fine morning the effect, too, is equally entrancing,--“_Onze heure, c’est l’heure exquise._” The miracle of brilliancy of sea and sky is nowhere excelled in the known world, and, if the raucous sounds of the railway and the electric tram do break the harmony somewhat, there is still left the admirable works of the hand of nature and man, who have here planned together to give an ensemble which, in its appealing loveliness, far outweighs the discord of mundane things.

One is astonished at it all, and, whether he approves or disapproves of the morality of Monte Carlo, he is bound to endorse the opinion that its loveliness and luxury is superlative.

The Principality of Monaco, like those other petty states, Andorra and San Marino, comes very near to being a burlesque of the greater powers that surround it. It is not France; it is not Italy; it is a power all by itself; the most diminutive among the monarchies of the world, but, all things considered, one of the wealthiest and best kept of all the states of Europe. Monaco, the town, has a population of over eight thousand per square kilometre, while its nearest rival among the states of Europe, for density of population, is Belgium, of a population of but two hundred to the same area.

From the heights above Monte Carlo one sees a map of it all spread out before him in relief, the three towns, Monte Carlo, Condamine, and Monaco, with their total of fifteen thousand souls and the most marvellous setting which was ever given man’s habitation outside of Eden.

The capital sits proudly on its sea-jutting promontory, with Condamine, its port, where the neck joins the mainland, and Monte Carlo, the faubourg of pleasure, immediately adjoining on the right. All is white, green, and blue, and of the most brilliant tone throughout.

Monaco was a microcosm in size even when Roquebrune and Menton made a part of its domain, and to-day it is much less in area. It was in the dark days of the French Revolution that the little principality was rent in fragments, and there were left only the rock and its two dependencies for the present Albert de Goyon-Matignon, the descendant of the Maréchal de Matignon, to rule over. It was this Maréchal de Matignon, then Duc de Valentinois, who espoused the heiress of the glorious house of Grimaldi, thus bringing the Grimaldi into alliance with the present power of this kingdom-in-little.

What a kingdom it is, to be sure! What a highly organized monarchy! There is a council of state; a tribunal, with its judges and advocates; a captain of the port; a registry for loans and mortgages; an inspector of public works, etc., etc.; and all the functionaries are as awe-inspiring and terrible as such officers usually are. Even the “Commandant de la Garde,” to give him his real title, is a sort of minister of war, and he is, too, a retired French officer of high rank.

The Frenchman when he crosses the frontier into Monaco literally journeys abroad. The frontier patrol is a gorgeous sort of an individual by himself, a sort of a cross between the _gardien de la paix_ of France and the Italian customs officer who comes into the carriages of the personally conducted tourists to Italy searching for contraband matches and salt,--as if any civilized person would attempt to smuggle these unwholesome things anyway.

As one enters the Principality, by the road coming from Nice, he passes between the rock and the steep hillsides by the Boulevard Charles III., and, turning to the right, enters the town where is the seat of government.

The town has some three thousand odd inhabitants, which is a good many for the “_mignonne cité_,” of which one makes the round in ten minutes. But what a round! A promenade without a rival in the world! Well-kept houses, villas, and palaces at every turn, with a fringe of rocky escarpment, and here and there a plot of luxuriant soil which gives a foothold to the fig-trees of Barbary, aloes, olive and orange trees, giant geraniums, lauriers-roses and all the flora of a subtropical climate.

The inhabitant of the Principality of Monaco is fortunate in more ways than one; he is not taxed by the _impôt_, and he does not contribute a sou to the civil list of the prince. “The game” pays all this, and, since its profits mostly come from those who can afford to pay, who shall not say that it is a blessing rather than a curse. Another thing: the Monégasques, the descendants of the original natives, are all “_gentilshommes_,” by reason of the ennobling of their ancestors by Charles Quint.

By a sinuous route one descends from Monaco to La Condamine, the most populous centre in the Principality, built between the rock of Monaco and the hill of Monte Carlo. Five hundred metres farther on, but upward, and one is on the plateau of Spélugues, a name now changed to Monte Carlo.

It is with a certain hypocrisy, of course, that the frequenters of Monte Carlo rave about its charms and its resemblance to Florence or to Athens; they come there for the game and the social distractions which it offers, and that’s all there is about it. It is all very fascinating nevertheless.

All the splendour of Monte Carlo, and it is splendid in all its appointments without a doubt, is but a mask for the comings and goings of the gambler’s hopes and those who live off of his passion.

A true philosopher will not cavil at this; the sea is the most delightful blue; the background one of the most entrancing to be seen in a world’s tour; and all the necessaries and refinements of life are here in the most superlative degree. Who would, or could, moralize under such conditions? It’s enough to bring a smile of contentment to the countenance of the most confirmed and blasé dyspeptic who ever lived.

But is it needful to avow that one quits all the luxury of Monte Carlo with a certain sigh of relief? All this splendour finally palls, and one seeks the byways again with genuine pleasure, or, if not the byways, the highways, and, as the road leads him onward to Menton and the Italian frontier, he finds he is still surrounded by a succession of the same landscape charms which he has hitherto known. Therefore it is not altogether with regret that he leaves the Principality by the back door and makes a mental note that Menton will be his next stopping-place.

It is to be feared that few of the mad throng of Monte Carlo pleasure-seekers ever visit the little parish chapel of Sainte Dévote, though it is scarce a stone’s throw off the Boulevard de la Condamine, and in full view of the railway carriage windows coming east or west. The chapel is an ordinary enough architectural monument, but the legend connected with its foundation should make it a most appealing place of pilgrimage for all who are fond of visiting religious or historic shrines. One can visit it in the hour usually devoted to lunch,--between games, so to say,--if one really thinks he is in the proper mood for it under such circumstances.

Sainte Dévote was born in Corsica, under the reign of Diocletian, and became a martyr for her faith. She was burned alive, and her remains were taken by a faithful churchman on board a frail bark and headed for the mainland coast. A tempest threw the craft out of its course, but an unseen voice commanded the priest to follow the flight of a dove which winged its way before them. They came to shore near where the present chapel stands. The relics of the saint were greatly venerated by the people of the surrounding country, who lavished great gifts upon the shrine. The corsair Antinope sought to rob the chapel of its _trésor_, in 1070, but was prevented by the faithful worshippers.

Each year, on January 27th, the fête-day of the saint, a procession and rejoicing are held, amid a throng of pilgrims from all parts, and a bark is pushed off from the sands at the water’s edge, all alight, as a symbol of protestation against the attempted piratical seizure of the statue and its _trésor_. For many centuries the Fête de Sainte Dévote was presided over by the Abbé de St. Pons. To-day the Bishop of Monaco, croisered and mitred, plays his part in this great symbolical procession. It is a characteristic detail, in honour of the efforts of the sailor-folk of olden days in rebuffing the pirate who would have pillaged the shrine, that the bishop subordinates himself and gives the head of the procession to the representatives of the people. Altogether it is a ceremony of great interest and well worthy of more outside enthusiasm than it usually commands. The princely flag flies from Monaco’s Palais on these occasions, whether the ruler be in residence or not. At other times it is only flown to signify the presence of the prince.

With all its artificiality, with all its splendour of nature and the works of man, and with all the historic associations of its past, one can but take a mingled glad and sad adieu of Monaco and Mont Charles. “_Monaco est bien le rêve le plus fantastique, devenue la plus resplendissante des réalités!_”