In Vanity Fair: A Tale of Frocks and Femininity

One sees many a new fashion note on the Monte Carlo terrace, and, later, costumes still more chic are in evidence at the Casino concert, to which come music lovers from all the neighbouring resorts, for the Monte Carlo orchestra is one of the best in Europe and even moralists who have serious scruples to forbid their gambling do not hesitate to take advantage of the concerts provided by the profits of the tables.

For the sporting contingent there is driving and motoring during the early afternoon, before the chill creeps into the air; and on the terrace overlooking the grounds of the International Pigeon Shooting Club there is always a crowd watching the shooting below. Butchery rather than sport, this pigeon shooting, but the Monte Carlo club is the most famous in the world and draws the crack shots from all countries. Betting runs high among the sportsmen and the onlookers, and the club events are a great source of entertainment to those who have heart and stomach for such sport.

After the tea hour, the Casino begins to fill with the crowd that is its mainstay, the high-playing, heavily plunging, extravagant crowd, willing to buy excitement at any price, and some of the heaviest gambling is done in those hours just before the dinner. The hush grows more pronounced, more oppressive, and the croupier's monotonous voice sounds more clearly in its maddening iteration, "Messieurs, Mesdames, faites vos jeux. – Les jeux sont faits. Rien ne va plus."

Every seat at the tables is filled, crowds are clustering behind the chairs, leaning forward to play, watching with excitement an unusual run of good or bad luck, but quiet, intent, absorbed. There is never noise and confusion, never an outbreak that can create scandal. A battalion of official employees attends to that, and quickly, effectually suppresses any objectionable scene.

Monsieur François Blanc, who was responsible for Monte Carlo, was fond of saying that he had made and kept the place "absolutely respectable." He is dead now, this M. Blanc, but before he died he built a cathedral not far from his Casino, and in a mortuary chapel of the cathedral reposes the old Prince of Monaco, who granted to M. Blanc the rights that made Monte Carlo possible.

The scoffer smiles at that cathedral; and yet M. Blanc offered it to le bon Dieu in all sincerity. He was a quiet, unpretentious little man, devoted to his family, charitable, abstemious in his habits, playing no game save billiards, gambling not at all, a good man so far as personal life went, and without scruples concerning his gambling paradise. He insisted rigidly that play at Monte Carlo should be under absolutely fair conditions. As for running a great gambling establishment – it was a business like another. He was not ashamed of his metier and allowed no threats nor pleas nor argument to disturb him. Men and women would gamble. – Eh bien, here was a beautiful place in which they might indulge their propensity without fear of dishonest treatment. If they ruined themselves, if they committed suicide, – that was their affair. They would have done the same thing elsewhere and he would have preferred their doing it elsewhere, for suicides and scenes interfered somewhat with prosperous business. A host of detectives and attendants was employed by M. Blanc to prevent suicide or hush it up if it occurred, and an official department was established for the purpose of furnishing unlucky patrons of the Casino with money enough to betake themselves elsewhere. Ruined gamblers were eloquently urged not to die upon the premises. Railroad tickets and certain sums of money were supplied to worthy applicants to whose hard luck and financial collapse officials of the gambling rooms could testify. The system was not, however, purely charitable, – M. Blanc did not believe in pauperizing the poor. An I. O. U. was accepted in exchange for funds supplied, and it was understood that this note must be met before the holder could ever again be admitted to the Casino. Some time ago statistics showed that forty thousand pounds had been distributed by this department of ways and means – but that thirty thousand pounds had been repaid. From which one may argue a large proportion of human integrity or of gambling mania, as one is optimist or cynic.

M. Blanc had made his fortune in administering the gambling affairs of Homburg and Baden Baden. When Germany shut down upon gambling he looked about for a place in which he could establish a gambling resort without fear of interference from a paternal government, and his shrewd eye fell upon the little principality of Monaco. His Royal Highness the Prince of Monaco, who was absolute ruler of this little kingdom three and a half miles long by one mile wide, came of an illustrious line of gentlemanly pirates, and since piracy had fallen from favour in the Mediterranean, his revenues were not so princely as his title and palace. He was pleased to make over his piratical rights to M. Blanc in consideration of an annual subsidy which gave him an income really royal. Incidentally the Frenchman agreed to attend to the municipal affairs of the province, to free the subjects of the Prince from all taxation, and to guarantee that no one of them should be allowed to enter the Casino. An excellent bargain from a material view-point the old Prince made. His successor, Albert I, the scholarly scientist and Prince who now lives in the ancient palace of the Grimaldis, where the little town of Monaco huddles on its isolated rock, facing the Monte Carlo fairyland across the port of Condamine, has scruples concerning the source of his income, it is said, but the Monte Carlo lease, which is held by a syndicate since M. Blanc's death, has until 1913 to run. Then we shall see what we shall see. The Prince, who is a French nobleman, has French revenues which would keep him from penury, and he is a man of simple tastes; but it would be a sacrifice for a saint to give up a royal fortune for a scruple, and one can hardly expect a worldly monarch to court canonization in such fashion.

Once in possession of his promontory, M. Blanc proceeded to spend a fortune upon it. A gambling enterprise had already been tried there but had failed, partly through mismanagement, partly because the place was inaccessible, visitors being obliged to arrive by water and be taken ashore in small boats.

The natural location was, however, beautiful beyond description, and M. Blanc had the genius to appreciate his opportunity. The architect of the Paris Opera House was called into consultation and a five-million-dollar Casino was built. Everything that art and money could do to make the gambling rooms, the corridors, the concert hall, the theatre, luxurious and beautiful was done. Splendid terraces, gardens, fountains, were added; a great reading-room was supplied with the most complete collection of periodical literature in the world; the finest of classical concerts were given in the concert-hall; the best artists of Paris were engaged to present the latest and most successful Parisian plays in the little jewel of a theatre; capitalists were induced to build a railroad to the place and a big elevator was constructed to carry up from the trains all who did not care to climb the terraces; a luxurious café was installed in the Casino grounds.

M. Blanc was a frugal man, but he could scatter money like chaff for a purpose, and he fulfilled his purpose. The fame of Monte Carlo spread far and wide. Visitors flocked there from all over the world, and the time was short indeed before the originator s money had returned to him with interest many times compounded. To-day, after the income of the Prince is handed over to him, after the taxes of the principality are settled, after the immense staff of official employees, the musicians, the artists, are paid, after the repairs and running expenses have been provided for, the stockholders divide an annual profit of from two million to two million five hundred thousand dollars. A profitable business, as M. Blanc foresaw when he made his investment.

The syndicate which now holds the lease and manages the palace follows as far as possible the system of M. Blanc, but the body has not the old manager's genius for doing the wrong thing in exactly the right way, and the place was not what it once was. M. Blanc had made the Casino a club and so retained the right to bar or eject whom he would. In the old days the age limit was strictly observed. Now one sees mere boys and girls at the tables. For a long time a frock coat and high hat in the daytime, and evening dress after six, were de rigeur, and women's toilettes were carefully considered. Lord Salisbury and his wife were once refused admission at the door because the Premier wore a shabby old felt hat and tweeds, and a celebrated actress who once appeared in a highly æsthetic costume was told she could enter after going home and changing her déshabillé.

To-day, everything from dress clothes to bicycle costume is permissible in the Casino, though a careful toilet is the rule, and a host of very shabby and disreputable gamblers mingles with the more aristocratic set. The crowd is more sordid, more vulgar, less chic than of old. Fewer high-class English and French patronize the tables, and the German Jews who have taken their places have not improved the general tone of the throng.

But all this the ordinary visitor does not know, and even now the place is as fascinating as it is unwholesome.

In the evening come the most brilliant and spectacular hours of the Casino day. Then one sees the exquisite frocks, the superb jewels, the celebrities of good and ill repute. The women wear elaborate evening dress, usually topped by a picture hat, and though many mondaines avoid conspicuous Casino toilettes, the demi-mondaines vie with each other in gorgeousness of attire.

Some of these rivalries have afforded tremendous entertainment for onlookers who appreciated the moves in the feminine game. Liane de Pougy and la belle Otero, for example, have contributed largely to the Monte Carlo amusement programme during recent years. Deadly rivals these two, who fought their battles wherever they went in Fashion's train, in Paris, at Trouville, at Monte Carlo. Both were lionnes of the most formidable type, leaving a wake of ruin and disaster behind them, devouring fortunes with Brobdignagian voracity, plunging into the maddest extravagances. Men raved over their beauty, though cooler-headed critics insisted that Otero was only a rather coarse and common Spanish type, with bold, staring eyes, a cruel, sensuous mouth, and a good figure, while de Pougy, with her long neck and cat-in-the-cream expression, deserved no beauty prize.

The toilettes of the two were legion and beggared description. Their jewels were a proverb.

One night, at the Casino, one of the rivals appeared wearing all her jewels, and even the maddest gambler stopped his play to look at her. From head to foot she was ablaze with precious stones of the finest water, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls, gleaming on throat and arms and fingers and in her hair, covering her bodice, fastened upon her skirts.

The achievement was the sensation of the season. Nothing else was spoken of the next day, and triumph was written large upon the face of the wearer of the jewels; but she had reckoned without her host. The Casino was more crowded than usual on the following evening. Curious folk went to see how one beauty would carry off her victory and how the other would accept her defeat. The triumphant one was handsome, beaming, self-satisfied, but her rival was late in coming and gossip whispered that something dramatic was to be expected.

It occurred.

Down the length of the gambling rooms walked the woman for whom the crowd was waiting. She was perfectly gowned, but with an exquisite and elaborate simplicity, with a good taste beyond question. Behind her came her maid decked in jewels from coiffure to slipper toe, enjoying her part in the comedy, yet awed by the fortune she carried with her.

No words were necessary, the most unlettered could read the retort. Madame also had jewels – as many and as fine as those of her rival. If anyone doubted that fact, let him observe. But as for wearing all one's jewels at once, – impossible for a woman of taste!

The reign of la belle Otero is over. Liane de Pougy's tenure of favour is very uncertain, but they have furnished the Riviera with a wealth of gossip in their time. Monte Carlo would miss their annual duel, were there not younger favourites, as beautiful and as shameless, to air their toilettes and jewels and jealousies in M. Blanc's "absolutely respectable" rendezvous.

Few women go to Monte Carlo without trying their luck at the tables, though the fall from grace on the part of the ordinary tourist may mean only a few francs lost or won. Starry-eyed young girls, staid matrons with respectability stamped upon their brows, stern, elderly spinsters – all may be seen at the roulette board where small stakes may be hazarded; but they are the novices, the transients who are tasting the new experience with a fearful joy. The seasoned and systematic woman gambler is another thing. So is the reckless woman who does not bother about system and risks large sums as lightly as she waves her fan, and with far less calculation.

Langtry belonged to this last class. In her heyday, one might see her, charmingly gowned, radiantly beautiful, twisting up thousand-franc notes and tossing them on the table to lie wherever they might fall, losing as carelessly as she won and far more often than she won.

Otero and de Pougy, and many of their guild, are of the shrewd and canny type, gambling to win, and taking the game of chance seriously, though worrying little over losses and throwing away winnings with both hands. The brilliant jewelry shops and the Mont de Pieté of Monte Carlo are equally prosperous. The winners buy jewels, the losers pawn them, – but, on the whole, it is the men who gamble heavily. Three fourths of the women who have money enough to play extravagantly care more about what they wear to the Casino than about what they win or lose, would rather win at hearts and chiffons than at roulette. Occasionally a woman, like the old Russian princess, ruins herself dramatically at Monte Carlo, but more often it is the petty woman gambler who comes to grief – the woman who has only a little money and no resources to draw upon when that little is swallowed up. Not long ago six little American chorus girls, who had heard much about the gaiety and extravagance of Monte Carlo, and had conceived the idea that between luck at gambling and luck at love a half-dozen pretty Americans might corner considerable of the gaiety and of the wherewithal for extravagance, went down to the Riviera and tried trente et quarante.

A few weeks later, when they were penniless, miserable, absolutely stranded, without money either to stay or to go home, Sybil Sanderson heard of their plight and played good angel for the six homesick, disillusioned, singed little moths. The flames are cruel at Monte Carlo.

But it is the man who really supports the Casino, the man who squanders fortunes at the tables, the man who evolves infallible systems, who gives himself up utterly to the gambling, who commits suicide on the terrace, or breaks the bank.

Suicides are few, and the few are carefully covered up, concealed. The management even denies that they occur, but ugly rumours are persistent and many seem to be backed by facts. Detectives are eternally vigilant to suppress scandal. They rise from the ground, they fall from the trees, they follow the lucky winner to his hotel or train in order to see that he is not waylaid and murdered or robbed by thugs, as has happened before now, they shadow desperate losers and prevent ugly scenes, they instruct the penniless where to find the benevolent gentleman who is willing to furnish transportation away from Monte Carlo for the human sponge that has been squeezed dry.

The bank breakers are even fewer than the suicides. In the old days, a certain amount of money was allowed to each table for one day. If the bank lost that amount, the table went out of commission for the rest of the session; but now, if a lucky player breaks the bank, it means only a wait of a few minutes until a new package of money can be brought from the vaults. When the money arrives, play goes on.

Charles Wells, an engineer, was the man whose spectacular winnings inspired the song concerning "the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo," but many another man has done the thing and some of them have repeated the operation several times. There, for instance, was Garcia, who broke the bank again and again and was a nine days' wonder at Monte Carlo. He died a wretched death in the slums of Paris, that lucky Garcia.

And there was a New York salesman among the bank breakers. Some of the older New York business men may remember him, for he was a popular fellow and he cut a wide swath in Europe. First he broke the bank at Monte Carlo, – broke it with fine spirit and éclat and was the envied hero of the hour. Then he went to Paris and opened a gambling place that quickly became famous. Baccarat was the game, and the New Yorker's luck held. He could not lose. His name was known all over Europe. Paris gave him the title of Le Roi Baccarat, and in the morning papers the latest doings of the baccarat king were as much a matter of course as the stock market reports.

Of course the luck changed. It always does. One day the baccarat king began to lose, and he was as persistent in losing as he had been in winning. The close air of the gambling rooms had affected his lungs and his health went with his money. One of the many women who had loved him in his brilliant day, took him, a consumptive pauper, to her lodgings, and gave him shelter, food, and care, but she had no money to do more. Finally several of the man's old friends and business associates in New York heard of his condition and sent money to bring him home. He came, a dying man, and a little later the same friends contributed the money to bury him.

Histories of that sort are common among the men who have broken the bank at Monte Carlo.

As for the Casino management, it does not lament when some one breaks the bank. Far from it. Such a run of luck advertises the fairness of the game and encourages gamblers. The syndicate is frankly pleased when anyone wins in spectacular fashion – or in any fashion whatsoever, for winning only fans the gambling fever and in the end it is always the bank that wins. The old saying launched in M. Blanc's day is true: "C'est encore rouge qui perd, et encore noir, mais toujours Blanc qui gagne."

The bank of Monte Carlo is honest as the Bank of England. No hint of trickery has ever been associated with it, but outside the Casino there are gambling resorts of a different character. It is said that more money is lost at the private gambling clubs of Nice in a night than at Monte Carlo in a week; and whether or not this is true, it is certain that more men are ruined in these outside gambling hells than in the Casino. The game at the latter place is fair; only cash stakes are allowed; there is no bar and anyone drunk enough to make a scene is expelled. At many of the private clubs the play is dishonest; I. O. U's are accepted; and a drunken fool may gamble away not only all he has with him, but all he has elsewhere or ever expects to have, and more. Not all of the suicides along the Riviera are due to M. Blanc's gambling palace.

It is difficult to keep away from the subject of the gambling when one talks of Monte Carlo. A famous show of frocks and jewels and women is on view there; the fashions of the coming summer are launched there; the social game is played with verve and zest there; But, at a distance, one remembers rather the crowd around the green tables under the great chandeliers, the flushed faces, the twitching mouths, the trembling hands, and the uncanny, oppressive, breathless hush that follows the croupier's "Rien ne va plus."