In Vanity Fair: A Tale of Frocks and Femininity

by Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd

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."