Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

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.