Let me entertain you with a very brief account of the history of this singular little princedom. Monaco is one of the most ancient places in Europe. Five hundred years before our Blessed Lord came to redeem the world, Hecate of Melites wrote an account of the city, which he called Monoikos (the "isolated dwelling"), and declared it to be even then so old a town that the people had lost all tradition of its origin, except that some of their priests asserted Hercules to have founded it after his feat of slaying Geryon and the brigands before he left Italy for Spain. The Romans, in fact, called it Portus Herculis Monceci, and for short "Portus Monceci." During the Middle Ages Hercules was entirely cast aside, and the town was spoken of as Monaco. The tradition of its original foundation is carefully preserved in the civic coat-of-arms, which represents a gigantic monk with a club in his hand—Hercules in a friar's robe. In the days of Charlemagne the Moors invaded Monaco, and remained there until A.D. 968, when a Genoese captain named Grimaldi volunteered to assist the Christian inhabitants in driving the infidels from their shores. He was victorious, and was rewarded for his bravery and skill by being proclaimed prince of Monaco. In the family of his descendants the little territory still remains.
The Grimaldis were powerful rulers, wise and brave, and having secured independence, they maintained it at all cost through centuries of trouble. Fifty-eight sieges has Monaco sustained from either the French or the Genoese, but she never lost her independence excepting for a few years at a time. In 1428 a terrible tragedy of great dramatic interest occurred in the castle. John Grimaldi was prince, and married to a Fieschi Adorno of Genoa, a lovely lady, but a faithless. She had not long been a wife ere she fixed her affections on her husband's younger brother, Lucian, and induced him to murder his brother and usurp the throne. Accordingly, Lucian, aided by his mistress, stabbed John Grimaldi in his bed, and having thrown the body into the sea, proclaimed himself prince. He reigned but a short time. Bartolomeo Doria, nephew of the Genoese doge, Andrea Doria the Great, murdered him at a masquerade given in his palace to celebrate his infamous sister-in-law's birthday. The galleys of the doge awaited the assassin without the port, and transported him back in safety to Genoa—a circumstance which gave rise to a suspicion that Andrea was himself privy to the deed. As to the wicked lady, she was banished to the castle of Roccabruna, where she died miserably, abandoned by all. A legend says she went distracted, and in a fit of insanity flung herself headlong over the rocks into the sea.
In 1792 the French Republic destroyed the principality, but it was restored through the interest of Talleyrand in 1815. A revolution broke out in 1848, which obliged the prince to declare Monaco a free town, and which also deprived His Highness of Mentone and Roccabruna. When the French annexed Nice they also added the two last-mentioned towns to their dominions, but had to pay Prince Florestan four millions of francs for his feudal right.
If Monaco is not a very large principality, it is in a pecuniary sense exceedingly flourishing. In 1863 His Highness made the acquaintance of M. Blanc, the famous gambling-saloon "organizer" of Homburg, and, on the receipt of the trifling consideration of twelve million francs and an annual tax of one hundred and fifty thousand, consented to allow him to establish the world-famous saloons at Monte Carlo, about a mile and a half from the capital.
The people of Monaco pay few taxes, enjoy many privileges, like and laugh at their sovereign, and by no means desire annexation either to France or Italy. By law they are strictly prohibited from gambling, and are a quiet, thrifty, peace-loving set, kept in order by an army of sixty-one men, ten officers and a colonel, of whom more anon. Just at present the court of "Liliput" has given room for a great deal of gossip. His Serene Highness the hereditary prince, and Her Serene Highness the princess, after a few months of matrimonial bliss, have quarreled and separated. It happened on this wise. (The information I give I know to be correct, as it was communicated to me by an intimate friend of the young princess, and I was at Nice myself when the affair occurred.) About four years ago the young prince of Monaco married, through the influence of the empress Eugenie, the Lady Mary Douglas, sister of the duke of Hamilton and daughter of H.I.H. the princess Mary of Baden, duchess of Hamilton, and grand-daughter of the celebrated Prince Eugene Beauharnois. The wedding was magnificent, and the bride and bridegroom appeared exceedingly well pleased with each other. After a brief honeymoon both their highnesses returned to Monaco to reside with the reigning prince and princess. Very soon afterward the young lady commenced making bitter complaints to her friends of the court etiquette, which she declared was utterly unendurable, especially to a free-born Englishwoman. An instance will suffice: One morning Her Serene Highness came down to breakfast before the whole family was assembled. To her amusement, she beheld on each plate an egg labeled "For His Serene Highness, the reigning prince," "For H.S.H. the reigning princess," "For H.S.H. the hereditary prince," "For H.S.H. the hereditary princess." Being in a hurry and hungry, "Her Serene Highness the hereditary princess" sat herself down and ate her own egg and the eggs of her neighbors. Horror! Court etiquette was over-thrown. The egg destined for the august prince Florestan II. had been eaten by his own daughter-in-law! The outraged majesty of Monaco was indignant, and the youthful aspirant to the throne by no means mild in his reproaches. However, true Douglas as she is, the old blood of Archibald Bell-the-cat boiled over, and the princess Mary is reported to have read the serene family a famous lecture. Matters went on in this way until the poor girl could stand it no longer, and one fine day escaped from "jail," ran down to the station and took the first train for Nice. A telegram was sent to the gendarmerie at Nice to arrest her as soon as she got out of the carriage. Accordingly, to her terror, when she put her foot on terra firm a there stood two gendarmes ready to pounce upon her. It was, however, no joke to arrest an imperial princess, for such Lady Mary is by birth. The men hesitated, but not so the princess. Brought up at Nice, she knew all the roads and bypaths of the place by heart. Tucking up her petticoats, instead of going out by the ordinary exit she made off as fast as her heels could carry her out of the station to the fence which separates the lines from the road, climbed over it and ran as swiftly as a hunted deer through the fields, pursued by the two gendarmes, who, however, soon gave up the chase. Her Serene Highness finally reached the Villa Arson, almost two miles distant, terribly frightened and with her clothes pretty nearly torn off her back. Here she found that noble-hearted and Christian woman her mother, from whom she has never since separated. Nor has she yielded up to her husband her little son, born soon after the flight from Monaco. Vain have been the young man's attempts to induce her to return to him, vain his appeals to the pope to use his influence, vain even the threats of law. Last winter the prince induced the king of Italy to permit an attempt to abduct the child from the princess whilst she was staying in Florence with the grand duchess Marie of Russia, but the guards of the imperial lady prevented the emissaries of the Florentine syndic from even entering the palace, and the next day the princess of Monaco fled with her child to Switzerland. What the future developments of this singular affair will be time will show. The husband seems determined not to yield, and has recently employed the celebrated lawyer M. Grandperret as his counsel. It is stated that undue influence of a malicious kind has been used to prejudice both the duchess of Hamilton and her daughter against the prince, but all who know the truly lofty mind of the duchess will be sure that, although the reason for the princess's conduct has never transpired, it must be a very good one, or her mother would never uphold her as she does. Not the slightest blame is attributable to the princess of Monaco, and her reputation remains utterly above suspicion.
The station of Monaco is about ten minutes' walk from the town, which we now see is built upon a lofty rock forming a kind of peninsula jutting out from the mainland in the shape of a three-cornered hat. It is about two hundred feet high, and rises almost perpendicularly from the water on three sides, and that which joins the rest of the coast is ascended by a winding and steep road which passes under several very curious old gates and arches, originally belonging to the castle. The castle crowns the centre of the rock, and is a most romantic construction, possessing bastions, towers, portcullises, drawbridges and all the paraphernalia of a genuine mediæval fortress. It was built upon the site of a much more ancient edifice in 1542, and is a very remarkable specimen of the military architecture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During the French Revolution it was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers, and subsequently fell into a state of pitiable decay. It has, however, been repaired with great taste by the present prince within the last few years. Internally, it possesses a magnificent marble staircase and some fine apartments. One long gallery is said to have been painted in fresco by Michael Angelo, but it has been so much restored that the original design alone remains. Another gallery is covered with good pictures by the Genoese artist Carlone. Five doors open on this latter gallery—one leading to the private chambers of the prince; another to those of the princess; a third into a room where the duke of York, brother of George IV., was carried to die; a fourth to the famous Grimaldi hall; and the fifth to the room where Lucian Grimaldi was murdered, as already related, by Bartolomeo Doria. This chamber was walled up immediately after the crime, and only reopened in 1869, after a lapse of three hundred years. The Grimaldi hall, or state chamber, is a large square apartment of good proportions and handsomely decorated. Its chief attraction is the chimney-piece, one of the finest specimens of Renaissance domestic architecture now extant. It is very vast, lofty and deep, constructed of pure white marble and covered with the most exquisite bas-reliefs imaginable. Under Napoleon I. it was taken down to be removed to Paris, but was replaced in 1815. The chapel is handsome, and covered with good frescoes and splendid Roman mosaics. The gardens are very delightful, abounding with shady bowers and beautiful tropical plants. In one of the alleys is a tomb of the time of Cæsar, bearing this inscription:
JUL. CASAR
AUGUSTUS IMP.
TRIBUNITIA
POTESTATE