Prince of Monaco

“ As the official residence of a prince it is becoming and appropriate, but it is not that palace on a rock that bid defiance to the world for flaming centuries. Monaco has a great and a glorious history, but it is not written on the walls of the palace of to-day.
By the generosity of the prince the palace is thrown open to visitors on certain days but it presents little that is of interest. It has been so ruthlessly treated in days gone by and subjected to such base uses that there is little left to recall the stirring days of the old Grimaldi. ”

“ Madame de Monaco renewed her youth in this "rural retreat," and the years passed without lessening the grace of her countenance, without thickening her slender waist, without slowing her light step. It is not an inhabitant of Betz who drew for us this portrait, it is Goethe, at Mayence, in 1792: "The Princess of Monaco, declared favorite of the Prince of Condé, and the ornament of Chantilly in its palmy days, appeared lively and charming. One could imagine nothing more gracious than this slender blondine, young, gay, and frivolous; not a man could have resisted her sallies. ”

“ What is thought of Monaco and its doings by those who have the
fullest opportunity of studying them is shown by the fact that the
Administration are pledged to refuse admission to the tables to any
subject of the Prince of Monaco, or to any French subject of Nice or
the department of the Maritime Alps. The proclamation of this fact
cynically stares in the face all who enter the Casino. The local
authorities will not have any of their own neighbours ruined. Let
foreigners, or even Frenchmen of other departments, care for themselves. ”

“ And there is another reason for the continued independence of Monaco. Republics have no sense of gratitude. After the fall of Napoleon III Monaco would hardly have survived save for the gambling concession. Four years before the Franco-Prussian War, a casino and hotels built on the Roche des Spélugues had been named Monte Carlo in honor of the reigning prince. The concession, granted to a Frenchman, François Blanc, was too valuable to spoil by having Monaco come under French law! ”

“ Why these precautions were not taken, I do not pretend to explain: neither can I tell you wherefore the prince of Monaco, who is a subject and partizan of France, was indulged with a neutrality for his town, which served as a refreshing-place, a safe port, and an intermediate post for the French succours sent from Marseilles to Genoa. This I will only venture to affirm, that the success and advantage of great alliances are often sacrificed to low, partial, selfish, and sordid considerations. The town of Monaco is commanded by every heighth in its neighbourhood ”

“ They cannot tumble about like common folk. The prince was advised that he must not advance to the ship, because such a step would be unbecoming and indeed humiliating. He was the Prince of Monaco with his feet upon his own territory and whoever came must advance to him and not he to them. It was unthinkable that he should welcome a visitor to his domain by jumping over the sides of ships. ”

“ Monte Carlo is a curse to the people of every nation who pass through it, and the voice of the civilized world should be raised to insist on its absolute suppression. The Prince of Monaco should be given to understand that he must do this, or cease to exist as a petty independent power. We English, who are so earnest to prevent even small nuisances in our own land, where it is an indictable offence for a poor itinerant Italian organ-grinder to refuse to "move on" when ordered ”

“ 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. ”

“ None of the inhabitants of Monaco have access to the tables; and their interest in the maintenance of the status quo is secured by their complete exemption from taxation and the large prices paid for their lands. The ruler of the principality, Prince Albert, born 1848, succeeded his father, Prince Charles III., in 1889. He married in 1869 Lady Mary Douglas Hamilton, by whom in 1870 he had a son, Prince Louis: that marriage was, however, annulled in 1880, and subsequently Prince Albert married Alice, dowager-duchess of Richelieu, from whom he was divorced in 1902. ”

“ M. de Payan escaped without a scratch.”
Prince of Monaco! Prince of Monaco. And I had seen Lafont in Rabagas! I was not a “milk-and-water Rabagas,” as Mr. Cole called Mr. Lowe, when all the papers reported him to have said “milk-and-water Rabelais,” and the Spectator p. 14mildly wondered at the strangeness of the comparison. No, but I was somewhat of a milk-and-water Prince of Monaco after Lafont. What distinction! What carriage! If the princes of the earth were only like the princes of the stage, there would be no republicans. But then, fortunately, they are not. ”

“ Michael explained to his companion the strange features of the promontory that serves as a base for old Monaco. On the Southern part, among the rocks covered with century plants and prickly pear, the vegetation of the warm countries becomes acclimated with a facility that if one takes the latitude into account is truly extraordinary. On his visit to the palace of the Prince he had found in the warmer moats of the fortress, which are like natural hothouses, the same damp sticky heat that one finds in the forests of Equador, with their Brazilian palm trees that rise many yards in quest of light. ”

“ The population of the entire principality is only 19,000.
Monaco—the city of Monte Carlo in particular—is so greatly visited for two reasons,—its charming climate and situation, and its gaming tables. It is an excellent health resort, but is world famous as a gambling place. It was in 1861 that a man named François Blanc obtained a gambling concession in Monaco for fifty years from Charles III. A stock company later got hold of this concession, and in 1898 it was extended to 1947, in return for a payment to the prince of $2,000,000 in 1899 and another payment of $3,000,000 in 1913. ”

“ The people walking in the streets absent-mindedly whistle dance tunes from across the ocean and marching songs of the soldiers from the States. People stop in the squares to admire the skill of the Americans in shirt sleeves throwing a ball and sending it back again after catching it in a kind of fencing glove.
Monaco seems to have been conquered by the troops of the Great Republic; a good-natured and kindly conquest, which makes the conquered smile. It is the same in Nice and everywhere on the Riviera. The Prince recalls his brief stay in Paris a few days before. ”

“ The elected temporary ruler of our great American empire, even should it become greater by the annexation of Cuba and Mexico, can never expect to be addressed as "mon frère" by regularly born, bred, crowned and anointed sovereigns—or even by a reigning Prince or Grand Duke; can never hope to be embraced and kissed on both cheeks by even the Prince of Monaco, the King of the Sandwich Islands, or the Queen of Madagascar. ”

“ In truth a stranger family never sought the hospitality of Monaco, or brought yacht over the unsurpassably blue waters of the tideless sea; and the interest of the American, Kenner, and of the listless Englishman, Arnold Messenger—commonly known as "The Prince"—was entirely justified, even to the assumption that the crone-like woman had a past, and that her history was not to be told in the market-place. ”

“ Lucille particularly enjoyed the ride of eight miles east along the peaceful Mediterranean, also the visit to Monaco, capital of the principality of its own name, with an area of about 34,000 acres. Monaco is beautifully situated on a promontory in the sea, and has an attractive palace and cultivated terraces. The ruling prince resides here six months and at Paris the other six months. ”

“ We ought to be grateful to the august sovereign of Monaco in that he enabled an enterprising individual to keep open for us in so brilliant a fashion the last public gambling-house in Europe. The principality is but large enough to contain the court of the sovereign which is held in the little town of Monaco, and the establishment of the last of legitimate gamblers which is maintained at Monte Carlo. If the report of the world does not malign the prince, he lives, as does the gambler, out of the spoil taken from the gamblers. ”

“ Well, evil-minded people said of this prince that he smelled like a dead horse, and Madame the Princess simply could not endure defunct ‘gee-gee.’ So she decided that she had a perfect right to look for a soul-mate elsewhere, and be sure she got them by the score. Of course not in Monaco, as it is such a small country. She went to France, and particularly to Paris, for her amusements. And every time the Prince learned of a new lover worshipping at his wife’s shrine, he set up a gallows and hung the favored one in effigy with frightful ceremonies. ”

“ Every one of the gentlemen invited had come post-haste to her "hotel," to view the eggs with their own sceptical and [102] astonished eyes; and the fair young Countess and I tasted our first triumph in her cellar, whither we conducted Sir Peter Grebe, the Crown-Prince of Monaco, Baron de Becasse, and his Majesty King Christian of Finland.
Scepticism and incredulity gave place to excitement and unbounded enthusiasm. The old King embraced the Countess; Baron de Becasse attempted to kiss me ”

“ The Prince of little Monaco seems to be about the only one up to the situation, for he at least stays at home, and in connection with two other gentlemen runs an exceedingly good hotel and several restaurants on his estates, doing all he can to attract money into the place, while making the strictest laws to prevent his subjects gambling at the famous tables. ”

“ Women are not likely to abandon the idea of a compensation in the next world for the usage which too many of them meet with in this.
As for my failure at Monaco, I went too fast. I agree with Mr. Freeman, your English historian, that a sudden breach in the continuity of national institutions is an evil, and that “the witness of history teaches us that, in changing a long established form of executive government, p. 79the more gently and warily the work is done the more likely it is to be lasting.” I could have stopped at Monaco by humbling myself, but at all events I went too fast. ”

“ 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 [pg 704] Fieschi Adorno of Genoa, a lovely lady, but a faithless. ”

“ There are sixty soldiers and carbineers, and there are one hundred and fifty unpaid consular and diplomatic representatives of Monaco abroad.”
“How many servants have I in all, including stable men?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Then you mean to say that there are three hundred and sixty-one persons employed under the crown for a population of thirteen hundred male inhabitants of full age?”
p. 35“Yes, Sir, and M. Blanc employs on his works and at the Casino eight hundred of the remainder.” ”

“ M. Blanc, whose appearance I described before, is well known to gambling Europe as a distinguished political economist, the keeper of the greatest “hell” on earth, and the loving father of a pair of pretty and accomplished daughters, living upon roulette, but himself innocent nowadays of all games but the mildest patience—of which he knows sixty kinds. At Monaco he is more than a public character: he is a benefactor and a prince. Attacks may be made upon p. ”

“ I had no wish in my proposed reforms to reform out of existence my roulette revenue. I wished indeed to make good use of it; better use than my predecessors had done. I wanted to make of Monaco a Munich and a Dresden all in one. I would have a gallery of the greatest modern pictures—great ancient ones are not now to be obtained—a magnificent orchestra, a theatre of the first rank; art, in short, of all kind of the highest p. ”

“ I moved the councils to the palace, and fitted up the public offices thus rendered vacant as my museum. I got M. Lucas at the Casino to improve his already admirable orchestra, to start a free school for instrumental music, and to play once a week in the town of Monaco instead of at Monte Carlo. I wrote to M. Gounod, whom I had the honour to count among my friends, to offer him the Louis Quinze rooms beyond the Chambre d’York, at the north-west corner of the Castle, with the most lovely view in both directions, p. ”

“ 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. ”