is said to have saved the political
existence of Monaco at the Congress of Vienna: but it is far more
wonderful that, after all the annexations of late years, it should still
remain an independent, though the smallest, principality in the world.
But even the Grimaldis have not managed wholly to escape from the
general luck of their fellow-rulers; Mentone and Roccabruna were ceded
to France some few years back for a sum of four million francs, and the
present lord of Monaco is the ruler of but a few streets and some two
thousand subjects. His army reminds one of the famous war establishment
of the older German princelings; one year indeed to the amazement of
beholders it rose to the gigantic force of four-and-twenty men; but
then, as we were gravely told by an official, "it had been doubled in
consequence of the war." Idler and absentee as he is, the Prince is
faithful to the traditions of his house; the merchant indeed sails
without dread beneath the once dreaded rocks of the pirate haunt; but a
new pirate town has risen on the shores of its bay. It is the pillage of
a host of gamblers that maintains the heroic army of Monaco, that
cleanses its streets, and fills the exchequer of its lord.

There is something exquisitely piquant in the contrast between the
gloomy sternness of the older robber-hold and the gaiety and
attractiveness of the new. Nothing can be prettier than the gardens,
rich in fountains and statues and tropical plants, which surround the
neat Parisian square of buildings. The hotel is splendidly decorated and
its _cuisine_ claims to be the best in Europe; there is a pleasant cafe;
the doors of the Casino itself stand hospitably open, and strangers may
wander without a question from hall to reading-room, or listen in the
concert-room to an excellent band which plays twice a-day. The salon
itself, the terrible "Hell" which one has pictured with all sorts of
Dantesque accompaniments, is a pleasant room, gaily painted, with cosies
all round it and a huge mass of gorgeous flowers in the centre. Nothing
can be more unlike one's preconceived ideas than the gambling itself, or
the aspect of the gamblers around the tables. Of the wild excitement,
the frenzy of gain, the outbursts of despair which one has come prepared
to witness, there is not a sign. The games strike the bystander as
singularly dull and uninteresting; one wearies of the perpetual deal and
turn-up of the cards at rouge-et-noir, of the rattle of the