A Book of The Riviera

Sir Hiram drily observes: —

“Considered from a purely mathematical standpoint, it would appear very remarkable that he should win seventeen consecutive times in the evening, and lose fifteen consecutive times the following morning.”

Captain Weihe of Hamburg, of the German Marine Artillery, has published in German and Italian a brochure, entitled, in the former language, Das Falschspiel in Monte Carlo, in which he brings a charge of fraud against the company, based on his observation during three seasons of steady watching the play. Now the chances of the ball entering a given pocket are calculable. According to him, the number of times, say in a thousand, in which, by the law of chances, the ball ought to enter a given number is calculable, here, however, it does not obey the law of chances.

Further, he says that he noticed that wealthy players were encouraged to proceed, by winning stake after stake, and then, all at once, luck would declare against them. Why, he wonders, should such men be lucky at first and only unlucky afterwards?

Then, he asserts that the agents of the company occasionally encourage a timorous player by advice, given with all secrecy, to stake on a certain number, and that then, by some remarkable coincidence, this number will win. These observations, he says, led him to the conclusion that there existed some method whereby the ball could be directed to go where the croupiers desired that it should go. Then he asserts that he assured himself that a piece of steel was inserted in a certain number of the balls, and that these loaded balls could be drawn into any pocket desired, by the chef de partie, by means of an electro magnet manipulated by himself. He further asserts that by close observation during three seasons, he was able, by watching the fingers of the chef, to predicate with something approaching to certainty into which number the ball would run.

The pamphlet in question is not sold at Nice or Mentone, and it need not be said is not allowed to pass over the frontier of the principality of Monaco, but it can be procured at Bordighera.

However, it appears very improbable that the bank would run such a risk. It is true that detection of roguery is not easy, where the tables are in a principality under an absolute monarch, and where police and every authority are interested in the continuance of the gambling. There is, however, the risk of some croupier “giving away the show”; and there is also the risk of detection. But – is cheating necessary? Is it worth its salt? Let us look closer into the acknowledged system. While playing on the even chances gives 1·35 per cent. in favour of the bank, playing on any other gives the bank 2·70; and as many fools play on those chances that favour the bank most highly, it is probably safe to assume that the odds in favour of the bank will average 1·66 on all the tables, both trente-et-quarante and roulette. If individuals playing would take in all the money they could afford to lose, divide this into so many maximums (if one did not suffice) and stake the full maximum on each chance, and then retire, whether winners or losers, they would then have given the bank the least possible advantage, as they would have subjected themselves to the chances of the zero appearing the least possible number of times. As, however, almost every player wishes to have as long a run for his money as possible, almost all players, whether playing by a so-called system or not, divide their stakes, whether made on an increasing or on a decreasing scale, or haphazard, into a number of comparatively small stakes, so as to stay in the game as long as possible, with the result that the bank’s percentage is constantly working against them. The thinner they spread out their money, and the longer they stay in the game, the greater are the chances of their losing their money.

If you go into the stock-market and buy the first stock your eye happens to catch on the list, you at least stand an even chance of its going up or down, while your brokerage and stamp charges will not amount to the 1·66 per cent. charged as brokerage by the Casino; whereas in the stock market the action will be comparatively slow, at Monte Carlo the brokerage charge is approximately 1·66 per minute. If fifty coups are played per hour, it means that as brokerage the bank each hour absorbs 83 per cent. of all the money staked for one coup, while each day the bank takes for its commission for permitting you to play there, about ten times the average amount staked on the table at any one time. As Sir Hiram Maxim says, the martingale is the least defective of all the systems. Were there no limit and no zero, this system of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc. must infallibly win, as, whenever a gain is made, no matter how many previous losses there have been, it lands the player a winner of one unit. The defect, however, is that, starting with the minimum stake, the maximum is reached at the eleventh doubling, and a run of eleven is of by no means an infrequent occurrence. Against this the bank protects itself in its most vulnerable place; even then, were its limits removed, yet it would be steadily levying its 1·66 commission.

It is accordingly not necessary for the company to have recourse to underhand work as charged by Captain Weihe; the income of £1,245,008 realised without trickery, on an average stake per table would be 611·55 fr. Any one who has been at Monte Carlo will admit that this is probably very much below the average amount of money on the table at each spin of the wheel; and with such an income, where arises the occasion for illicitly supplementing it? The following is a table of stakes needed to realise the known profits of the company:

Thus enabling the bank on average stakes of 611·55 francs to realise £1,245,008. But it must be remembered that it is only during the winter season that considerable play takes place at Monte Carlo. Also that before profits are declared the prince has to pocket his share, all the officials have to be paid, the police, the lighting, the gardens have to be kept going, and the scores of unacknowledged dependents on the Casino have to receive enough to maintain them. Every season a little book appears, advocating an infallible system, and some of these cost twenty-five francs. Of course, every system is based on the assumption that there is no trickery. But if there be trickery, not one of these systems is worth the cost of the book that advocates it.

“Le rouge gagne quelque fois, le noir gagne quelque fois, le blanc toujours.”

A very good story is told by “V. B.” in Monte Carlo Anecdotes, London, 1901. A few years ago a nobleman attended the English chapel and slipped out as the hymn was being sung before the sermon, as he went for worship and not be bored with the discourse. Now the hymn was No. 32, Ancient and Modern. He sauntered up to the Casino whistling the tune, and as he entered the rooms he heard, “Trente-deux, rouge, pair et passe!” sung out from the table on his right; and then from that on his left, “Trente-deux, rouge, pair et passe.” “Bless my soul!” said he, “that is the number of the hymn; be hanged if I won’t stake on it.” He hurriedly felt in his pocket, and going to the third table he announced, “Trente-deux en plein, les quatres chevaux, et quatres carrés par cinq francs”; and up rolled the number. To make a long story short, by passing from table to table, and by constantly clinging to 32 with gradually increasing stakes, he left the rooms with over £500 in his pocket. But this got wind, and, to the perplexity of the chaplain, next Sunday half his congregation left the chapel during the hymn before the sermon and rushed off to the Casino to back the number of the hymn.

After this it became the rule at the Monte Carlo English chapel never thenceforth to give out a number under thirty-seven before the sermon.

On the promontory of La Veille at the water’s edge is a grotto. When Edward Augustus, Duke of York, brother to George III., was on his way to Italy on a man-of-war, feeling too ill to proceed he was landed at Monaco and received into the palace, where he died in 1767. The body was embalmed and taken to London.

Fishermen always make the sign of the cross when passing the entrance of the Grotte de la Veille, for they say that when the vessel on which was the Duke of York arrived in the bay, a white form was seen, as that of a woman, at the entrance, watching the evolutions of the ship. After the Duke was removed she still remained visible, with her face turned towards the palace. She was again seen when the cannon announced his death, and again when his body was removed. The sailors hurry by the cave, and will on no account enter it. It might be as well if travellers crossed themselves and hurried by, instead of allowing themselves to be drawn into the halls of the Circe of Gambling on the top of the cliff.

CHAPTER XV

MENTONE

Configuration of the land – Favoured situation of Mentone: suitable for mid-winter – Old and new Mentone – Oranges and lemons – History of Mentone – Roquebrune – Passion Mystery – Castellan – Depredations of corsairs – Open-air ball – Dr. Bennet – The torrent of S. Louis – The Barma Grande – Prehistoric men

THE traveller by rail from Nice to Mentone is hardly able to appreciate the configuration of the land, and to understand what are the special advantages enjoyed by Mentone over Nice and Cannes.

Let us take a sickle to represent the mountain system from the Swiss Alps to the Abruzzi. If the sickle be held with the point upward and the cutting edge turned away from one, then the great curve of the inner edge represents the vast basin of the Po and its tributaries. At Mont Blanc the Alpine sweep turns south and runs to Monte Viso, forming the Dauphiné Alps. From Monte Viso the ridge curves to the east till it meets the shank above Genoa, and the handle of the sickle is the range of the Apennines.

From Nice one can see the snowy peaks. Les Cimes du Diable are visible, but away to the north-east, for the chain is on the curve there. Above the Riviera di Ponente the chain draws very near to the sea, but throws out spurs and allows of a ledge resting against it, intervening between it and the Mediterranean. Now in leaving Nice by the Corniche Road we can see this formation, we learn how the Alps describe a great arc; but this is lost to us in the train, hugging the sea-shore and diving in and out of tunnels.

It is only by the Corniche Road, when we have reached La Turbie, that we discern how specially privileged are Mentone and the Italian Riviera. We see before us an amphitheatre, with mountain stages, and the blue sea for arena. The mountains run up to 3,000 and 4,000 feet, and wall about the fertile bottom, the seats about the sea, sheltering them from every blast. The higher mountains of grey limestone are bare, but below all is rich with luxuriant vegetation.

“The entire bay and the town of Mentone, with its background of swelling, olive-clad hills closed in by the amphitheatre of mountains, are thus thoroughly protected from the north-west, north, and north-east winds. To thoroughly understand and appreciate the district and its singularly protected character, a boat should be taken, and the panorama viewed a mile or two from the shore. The extreme beauty of the coast will amply repay the trouble. Thus seen, all the details are blended into one harmonious whole; the two bays becoming one, and the little town scarcely dividing them. The grandeur of the semicircular range of mountains, generally steeped in glorious sunshine, also comes out in broad outline. These mountains positively appear to all but encircle the Mentonian amphitheatre in their arms, to thus separate it and its inhabitants from the world at large, and to present it to the blue Mediterranean waves and to the warm southern sunshine.

“Behind the mountains which thus form the background of the Mentonian valleys, are still higher mountains, rising in successive ranges to an altitude of from 5,000 to 9,000 feet. The higher ranges constitute the high Alps of Savoy and Dauphiné. The presence of this second and higher mountain range greatly increases the protection afforded to the coast-line by the lower one, and partly explains its immunity from the winter cold of continental Europe.

“Thus the Mentone amphitheatre, being only open to the south, south-east, and south-west, the Mistral, as a north-west wind, is not at all felt, and but slightly as a deflected south-west wind. All the northerly winds pass over the higher mountains and fall into the sea at some distance – several miles from the shore. When they reign there is a calm, not only in the bay at Mentone, but for some distance out at sea; whilst at a few miles from the shore it may be crested and furious.”[17 - Bennet, Winter and Spring on the Mediterranean. London, 1870.]

But this protected and warm nook can be enjoyed only during the months in the depth of winter. When the sun begins to gather warmth, the heat becomes oppressive, the lungs gasp for air, and one feels desirous to be invested with sufficient faith to be able to move the mountains some miles back. There are two Mentones, the very dashing, frivolous, up-to-date modern town, with expensive tastes; bound for life to the elderly Mentone, grave, a little dilapidated, and intent only on business. But young and gay Mentone is stealing an arm round the old partner and laying hold of the even more sheltered and balmy bay beyond, now dotted with villas, and punctuated with hotels.

Mentone is pre-eminently the district of lemons and oranges, grown here for the fruit, and not, as at Grasse, for the flower. Lemons at Mentone are more numerous than oranges. They are not so beautiful, as the fruit has not the golden hue of the orange – it is green or pale sulphur yellow. The fruit of the orange tree will bear 7° Fahr. below freezing point without being seriously affected, but the lemon tree is much more sensitive, and is killed by 8°; it may also perish by over-much moisture in the atmosphere. When a sharp frost sets in, the owners of a plantation of oranges or lemons are in dire alarm, and light fires in the groves, strewing green leaves and grass over the flames to produce smoke, which to a considerable extent prevents radiation, and the temperature falling too low.

The lemon tree flowers throughout the year, never resting, flower and fruit being on the tree at the same time. On no other part of the coast do these trees grow as freely as they do at Mentone and Bordighera. But there are no ancient lemon trees, as about once in thirty-five years a bitter winter sets in, and the poor trees perish.

The orange tree flowers once only in the year, and bears but a single crop. The fruit ripens in autumn and winter. We, in England, never have the orange in its perfection, as it is picked when green or turning golden and ripens in the cases in which it is packed. But for the orange to be in perfection, luscious and sweet, it should be left on the tree till the end of April, or even into May. It is a beautiful sight, during the winter, to see the orange groves laden with their glorious fruit. The most delicious oranges are those with thin skins, the Mandarin or Tangerine, which ripen earlier than do the Portuguese thick-skinned species.

The history of Mentone is not of great interest, and it may be dismissed in a few words. Mentone and rock-perched Roquebrune belonged to the Prince of Monaco. The Grimaldi, John II., having quarrelled with Genoa, appealed for help to the Duke of Savoy, and to buy this help, in 1448 ceded these two places to him for an annual rent of 200 gold florins. However, the Grimaldi got this territory back again, but lost it in 1848, when Mentone and Roquebrune revolted against the fiscal burdens imposed on them by the Prince, and declared themselves independent republics. The President of the Republic of Mentone was Charles Trenca, who died in 1853. Finally, in 1860, both places were united to France, and the claims of the Prince of Monaco were bought off for the sum of four million francs.

There is little of architectural interest in Mentone. The church, built in 1619, and added to in 1675, is in the tasteless style of the period, but tower and spire are effective from a distance. In the church is preserved a processional cross, the staff of which is formed out of a Turkish lance taken by Prince Honoré I. of Monaco, in the battle of Lepanto, 1571. But if Mentone be somewhat deficient in picturesque features, the same cannot be said of Roquebrune, which for so many centuries shared its fortunes. It is dominated by the castle of the Lascaris. At Roquebrune, every year, on the first Sunday in August, the Mystery of the Passion is represented in a procession that illustrates the various scenes of the portentous tragedy. It starts from the chapel of N.D. de la Pansa, on the east side of the little town, a chapel decorated with frescoes of the fifteenth century. The narrow streets, passing under vaults, the quaintness of the houses, above all the superb panorama commanded by Roquebrune, make it a place meriting a visit.

Still more quaint and picturesque is Castellar, forming a quadrilateral fortress, planted on a plateau commanding two valleys. It is composed of three long parallel streets. The exterior of the village or town is the wall that encloses the place, and the houses thus form the wall, and look outward only through eyelet holes. Turrets flank the angles. The chapel of S. Sebastian is romanesque. Here also the Lascaris had a palace. Castellar stands 1,200 feet above the sea. We can hardly realise till how late a period the pirates of the Mediterranean were a scourge to this coast, and forced the natives to build every village and town in a place not easily accessible, and form of it a fortress.

For many centuries first the Saracens, then the Turks and Moors of Tunis and Algiers, ravaged this coast. Not so much for gold and silver – for of this the poor fishermen, shepherds, and tillers of the soil had none, but to capture slaves. The women were handsome and the men able-bodied.

“There are still men living at Mentone,” says Dr. Bennet, “who in the early part of this century (i. e. 19th) were seized on the coast by Moors, and subsequently lived for years as slaves at Algiers and Tunis.” Indeed, piracy reigned supreme on the Mediterranean until the year 1816, when Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers; but it was not finally stamped out till the conquest of Algiers by the French in 1830. When Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers, there were thousands of Christian slaves, mostly captured on the Riviera, serving in the Algerine galleys. It was against the sudden descent of these pirates that the watch towers were erected along the coast, which may be seen at intervals as far as Genoa.

At Castellar, on the Place de la Mairie, is given on January 20th, every year, an open-air ball which winds up the series of festivities, religious and secular, accorded in honour of the patronal saint, S. Sebastian.

Mentone was “invented” by Dr. J. Henry Bennet, whose delightful book on Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean, 1861, has gone through several editions, and is still the best guide to such as are in quest of a winter resort. He settled at Mentone in 1859, and speedily appreciated its climatic advantages. These advantages are inestimable for the worst winter months. But when the sun gathers strength, it is advisable for the traveller to break his return journey to the cold and fogs of England by a cool bath in S. Raphael “ventosa.”

Sir Thomas Hanbury has also done much for the place. His gardens are well worth seeing. An electric tram will take a visitor along the bay to a fountain erected by Sir Thomas Hanbury, near the frontier of Italy. That frontier runs down the torrent of S. Louis, where may be seen, on a fine day, sketchers and painters engaged in transferring to their books or canvases the impression produced by this ravine, with arches one above the other, for the railway and for the Corniche Road, whilst below are women washing garments in the little stream. The magnificent cliffs rise here in sheer precipices, and are composed of nummulitic limestone. Formerly the headland stretched to the sea, leaving only a strip between the rocks and the waves, along which strip ran the Via Aurelia. The rock was perforated with caves, nine in number. But it has been cut back for building stone, and the grottoes have been much reduced in depth. The caves served as a habitation for man from a remote period, and not solely as a habitation, but also as a sepulchre. The Barma Grande was filled to a depth of thirty feet of deposit, that deposit consisting of fallen stones, bones of beasts, flint weapons and tools, remains of hearths and charcoal, and human skeletons.

It has been dug into by many and various explorers, and not always with judgment, and with precise record of the depths at which various discoveries have been made.

The present proprietor used the soil for the purpose of making a garden, and it was only when he came upon human remains that it occurred to him that he could turn the cavern into a show place, and get more out of it in that way than he could by growing cabbages in the soil removed from it. In these caves a considerable number of skeletons have been found; in the first, the Grotte des Enfants, two bodies were discovered of children of six and four years old, lying at a depth of eight feet, side by side. They had evidently been clothed in little loin-cloths embroidered with pierced shells.

In the fourth cave, the Grotte du Cavillon, was found the skeleton of an adult twenty feet below the surface, lying on his left side, the cheek resting on the left hand, and the head and body had been dusted over with red ochre, which had stained the bones. The head had been covered with a sort of cap made of, or adorned with, perforated shells and dogs’ teeth, and similar ornaments must have been stitched on to garters about his legs.

The sixth cave, Bausso da Torre, furnished two bodies of adults and one of a child, and with these were flint weapons, bracelets, and necklets of shells.

In 1884 M. Louis Julien found a human skeleton lying at a depth of twenty-five feet, the head bedded in red ochre, and near it numerous flakes of flint. Since then others have been found, and the present proprietor has preserved them in situ, under glass, in the cave, at the precise levels at which discovered. In 1892, three were found, all lying on their left sides. One of these had pertained to a young woman. All three had been buried along with their personal ornaments, and all with the ferruginous powder over them.

Finally, in 1894, another human skeleton was unearthed at a higher level; and soon after again another.

All these interments belong to man at a period before the use of metals was known, and when the only tools employed were of bone and flint. The purpose of covering them with red oxide was to give to the bodies a fictitious appearance of life. The men were of a great size, tall and well built, taller indeed than are the natives of the Riviera at the present day; and the heads are well developed – the skulls contained plenty of brains, and there is nothing simian about the faces.

A little prehistoric museum has been built on a platform near the caves, where most of the relics found in them are preserved; but some are in the museum at Mentone itself.

CHAPTER XVI

BORDIGHERA

Ventimiglia – Internecine conflicts – Republics – Genoa obtains the Ligurian coast – Siege of Ventimiglia – Guelf and Ghibellines – The Lascaris family: Paul Louis Lascaris – The Cathedral and Baptistery – S. Michaele – Camporosso – Dolceacqua – Bordighera – San Ampelio – Relics – Retreat of the sea

VENTIMIGLIA, crowning a rocky ridge above the Roya, was formerly the capital of a county comprising of all the coast to Porto Maurizio. What Mr. Adington Symonds says of Italian towns generally in the Middle Ages applies equally to those on the Riviera: —

“It would seem as though the most ancient furies of antagonistic races, enchained and suspended for centuries by the magic of Rome, had been unloosed; as though the indigenous populations, tamed by antique culture, were reverting to their primeval instincts. Nor is this the end of the perplexity. Not only are the cities at war with each other, but they are plunged in ceaseless strife within the circuit of their ramparts. The people with the nobles, the burghs with the castles, the plebeians with the burgher aristocracy, the men of commerce with the men of arms and ancient lineage, Guelfs and Ghibellines, clash together in persistent fury. One half the city expels the other half. The exiles roam abroad, cement alliances, and return to extirpate their conquerors. Fresh proscriptions and new expulsions follow. Again alliances are made and revolutions are accomplished. All the ancient feuds of the towns are crossed, recrossed, and tangled in a web of madness that defies analysis.”[18 - Age of the Despots, ch. ii.]