Charles Garnier, the Parisian architect, came and built the Casino,
next to the Library of Congress at Washington and the Grand Opera House
at Paris the most beautiful building in the world, with incomparable
gardens and commanding esplanades to set it off and display it. Around
it palatial hotels and private mansions and villas sprang into
existence. Within it a gold-making wheel of fortune fabricated the
wherewithal. Old Man Grimaldi in his wildest dreams of land-piracy—even
Old Man Hohenzollern, or Old Man Hapsburg—never conceived the like.
There is no poverty, no want, no taxes—not any sign of dilapidation or
squalor anywhere in the principality of Monaco. Yet the “people,” so
called, have been known to lapse into a state of discontent. They
sometimes “yearned for freedom.” Too well fed and cared for, too rid of
dirt and debt, too flourishing, they “riz.” Prosperity grew monotonous.
They even had the nerve to demand a “Constitution.”
The reigning Prince was what Yellowplush would call “a scientific
gent.” His son and heir, however, had not his head in the clouds, being
in point of fact of the earth earthly, and, of consequence, more
popular than his father. He came down from the Castle on the hill to
the marketplace in the town and says he: “What do you galoots want,
anyhow?”
First, their “rights.” Then a change in the commander-in-chief of the
army, which had grown from six to sixteen. Finally, a Board of Aldermen
and a Common Council.
“Is that all?” says his Royal Highness. They said it was. “Then,” says
he, “take it, mes enfants, and bless you!”
So, all went well again. The toy sovereignty began to rattle around in
its own conceit, the “people” regarded themselves, and wished to be
regarded, as a chartered Democracy. The little gim-crack economic
system experienced the joys of reform. A “New Nationalism” was
established in the brewery down by the railway station and a
reciprocity treaty was negotiated between the Casino and Vanity Fair,
witnessing the introduction of two roulette tables and an extra brazier
for cigar stumps.
But the Prince of Monaco stood on one point. He would have no Committee
on Credentials. He told me once that he had heard of Tom Reed and Champ
Clark and Uncle Joe Cannon, but that he preferred Uncle Joe. He would,
and he did, name his own committees both in the Board of Aldermen and
the Common Council. Thus, for the time being, “insurgency” was quelled.
And once more serenely sat the Castle on the hill hard by the
Cathedral. Calmly again flowed the waters in the harbor. More and more
the autos honked outside the Casino. Within “the little ball ever goes
merrily round,” and according to the croupiers and the society
reporters “the gentleman wins and the poor gambler loses!”