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Before leaving America, in the spring of 1886, I read in the London “Times” a slashing attack on the celebrated train de luxe which runs twice a week from Paris to Nice. The writer—an Englishman—had missed a connection which he should have made by that train. So he relieved his mind—as traveling Britons are apt to do—by pitching into the delinquent through the columns of a journal still supposed to be powerful for warning and chastisement. I observed that in all his fury he did not declare that the train lacked comforts or even the luxuries claimed in its high-sounding name. Therefore we determined to try it, as it offered a passage from Paris to Nice in nineteen hours; and we did not regret the choice.

The whole distance is 675 miles. Two first-class fares paid to the P. L. M. (“short” for Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway) amount to $53.68. Add to this $41.45 as special charges for the train de luxe—run by a separate company—and you have $95.13 as the joint first outlay for the trip. If any railway-riding in the United States is more than half as expensive as this, I have yet to discover it. The sleeping-cars do not seem to be either Wagner or Pullman; they more nearly resemble the Mann Boudoir. They are not quite as large as those in America, and are more solidly built. The compartments are designed for parties of two or four each, and have doors which make a desired privacy for the inmates. These little rooms occupy the whole width of the car, except a narrow passage for common use running lengthwise. The beds are exceedingly comfortable, and are metamorphosed into handsome sofas for the daytime. A restaurant-car accompanies the train; and in this good fare may be had à la carte, at all hours, and an elaborate table d’hôte twice a day. The attendants are alert and polite. Everybody on the train de luxe seems to feel a personal responsibility in keeping up its reputation and reconciling passengers to their large disbursement of money. It was my good fortune—as an American—to enlist at once the kindest sympathy of the Paris agent of the sleeping-car company, as also of the conductor. By the courtesy of those officials we were allowed to tenant a room for four, though paying only for two persons. This gave us plenty of space, and perhaps accounts in part for the general satisfaction I experienced.

Though the rate of speed averaged thirty-five miles an hour, there was little vibratory motion and no jarring whenever the train stopped or started again. If the P. L. M. does not use the Westinghouse air-brake and Miller platform, it has equivalent contrivances of its own just as good.

A better night’s rest could not be asked for than the one I enjoyed till the train de luxe pulled up in the Lyons station at 6.25 A. M. on time. The Paris we had left at 9.25 Wednesday night, April 14th, was anything but gay. A cold rain swept the deserted streets and deepened the gloom everywhere observable on the faces of hotel-landlords, shopkeepers, and cabmen. Trade had been stagnant there all winter, and the spring season—with its promises of better times—was deplorably backward. But I must not omit to mention that it was further along than in America, or even England. The trees which line the Champs-Elysées were in full leaf, and the Bois de Boulogne was thick with shade. But a keen north wind came down upon Paris while we were there, and we were glad to quit it.

Next morning as we entered Lyons I raised the curtain at the foot of my little bed, and lo! a sight of enchantment. An unclouded sun lighted up the great manufacturing city and its environs and glorified everything. The general impression was that of an entrance to Italy. The roofs of all the houses wear the peculiar earthen tiles which one sees in Italian towns. The church-steeples begin to resemble campaniles. Olive-trees are possible in the soft climate of this part of Southern France. The natives, who swarm about the station at an early hour and gaze wonderingly at the train de luxe, are swarthy of face and profuse of gesture—more Italian than French in outward appearance. But our greatest delight was in the increasing warmth of the outer air, for the car had required heating on that cold night of a northern spring. A dainty breakfast—served on the snowiest of linen—at a table from which we could study the sunny landscape as we whirled along, completed the prelude of a lovely day. Our next stop was at Marseilles, where we changed locomotives. There the Mediterranean came into view, but a cloud over the sun prevented that full revelation of its beauties which we saw later on. What a glamour genius throws over common things! The Château d’If is nothing but a square-built tower, standing on a little island in the harbor of Marseilles. It is neither grand nor picturesque. I should not have glanced at it a second time if Dumas had not forever linked it in my mind with the imprisonment and daring escape of his Count of Monte Cristo. There may be much to see and admire in Marseilles, but I could only think of Edmond Dantes and his wonderful adventures.

Nice, into the station of which we punctually rolled amid a crowd of staring spectators, was then out of season. As a winter resort much beloved by consumptives and tired-out people, it deserves its fame. Orange and lemon trees, aloes, palms, oleanders, acacias, and many other tropical plants, thrive there in the months that are coldest elsewhere. Nice faces the Mediterranean toward the south, and is sheltered from every rude wind by the towering Maritime Alps. The fashionable season proper had already terminated with the opening of Parliament—which is the invariable signal for the resumption of social gayeties in London. The richest patrons of Nice, as of all this coast, are Englishmen. And as they leave, the great hotels begin to close in the very month when Nature is most actively renewing herself and looking her best. Even Nice, with all her tropical proclivities, is capable of being chilly upon occasion. Snow had visited the place within a month, and we found a fire comfortable in our chamber. It seemed strange to be toasting one’s feet at the hearth, and looking out of window upon gardens golden with oranges and bristling with gigantic palms, or thick-set with monstrous specimens of that vegetable devil-fish known as the agave or century-plant. The arms or tentacles of these are twelve or fifteen feet long and two or three feet thick at the butt. Fill in this rough outline with lilacs, daisies, geraniums, heliotropes, and tea-roses, and the reader may realize what was seen from every hotel window and balcony on the Riviera di ponente.

We took the Corniche road by private carriage from Nice to Mentone, about nineteen miles. It is a marvelous piece of engineering skill, gaining a height of 1,500 feet by a bold succession of zigzags. As its name implies, this road is a mere cornice. It is cut into the sides of mountains, and in places overhangs frightful precipices. During the first hour of our journey I frequently jumped out of the carriage to pick the strange and exquisite wild flowers which grew along the road-side. But we soon reached the altitude where these attractions ceased, and we were called upon to admire the beetling rocks which towered far above us. This rugged scenery was in the ascendant most of the time. It makes the Corniche route grand in its savage loneliness, but beautiful I can not call it. But beauty flashed upon us in the distance whenever a turn of the road brought the Mediterranean into view. Under a brilliant sun that sea looks like a limitless stretch of changeable silk, full of graceful wrinkles. Near the shore its predominant color is light blue. Toward the horizon, this deepens into a darker shade. Purples and greens may also be descried in larger masses and clearer tints than one observes in the broad Atlantic in any of its moods.

We lunched at a little hamlet—Turbi—perched high up in the mountains. The landlord of the Grand Hotel at Nice had advised me to try ham and eggs, as the least objectionable dish to be obtained off-hand at the Turbi inn. The landlady accepted the order in the most accommodating spirit, and after a little delay brought in some slices of raw ham and boiled eggs. I then described to her as well as I knew how the American process of cooking ham and eggs. Her face lighted up with intelligence, and she retired to try again. Fifteen minutes later she came back with the eggs stirred up in a mess at the bottom of a skillet and the raw ham reposing beneath them, where it had been slightly warmed in the new operation. But the vin du pays was honest and palatable. Bread and cheese are always good to a hungry man. We stayed our appetites, if we did not lunch exactly to our liking. From Turbi to Mentone the road is mostly down-hill, and the scenery a repetition of what we had seen in the first half of the Corniche. As for Mentone itself, it is Nice over again, with a slight difference of location, but much smaller.

I have seen the notorious games at Monte Carlo (five or six miles from Mentone), strictly as an outsider. There is no lovelier spot under the whole heavens. Nature and the art paid for out of the enormous gains of the greatest gambling-hell on earth have done everything to make a paradise of Monte Carlo. The Casino is a palace in size and splendor. The surrounding gardens are full of the choicest flowers and musical with birds and waterfalls. Mountains exclude every biting wind. Three hundred feet below the promontory lies the matchless Mediterranean. All around are beautiful villas and large and elegant hotels and restaurants worthy of Paris. The season at Monte Carlo lasts the year round, and is always prosperous. Admission to the salle de jeu is not to be had for the asking. No one under twenty-one years of age can enter. As no resident—but only the stranger—is allowed access to the Casino, the local population is not hurt by the game. I was obliged to present my visiting-card at the bureau and write my name on the back of a ticket. Then, after surrendering my umbrella, the great doors of the den were thrown open to me. I had read of so many suicides committed at this place that I quite expected, when I entered, to interrupt some ruined gambler in the act of blowing out his silly brains. Instead of confronting such a tragedy, I found myself in the presence of a large company of quiet people, sitting around long tables, watching a revolving wheel in the center, and listening to the click of the little ivory ball as it slackened and fell into a numbered compartment of the wheel and determined the gain or loss of the players. There are four of these roulette-tables, and two others in an adjoining room, at which only trente et quarante is played, the latter a game of cards. No game lasts over a minute, so that the suspense is not long and agonizing. The London illustrated papers have lately represented the gamesters of both sexes as uniformly hideous. Their countenances were made infernal with avarice. As for the croupiers, who rake in or pay out the money, they were depicted as fiends incarnate.

Speaking of suicides, I learned that, only two days before my visit, a man who had lost all at one of the tables suddenly whipped out a pistol and shot himself. He was quietly removed, and the roulette and trente et quarante went on without interruption. A lady, who had been watching the play on one occasion, told me that she saw a person seize from the table a little pile of money which had been won by another. He appealed for redress to the superintendent of the Casino. The latter did not stop to inquire into the justice of the claim, but immediately paid over to the second player the sum which he said had been thus publicly stolen from him. This little incident proves the constant anxiety of the “administration” to avoid disagreeable scenes and scandals. But the suicides can not be stopped, as men, acting under the sudden impulse of despair, will kill themselves before the “bank” can solace them with the donations it is always ready to make for the relief of ruined gamesters. The French Government could, if it would, in the capacity of protector and powerful neighbor, suppress the monstrous evil of Monte Carlo. But Prince Charles manages to keep in favor at Paris, not merely by his personal residence there, but by a full-blown legation, which he maintains at the French capital for diplomatic purposes, just like a first-class sovereign.

Describing people as I find them, I must say that the male players seemed an average lot of human beings. The females were more mixed and questionable. The croupiers were evidently wearied and bored, but on the whole good-looking and certainly amiable. Most of the players were of frugal mind. The usual stake was a five-franc piece; napoleons were scarce. One reckless man who put up ten of them at a time, turned pale when he lost them all, and hauled out of the game. No one lost much at any table under my observation, and in not a single case did a player gain the possible maximum of thirty-five times the amount of his stake. To a looker-on the spectacle was monotonous in the highest degree. Perhaps it is livelier toward midnight than in the afternoon when I saw it. But, whether slow or swift, it is none the less to be condemned as demoralizing in its far-reaching influences, productive of thefts and embezzlements, as well as the undoubted cause of many suicides. How any person can turn his back on all these beauties of nature and art, and give himself up to such a sordid and destructive vice, is a puzzle to every well-regulated mind.

After seeing the games at Monte Carlo, I visited the palace of Prince Charles at Monaco. Careless writers use the two names interchangeably. Be it understood, then, that Monte Carlo is part of the diminutive principality of Monaco. The less is included in the greater. The prince’s palace is situated at the other end of his possessions, about a mile from the Casino. He never occupies it. He lives in luxurious retirement at Paris on the large revenues derived from a lease of the gambling monopoly. But he is cut off from many of the pleasures of this life, as he is stone-blind. His ample income enables him to remit all taxes to his few thousand subjects, and to keep a really beautiful palace on show for all comers. Not to be wanting in any of the outward signs of sovereignty, he maintains an “army” of fine fellows—sixty-five strong—and has a park of highly burnished artillery pointing seaward. Hundreds of cannon-balls are piled up symmetrically in his palace yard. At the great gates of the edifice, as I approached it, stood two good-looking soldiers. One rested gracefully on his shining musket, and the other played with a tame crow which hopped about in the grass. Seeing me, he recovered his erect position and dignity, and returned my courteous salute. I asked permission to enter the palace. With a gesture he referred me to a gorgeous personage, looking like three major-generals rolled into one, who suddenly appeared in a doorway. I took him for the commander-in-chief; but he was only the concierge. With a profound bow he requested my visiting-card, which I gave him. Then, after registering my name, I was turned over to another less splendid but still imposing official, who showed me through the long galleries and suites of rooms. They are full of costly pictures and statues, and magnificently upholstered. But they have the cold, cheerless atmosphere and stuffy smell of all uninhabited houses however grand. I was glad to escape from the wearisome round into the open air.

The blind prince not only exempts his subjects from taxes, but he provides for several good schools, and is a liberal supporter of the Roman Catholic Church. A fine cathedral is now rising at Monaco.

Public morals are so deeply concerned in the suppression of the Monte Carlo games that I do not yet feel like quitting them. I will take a fresh start in Chapter II, and isolate for description a few types of character among the many that may be seen at the Casino. We will watch them at work (for it is no “play” to them save in name), amid seductions difficult to be withstood by any will that does not rest on principles.

I now beg leave to introduce the reader to Oldpaint, Cockspur, and North Adams.