Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/299

Rh He it was who conceived the idea of repairing his losses by the establishment of gaming tables at Monaco.

The princes had coined gold, silver, and copper money from 1505, with the legend, "Christus regnat, Christus imperat. Christus vincit." This legend became inappropriate thenceforth, in Monaco. In 1856 Charles III. started the gambling tables in a building adjoining the palace, afterwards occupied by the guard of honour. But the venture was not a success. Monaco was out of the way, hardly accessible from the land, where the Corniche Road ran high above, on the summit of the cliffs by La Turbie, so that it could be reached conveniently only by sea. The gambling concession passed through various hands, till, owing to the closing of the Casino at Homburg, M. Blanc thought of Monaco. In 1863 he went there, on March 31st, entered the bureau of the then concessioners, Lefebre and Co., and said, "You want to sell this affair; I am disposed to take it. Reflect. I shall return here at 3.30 p.m. I leave at 4 p.m. by the steamboat, and I want to have this matter settled before I go back to Nice." The company sold it to Blanc for 1,700,000 francs. On April 1st, All Fools' Day, 1863, Blanc formed La Société anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Étrangers à Monaco, for fifty years, with a capital of fifteen millions, represented by 30,000 shares of 500 francs each. One of the first to take shares in this gambling society was Pope Leo XIII., at the time only cardinal. Blanc was a little man, with moustache already white, aged fifty-seven, when he came to feather his nest, and that of the Prince of Monaco, at Monte Carlo. He married his daughter to Prince Roland