UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES
For the gambler and the cocotte, the Riviera means merely Monte Carlo. The gambler is drawn by the lure of the green tables in the splendid Casino. The cocotte goes where the money-spending crowd is to be found, where she may show her frocks and her jewels and her beauty, where recklessness and extravagance and excitement are in the air. She gambles, too, carelessly or cannily, according to her temperament, and she loves to make a sensation on the terrace, in the Café de Paris, at Ciro's, or best of all in the Casino, where the apparition that draws attention from the piles of money on the green felt must be startling indeed.
Incidentally she acknowledges that there are wonderful views and dazzling sunshine and invigorating air outside the brilliantly lighted, over-heated Casino, and that these things contribute to her enjoyment; but she is not an ardent nature lover, this Parisienne, and she would find the Riviera deadly dull without the life that centres round the gaming tables.
Even the residential element and the smart hotel set of aristocratic Cannes and Anglo-American Nice, of Cap Martin and Beaulieu and Cimiez and Mentone, feel the fascination of M. Blanc's earthly paradise upon the Monaco promontory and spend considerable time there in the course of the season; but for this class the social season is as important as the gambling, and Monte Carlo is but a single feature of the Riviera scheme.
It has been said that Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo represent, respectively, the world, the flesh, and the devil; and the classification is roughly accurate. Cannes has the most exclusive social life along the coast; its villas are occupied by folk whose names rank high in the social blue-books of the European capitals; the registers of its hotels bristle with sounding titles and its swell clubs have membership lists calculated to impress anyone who loves a lord. The Napoule Golf Club at Cannes has a Russian Grand Duke for president and an English Duke for vice-president; and, on the links, counts and barons, belted earls and multi-millionaires, are thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Even princes and potentates drive off the tees and struggle in the bunkers. One sees rather more of London than of Paris in the crowd, but there are Parisians, too, and they are even more English than the English in their sporting proclivities, for fashion is a more aggressive thing than nature. The whole atmosphere is English at Napoule. From the architecture of the picturesque timbered club-house to the h's of the servants, everything has a fine British flavour, and save for the frocks of the women and the fluent Parisian French dividing honours with English on the links and in the club-house, there is little to remind the guest that he is in France.
Down in the town, and along the famous Promenade de la Croisette, there is a different story. Here, too, a large percentage of the fashionable crowd is English, but the setting is French where it is not Italian. The Croisette, the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, the terrace at Monte Carlo, are three of the most beautiful, the most fashionable, the most amusing promenades in the world, and the idler may spend many profitable hours upon any one of the three; but each has its distinctive flavour just as each of the three towns has its own local colour and its own crowd, though all share alike in the sparkling beauty of the Riviera summer land.
Yachting is an institution even more important than golf in the programme of Cannes. The Cercle Nautique, one of the chief rendezvous for the society set, is exclusive to the last degree, and out in the beautiful harbour splendid sea-going yachts from all parts of Europe and from America are anchored during the season. Some of the yacht owners prefer living in hotels or villas during their sojourn and use the boats for cruising only; but more live aboard their floating palaces, and there is constant going and coming twixt yachts and quai, to the immense entertainment of outsiders who get no nearer than this to the social life at Cannes. Carriages roll up to the landing and deposit wonderfully gowned women and men whose names are whispered knowingly by the watching throng. Launches are waiting to receive the load of fashion and celebrity. There is a tableau of coquetry and chiffons, a shuffling of royal highnesses and wealthy commoners, and the little boats move off toward the yacht, where luncheon will be served on deck under the awnings, to the accompaniment of tinkling mandolins and guitars.
There are worse things even for royalty than to sit at a violet-strewn table under awnings that flap in the soft sea breeze of a sunshiny February day, and, in the intervals of a luncheon prepared by an artist for an epicure, to look off across dimpling blue water to a curving white line of shore where promenaders make bright impressionistic dashes of colour in the sunlight, and to the grove-embowered villas, the imposing, many-pillared hotels, the mediæval little villages that climb the verdure-clad mountains behind the town.
Cannes is lovely,—far lovelier than Nice in its natural scenery, but Cannes is cold to tourists, dull for those who have not the open sesame to its charmed social circle. The ordinary visitor will find Nice far more gay. Here, too, there is an exclusive villa and hotel set, but it does not dominate the situation as at Cannes. There is welcome and entertainment for everyone at Nice. On the Promenade des Anglais stroll men and women from all countries and all classes, and queer groups collect at "la potinière," the gossip rendezvous which ends the promenade. The new town with its public parks, its fascinating shops, its luxurious hotels and modest hostelries, its gorgeous restaurants and its cheap eating-places, its clubs, its gambling, its flower markets, its tide of restless pleasure seekers, is as gay a place as the world holds when the Riviera season is at its height, and though one may live there cheaply or extravagantly, it would be difficult to live there dully, unless one were a hardened misanthrope; for all things woo to pleasant folly, and jollity is in the air.
To stroll from one's hotel to the famous promenade on a bright morning is to snap one's fingers at carking care. The sunshine is such fluid gold as no northern country knows, the air is fresh, intoxicating, full of warring sea scents and flower perfumes, a sky wonderfully soft, deeply blue is overhead, the Mediterranean is a marvellous changing sea of turquoise and sapphire and amethyst and beryl, with here and there high golden lights where the sun catches a ripple of foam. Boys and girls hold out great handfuls of big, long-stemmed purple violets to you and the fragrance comes sweet and heavy to your nostrils. Women in light summer frocks stroll along the broad white walk, stopping to chat with friends; on the roadway which the promenade borders, roll luxurious private carriages, smart dog-carts, hired fiacres, hotel wagons, all loaded with smiling folk, for one smiles perforce in this world of sunshine and flowers and laughter.
On the inland side of the roadway is a line of hotels and villas and cafés and shops, with tropical gardens breaking the line of gleaming white buildings; and in those shops one may find the best that European merchants have to offer to extravagant womankind; for the famous jewellers and milliners and dressmakers of Paris, London, and Vienna have branch establishments here, and the proprietors of the great houses often spend the season in villas at Nice or Monte Carlo and oversee in person their lively Riviera trade.
The Palace of Folly—Monte Carlo
Paquin, Beer, Doeuillet, and their peers are familiar figures at Nice and Monte Carlo; and these mighty ones of the fashion world may well feel, with a glow of satisfaction, that they are responsible for much of the glittering show that passes in review under their critical eyes.
Nice is not given over wholly to fresh air and promenading.
Down in the Casino of the jetty, a pavilion of many minarets which opens off from the promenade and under whose foundations the sea washes listlessly, there is gambling—trente et quarante, roulette, and, in the more exclusive club-rooms to which one is admitted only by card, baccarat; but gambling is an incident at Nice. All things save gambling are incidental at Monte Carlo, and while a host of folk live in Nice without playing at the jetty Casino or the municipal Casino, but few visitors to Monte Carlo resist the fascination of the gaming tables. There is always a crowd at the jetty Casino after luncheon, lounging, gossiping, gaming, listening to the excellent orchestra; and the crowd about the gambling tables is the mixed and motley crowd one always finds in such a situation, but there are fewer smart folk at the trente et quarante and roulette tables than one sees at corresponding tables in Monte Carlo. The fashionables of Nice choose the baccarat club-rooms for their rendezvous, and it is there that you must go to see modish women and well-known men gossiping, flirting, and playing high.
There is a popular restaurant adjoining the gambling rooms,—a gorgeous restaurant, brilliant with scarlet lacquer and Chinese decorations, though chop suey is not on the menu,—and many of the baccarat players dine or sup there; but there are so many places in which to lunch or dine or sup in Nice that one may find a meal to suit any palate, and a price to suit any purse.
The Helder has the same proprietor as Armenonville and the Café de Paris, and much the same crowd. The Regence is the Helder's great rival, and after these comes a long line of town restaurants, each with its individual claim upon the diner's attention, while out on the hills and all along the coast are famous hotel restaurants and cafés to which the gay Nicois resort.
There is tea-drinking, too, and the places where women flock at the tea hour are many, but while my lady of aristocratic Cannes is likely to drink her tea at the Cercle Nautique or in some other exclusive haunt, Madame of Nice frequents tea-rooms such as those of Paris; and tea hour at a place like Vogades offers an interesting study in femininity, though the crowd is frightfully mixed and, sometimes, unconscionably gay.
It is during carnival time that gaiety becomes a trifle furious at Vogades. The regular winter visitors and residents of Nice frown upon King Carnival and dread his advent; but for the transient visitor the show is an amusing one and the common folk of Nice throw themselves into the celebration with a gay abandon that sometimes approaches objectionable license. Who cares whether a few fastidious critics are holding aloof from carnival gaieties when ninety per cent of the motley populace of Nice is eating, drinking, dancing, and making merry, when fun and folly are running riot, when all the town is ablaze with garlands of electric lights and artificial flowers, when confetti is raining through the air and grotesque figures fill the streets.
Vulgar, of course. All carnivals are vulgar and the line between mirth and horse-play is easily crossed, but it is a pity not to see the carnival at Nice at least once, and not to enter into the spirit of the thing, without a handicap of aristocratic prejudices. The age of spontaneous mummery is past and carnival foolery has a strained and artificial note in this self-conscious day, but one may be merry in Nice when King Carnival sits enthroned and a multitude, hiding its irresponsibility behind masks, gives itself up to folly.
All through the season there are fêtes in Nice. The Battle of Flowers is more like the real thing than is the Parisian imitation; the Corso Automobile Fleuri brings out a brave array of flower-decorated automobiles; the children's flower fête is the prettiest thing of its kind in Europe; and there is a water fête in the bay of Villefranche, where flower-decorated boats and floats loaded with musicians and merry-makers swarm on the blue water, and flower battles rage amid music and laughter and the murmur of the waves. Grim war-vessels are usually lying in the harbour and the revellers row out to pelt the monsters derisively with flowers and jests, and to aim violet bunches impartially at the cannon's mouth and the ranking officer's head.
Yes, Nice is gay,—absurdly gay; and if, at its gayest, it is not smart, still one will see the loveliest of Parisian toilettes in the restaurants and the Casino, and on the promenade.
There are lovely villas in Nice, hidden away, even in the more crowded parts of the town, among palms and aloes and banana trees and eucalyptus, and gay with yellow mimosa and other flowering things while behind the town on the hillsides are villas lovelier still, gleaming white amid groves of orange and lemon trees and tropical vegetation, and overlooking shore and sea. Wherever there is space for them flowers grow, and every breath of air is sweet-scented. In the distance, beyond the grey-green slopes where the olives thrive, are misty, snow-capped mountains, and far away along the coast stretches the white thread of the Corniche road, that road of marvellous views and picturesque surprises, which is the heart's delight of the motor maniacs on the Riviera.
Motoring is a passion with the Riviera crowd as with every holiday crowd to-day, and though many of the roads are too steep and narrow and rugged for motors, or even for comfortable driving, the few that are practicable are beautiful enough not to grow monotonous. From one resort to another, all along the coast, the automobiles go scudding, and even the steep hills of Monte Carlo swarm with puffing cars. A little danger more or less makes small impression upon the Monte Carlo crowd. Skidding recklessly down hill is, figuratively speaking, the metier of so many of the throng that haunts the Casino and fills the great hotels.
Life at Monte Carlo is essentially sensational. A continual whirl of excitement seems to be the ideal of the habitué, and the class that centres there spends money recklessly, without reserve and without calculation. There are gamblers who haven't the money to spend; but they live cheaply at some one of the nearby resorts, where they may lose themselves between Casino hours, and in the little town of fine hotels and cafés and shops which clings to the skirts of the Casino, life goes to a merry tune. Perhaps the unwholesome fever of the gaming rooms infects the district; but, whatever the cause, Monte Carlo sees little of the sanely joyous life that may be found at other Riviera resorts. Everything is brilliant, luxurious, dramatic, but of restfulness and simple pleasure the beautiful spot knows nothing, and though, for a few days, even the fastidious traveller may be well amused there, for a longer stay it is wise to go outside of the miasmic circle.
The incongruity between drama and setting is one of the most striking things about the place, though familiarity dulls the first swift impression of the contrast. If ever man diverted God-given beauty to the devil's uses, he has done it there upon the Monaco shore, and the serpent was no more out of place in Paradise than is a gambling Casino on that picturesque promontory overlooking the Mediterranean—but the daughters of Eve have smiled upon the Casino as their ancestors smiled upon the serpent, and though their gambling has been for smaller stakes than hers, they have made a somewhat spectacular record of their own. The feminine element at Monte Carlo is one of the most characteristic and dramatic features of the resort. Nowhere else in the world will one see women of all classes gambling openly and heavily; nowhere else are the alpha and omega of feminine folly so sharply and obviously contrasted—and so gaily and recklessly ignored. Around the tables, from opening until closing hour, crowd women derelicts; each train that stops at the station below the wonderful terraces brings more. The veriest ingénue might read the stories of wreck and disaster, yet the warning makes not the faintest impression upon the fair feminine craft steering head on toward the rocks.
How can Fifi of the wonderful frocks and jewels guess that she will lose once too often at the little green tables, that the day of adorers ready and eager to pay her losses will pass, that youth and beauty will make way for such shrivelled and haggard age as that of the painted and bedizened harpies who haunt the gaming rooms, staking their few francs and watching for opportunities of making way with the stakes of other players.
For the average casual visitor to Monte Carlo, these hags of the Casino are among the sharpest and cleanest cut of first impressions. Later one grows used to them, ignores them, allows them to take their places in the shifting human panorama that is in its way as fascinating as the roulette and trente et quarante which brings the crowd together; but at first these hideous old women of the furrowed faces plastered with rouge, of the furtive eyes, of the loose lips, the trembling claw-like hands, the dirty laces, the false jewels, have a hateful fascination, obscure all other impressions.
There are many of the harpies living entirely by fraud, and though croupiers, detectives, and attendants know some of them and suspect others, it seems impossible to keep them out of the Casino. Occasionally the doors are barred to someone, but under the present administration admission rules are more lax than they were in the old days, and the whole character of the Casino crowd, while perhaps not more vicious, is certainly more vulgar than it was under M. Blanc's régime.
The system of the women thieves is a simple one. An excited crowd surrounds a roulette table; many of the players know comparatively little about the game. The stakes are placed, money is lost or won, and raked in or distributed, in less time than is required for the telling of it. While a novice hesitates, wondering whether the money on a certain number is really hers, a yellow hand reaches across her shoulder and snatches the stakes. Even if the victim is sure that she knows the offender, she hesitates to make a scene, to be implicated in a gaming-room scandal, and the thief audaciously counts upon this immunity. Sometimes, however, an attendant sees the transaction and lays a firm hand upon the old woman's arm before she can get away. Or perhaps the croupier of the immobile face and the eyes that see all things notices the hand closing upon money to which it has no right and brings his rake down sharply upon the thin wrist in time to stop the move.
There are other wrinkled and haggard old women in the Casino crowd,—women less contemptible, more pitiable, but unpleasant sights for all that. They come to the gambling rooms to play, not to steal; but the gambling fever has burned out all that was pure womanly in them and nothing is left to them in life save the vice they hug to their hearts. Some of them have been playing there ever since the first years of the Casino, missing never a day from the opening to the closing of the season, and usually staying all day long in the hot, ill-ventilated rooms. They have but little money and they play cautiously, watching the run of the game, making innumerable notes in little note-books, taking no great risks.
One Russian princess is among the number. Old habitués of the Casino say that when she came there first, twenty-five years ago, she was beautiful, superbly gowned, magnificently bejewelled, but gaming is in the Russian blood and the princess was a born gambler. She squandered her fortune, pawned her jewels, sank lower and lower in the gambling mire, gave herself up more and more unreservedly to her absorbing passion. To-day, she lives in a cheap pension at Mentone and belongs to the class known in Monte Carlo as "the bread-winners,"—a class of gamblers making a regular daily visit to the Casino, playing until perhaps ten, fifteen, or fifty francs ahead of the bank, and then leaving. If one is content with making a mere daily pittance out of the tables, the thing can be surely and systematically done; and, every morning the first train brings an army of these bread-winners, together with hundreds of bolder gamblers. There is always a crowd waiting at the Casino doors when they are opened, always a wild scramble for the chairs around the tables; and, once comfortably seated, these early comers are usually good for the day, or at least until dinner-time. They are the most economical and persistent, though not the most profitable, of the Casino's patrons.
Fashionable folk favour shorter gambling hours. If Madame is staying at one of the Monte Carlo hotels,—at the famous Hôtel de Paris, let us say, a hotel beloved of Parisian demi-mondaines and their satellites, but patronized by cosmopolitan great folk as well,—she arises very late and has her breakfast on a terrace with a sunlit sapphire sea stretching out before her and an awning sheltering her from the too ardent sun. The chances are that it is a delectable breakfast, for there is good cooking in Monte Carlo. The prodigal crowd that spends its money there demands high living, and the Café de Paris, with its Indian interior and its famous grill-room, has seen gay dinners and suppers in its time and has appropriated a generous share of the winnings of lucky gamblers, beside helping the Casino to rid the unlucky player of his money.
Ciro's, too, has played its part in nineteenth-century romance and scandal and had its share in the Monte Carlo harvest. The proprietor, an energetic and diplomatic Italian, has made a large fortune and deserves it, for he can produce for his cosmopolitan patrons on demand any dish from buckwheat cakes to the most delicate frittura, and any drink from vodka to Jersey apple-jack. Perhaps that is stating the case too strongly, but he is a remarkable restaurateur, this Ciro.
These are but two restaurants of the many; and if one tires of the town, there is the mountain restaurant at la Turbie, to which one climbs by a funicular and where the air is keen and cool from the snowy mountain peaks. Even the view alone is worth the trip to la Turbie; for, from the restaurant terrace, one looks down upon Monaco with its palace and cathedral, upon Monte Carlo with its snowy villas and Casino amid their groves and gardens, and upon miles of summer sea.
When déjeuner is ended there are many ways of passing what is left of the day. The terrace is thronged during the late morning hours, and if one has breakfasted early enough there is time for a stroll there—a stroll that calls for a smart costume, if one makes pretence of being truly chic. Up and down the beautiful promenade saunter the idlers—a crowd as interesting and as mixed as that of the promenade des Anglais or the promenade at Trouville. Past they file, rosy-cheeked, middle-class Englishwomen in ill-fitting frocks, consummately modish Parisiennes, notorious in Monte Carlo as at home, fat German Jewesses, American girls chaperoning their tired and patient parents, French, American, and English actresses, great ladies from all countries, men of every type, from hard-faced chevalier d'industrie to reigning monarch, from gilded youth to elderly roué.
The Crowd at Monte Carlo
One sees many a new fashion note on the Monte Carlo terrace, and, later, costumes still more chic are in evidence at the Casino concert, to which come music lovers from all the neighbouring resorts, for the Monte Carlo orchestra is one of the best in Europe and even moralists who have serious scruples to forbid their gambling do not hesitate to take advantage of the concerts provided by the profits of the tables.
For the sporting contingent there is driving and motoring during the early afternoon, before the chill creeps into the air; and on the terrace overlooking the grounds of the International Pigeon Shooting Club there is always a crowd watching the shooting below. Butchery rather than sport, this pigeon shooting, but the Monte Carlo club is the most famous in the world and draws the crack shots from all countries. Betting runs high among the sportsmen and the onlookers, and the club events are a great source of entertainment to those who have heart and stomach for such sport.
After the tea hour, the Casino begins to fill with the crowd that is its mainstay, the high-playing, heavily plunging, extravagant crowd, willing to buy excitement at any price, and some of the heaviest gambling is done in those hours just before the dinner. The hush grows more pronounced, more oppressive, and the croupier's monotonous voice sounds more clearly in its maddening iteration, "Messieurs, Mesdames, faites vos jeux.—Les jeux sont faits. Rien ne va plus."
Every seat at the tables is filled, crowds are clustering behind the chairs, leaning forward to play, watching with excitement an unusual run of good or bad luck, but quiet, intent, absorbed. There is never noise and confusion, never an outbreak that can create scandal. A battalion of official employees attends to that, and quickly, effectually suppresses any objectionable scene.
Monsieur François Blanc, who was responsible for Monte Carlo, was fond of saying that he had made and kept the place "absolutely respectable." He is dead now, this M. Blanc, but before he died he built a cathedral not far from his Casino, and in a mortuary chapel of the cathedral reposes the old Prince of Monaco, who granted to M. Blanc the rights that made Monte Carlo possible.
The scoffer smiles at that cathedral; and yet M. Blanc offered it to le bon Dieu in all sincerity. He was a quiet, unpretentious little man, devoted to his family, charitable, abstemious in his habits, playing no game save billiards, gambling not at all, a good man so far as personal life went, and without scruples concerning his gambling paradise. He insisted rigidly that play at Monte Carlo should be under absolutely fair conditions. As for running a great gambling establishment—it was a business like another. He was not ashamed of his metier and allowed no threats nor pleas nor argument to disturb him. Men and women would gamble.—Eh bien, here was a beautiful place in which they might indulge their propensity without fear of dishonest treatment. If they ruined themselves, if they committed suicide,—that was their affair. They would have done the same thing elsewhere and he would have preferred their doing it elsewhere, for suicides and scenes interfered somewhat with prosperous business. A host of detectives and attendants was employed by M. Blanc to prevent suicide or hush it up if it occurred, and an official department was established for the purpose of furnishing unlucky patrons of the Casino with money enough to betake themselves elsewhere. Ruined gamblers were eloquently urged not to die upon the premises. Railroad tickets and certain sums of money were supplied to worthy applicants to whose hard luck and financial collapse officials of the gambling rooms could testify. The system was not, however, purely charitable,—M. Blanc did not believe in pauperizing the poor. An I. O. U. was accepted in exchange for funds supplied, and it was understood that this note must be met before the holder could ever again be admitted to the Casino. Some time ago statistics showed that forty thousand pounds had been distributed by this department of ways and means—but that thirty thousand pounds had been repaid. From which one may argue a large proportion of human integrity or of gambling mania, as one is optimist or cynic.
M. Blanc had made his fortune in administering the gambling affairs of Homburg and Baden Baden. When Germany shut down upon gambling he looked about for a place in which he could establish a gambling resort without fear of interference from a paternal government, and his shrewd eye fell upon the little principality of Monaco. His Royal Highness the Prince of Monaco, who was absolute ruler of this little kingdom three and a half miles long by one mile wide, came of an illustrious line of gentlemanly pirates, and since piracy had fallen from favour in the Mediterranean, his revenues were not so princely as his title and palace. He was pleased to make over his piratical rights to M. Blanc in consideration of an annual subsidy which gave him an income really royal. Incidentally the Frenchman agreed to attend to the municipal affairs of the province, to free the subjects of the Prince from all taxation, and to guarantee that no one of them should be allowed to enter the Casino. An excellent bargain from a material view-point the old Prince made. His successor, Albert I, the scholarly scientist and Prince who now lives in the ancient palace of the Grimaldis, where the little town of Monaco huddles on its isolated rock, facing the Monte Carlo fairyland across the port of Condamine, has scruples concerning the source of his income, it is said, but the Monte Carlo lease, which is held by a syndicate since M. Blanc's death, has until 1913 to run. Then we shall see what we shall see. The Prince, who is a French nobleman, has French revenues which would keep him from penury, and he is a man of simple tastes; but it would be a sacrifice for a saint to give up a royal fortune for a scruple, and one can hardly expect a worldly monarch to court canonization in such fashion.
Once in possession of his promontory, M. Blanc proceeded to spend a fortune upon it. A gambling enterprise had already been tried there but had failed, partly through mismanagement, partly because the place was inaccessible, visitors being obliged to arrive by water and be taken ashore in small boats.
The natural location was, however, beautiful beyond description, and M. Blanc had the genius to appreciate his opportunity. The architect of the Paris Opera House was called into consultation and a five-million-dollar Casino was built. Everything that art and money could do to make the gambling rooms, the corridors, the concert hall, the theatre, luxurious and beautiful was done. Splendid terraces, gardens, fountains, were added; a great reading-room was supplied with the most complete collection of periodical literature in the world; the finest of classical concerts were given in the concert-hall; the best artists of Paris were engaged to present the latest and most successful Parisian plays in the little jewel of a theatre; capitalists were induced to build a railroad to the place and a big elevator was constructed to carry up from the trains all who did not care to climb the terraces; a luxurious café was installed in the Casino grounds.
M. Blanc was a frugal man, but he could scatter money like chaff for a purpose, and he fulfilled his purpose. The fame of Monte Carlo spread far and wide. Visitors flocked there from all over the world, and the time was short indeed before the originator s money had returned to him with interest many times compounded. To-day, after the income of the Prince is handed over to him, after the taxes of the principality are settled, after the immense staff of official employees, the musicians, the artists, are paid, after the repairs and running expenses have been provided for, the stockholders divide an annual profit of from two million to two million five hundred thousand dollars. A profitable business, as M. Blanc foresaw when he made his investment.
The syndicate which now holds the lease and manages the palace follows as far as possible the system of M. Blanc, but the body has not the old manager's genius for doing the wrong thing in exactly the right way, and the place was not what it once was. M. Blanc had made the Casino a club and so retained the right to bar or eject whom he would. In the old days the age limit was strictly observed. Now one sees mere boys and girls at the tables. For a long time a frock coat and high hat in the daytime, and evening dress after six, were de rigeur, and women's toilettes were carefully considered. Lord Salisbury and his wife were once refused admission at the door because the Premier wore a shabby old felt hat and tweeds, and a celebrated actress who once appeared in a highly æsthetic costume was told she could enter after going home and changing her déshabillé.
To-day, everything from dress clothes to bicycle costume is permissible in the Casino, though a careful toilet is the rule, and a host of very shabby and disreputable gamblers mingles with the more aristocratic set. The crowd is more sordid, more vulgar, less chic than of old. Fewer high-class English and French patronize the tables, and the German Jews who have taken their places have not improved the general tone of the throng.
But all this the ordinary visitor does not know, and even now the place is as fascinating as it is unwholesome.
In the evening come the most brilliant and spectacular hours of the Casino day. Then one sees the exquisite frocks, the superb jewels, the celebrities of good and ill repute. The women wear elaborate evening dress, usually topped by a picture hat, and though many mondaines avoid conspicuous Casino toilettes, the demi-mondaines vie with each other in gorgeousness of attire.
Some of these rivalries have afforded tremendous entertainment for onlookers who appreciated the moves in the feminine game. Liane de Pougy and la belle Otero, for example, have contributed largely to the Monte Carlo amusement programme during recent years. Deadly rivals these two, who fought their battles wherever they went in Fashion's train, in Paris, at Trouville, at Monte Carlo. Both were lionnes of the most formidable type, leaving a wake of ruin and disaster behind them, devouring fortunes with Brobdignagian voracity, plunging into the maddest extravagances. Men raved over their beauty, though cooler-headed critics insisted that Otero was only a rather coarse and common Spanish type, with bold, staring eyes, a cruel, sensuous mouth, and a good figure, while de Pougy, with her long neck and cat-in-the-cream expression, deserved no beauty prize.
The toilettes of the two were legion and beggared description. Their jewels were a proverb.
One night, at the Casino, one of the rivals appeared wearing all her jewels, and even the maddest gambler stopped his play to look at her. From head to foot she was ablaze with precious stones of the finest water, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls, gleaming on throat and arms and fingers and in her hair, covering her bodice, fastened upon her skirts.
The achievement was the sensation of the season. Nothing else was spoken of the next day, and triumph was written large upon the face of the wearer of the jewels; but she had reckoned without her host. The Casino was more crowded than usual on the following evening. Curious folk went to see how one beauty would carry off her victory and how the other would accept her defeat. The triumphant one was handsome, beaming, self-satisfied, but her rival was late in coming and gossip whispered that something dramatic was to be expected.
It occurred.
Down the length of the gambling rooms walked the woman for whom the crowd was waiting. She was perfectly gowned, but with an exquisite and elaborate simplicity, with a good taste beyond question. Behind her came her maid decked in jewels from coiffure to slipper toe, enjoying her part in the comedy, yet awed by the fortune she carried with her.
No words were necessary, the most unlettered could read the retort. Madame also had jewels—as many and as fine as those of her rival. If anyone doubted that fact, let him observe. But as for wearing all one's jewels at once,—impossible for a woman of taste!
The reign of la belle Otero is over. Liane de Pougy's tenure of favour is very uncertain, but they have furnished the Riviera with a wealth of gossip in their time. Monte Carlo would miss their annual duel, were there not younger favourites, as beautiful and as shameless, to air their toilettes and jewels and jealousies in M. Blanc's "absolutely respectable" rendezvous.
Few women go to Monte Carlo without trying their luck at the tables, though the fall from grace on the part of the ordinary tourist may mean only a few francs lost or won. Starry-eyed young girls, staid matrons with respectability stamped upon their brows, stern, elderly spinsters—all may be seen at the roulette board where small stakes may be hazarded; but they are the novices, the transients who are tasting the new experience with a fearful joy. The seasoned and systematic woman gambler is another thing. So is the reckless woman who does not bother about system and risks large sums as lightly as she waves her fan, and with far less calculation.
Langtry belonged to this last class. In her heyday, one might see her, charmingly gowned, radiantly beautiful, twisting up thousand-franc notes and tossing them on the table to lie wherever they might fall, losing as carelessly as she won and far more often than she won.
Otero and de Pougy, and many of their guild, are of the shrewd and canny type, gambling to win, and taking the game of chance seriously, though worrying little over losses and throwing away winnings with both hands. The brilliant jewelry shops and the Mont de Pieté of Monte Carlo are equally prosperous. The winners buy jewels, the losers pawn them,—but, on the whole, it is the men who gamble heavily. Three fourths of the women who have money enough to play extravagantly care more about what they wear to the Casino than about what they win or lose, would rather win at hearts and chiffons than at roulette. Occasionally a woman, like the old Russian princess, ruins herself dramatically at Monte Carlo, but more often it is the petty woman gambler who comes to grief—the woman who has only a little money and no resources to draw upon when that little is swallowed up. Not long ago six little American chorus girls, who had heard much about the gaiety and extravagance of Monte Carlo, and had conceived the idea that between luck at gambling and luck at love a half-dozen pretty Americans might corner considerable of the gaiety and of the wherewithal for extravagance, went down to the Riviera and tried trente et quarante.
A few weeks later, when they were penniless, miserable, absolutely stranded, without money either to stay or to go home, Sybil Sanderson heard of their plight and played good angel for the six homesick, disillusioned, singed little moths. The flames are cruel at Monte Carlo.
But it is the man who really supports the Casino, the man who squanders fortunes at the tables, the man who evolves infallible systems, who gives himself up utterly to the gambling, who commits suicide on the terrace, or breaks the bank.
Suicides are few, and the few are carefully covered up, concealed. The management even denies that they occur, but ugly rumours are persistent and many seem to be backed by facts. Detectives are eternally vigilant to suppress scandal. They rise from the ground, they fall from the trees, they follow the lucky winner to his hotel or train in order to see that he is not waylaid and murdered or robbed by thugs, as has happened before now, they shadow desperate losers and prevent ugly scenes, they instruct the penniless where to find the benevolent gentleman who is willing to furnish transportation away from Monte Carlo for the human sponge that has been squeezed dry.
The bank breakers are even fewer than the suicides. In the old days, a certain amount of money was allowed to each table for one day. If the bank lost that amount, the table went out of commission for the rest of the session; but now, if a lucky player breaks the bank, it means only a wait of a few minutes until a new package of money can be brought from the vaults. When the money arrives, play goes on.
Charles Wells, an engineer, was the man whose spectacular winnings inspired the song concerning "the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo," but many another man has done the thing and some of them have repeated the operation several times. There, for instance, was Garcia, who broke the bank again and again and was a nine days' wonder at Monte Carlo. He died a wretched death in the slums of Paris, that lucky Garcia.
And there was a New York salesman among the bank breakers. Some of the older New York business men may remember him, for he was a popular fellow and he cut a wide swath in Europe. First he broke the bank at Monte Carlo,—broke it with fine spirit and éclat and was the envied hero of the hour. Then he went to Paris and opened a gambling place that quickly became famous. Baccarat was the game, and the New Yorker's luck held. He could not lose. His name was known all over Europe. Paris gave him the title of Le Roi Baccarat, and in the morning papers the latest doings of the baccarat king were as much a matter of course as the stock market reports.
Of course the luck changed. It always does. One day the baccarat king began to lose, and he was as persistent in losing as he had been in winning. The close air of the gambling rooms had affected his lungs and his health went with his money. One of the many women who had loved him in his brilliant day, took him, a consumptive pauper, to her lodgings, and gave him shelter, food, and care, but she had no money to do more. Finally several of the man's old friends and business associates in New York heard of his condition and sent money to bring him home. He came, a dying man, and a little later the same friends contributed the money to bury him.
Histories of that sort are common among the men who have broken the bank at Monte Carlo.
As for the Casino management, it does not lament when some one breaks the bank. Far from it. Such a run of luck advertises the fairness of the game and encourages gamblers. The syndicate is frankly pleased when anyone wins in spectacular fashion—or in any fashion whatsoever, for winning only fans the gambling fever and in the end it is always the bank that wins. The old saying launched in M. Blanc's day is true: "C'est encore rouge qui perd, et encore noir, mais toujours Blanc qui gagne."
The bank of Monte Carlo is honest as the Bank of England. No hint of trickery has ever been associated with it, but outside the Casino there are gambling resorts of a different character. It is said that more money is lost at the private gambling clubs of Nice in a night than at Monte Carlo in a week; and whether or not this is true, it is certain that more men are ruined in these outside gambling hells than in the Casino. The game at the latter place is fair; only cash stakes are allowed; there is no bar and anyone drunk enough to make a scene is expelled. At many of the private clubs the play is dishonest; I. O. U's are accepted; and a drunken fool may gamble away not only all he has with him, but all he has elsewhere or ever expects to have, and more. Not all of the suicides along the Riviera are due to M. Blanc's gambling palace.
It is difficult to keep away from the subject of the gambling when one talks of Monte Carlo. A famous show of frocks and jewels and women is on view there; the fashions of the coming summer are launched there; the social game is played with verve and zest there; But, at a distance, one remembers rather the crowd around the green tables under the great chandeliers, the flushed faces, the twitching mouths, the trembling hands, and the uncanny, oppressive, breathless hush that follows the croupier's "Rien ne va plus."
LES AMERICAINES
Many Americans swing round the calendar with the fashionable Parisiennes. Some of them, having married into the innermost circles of the French aristocracy, belong to the most exclusive French set and jealously guard their privileges, associating little with their own countrywomen of the American colony, for there is a world of difference between the Parisian social standing of the American woman who has married into an aristocratic French family and the American woman of the American colony. The latter may be brilliant, popular, and rich, may entertain extravagantly and live in a whirl of gaiety; but, as a rule, there are certain Parisian salons to which she has not the entrée, certain doors stubbornly closed to her, despite her beauty and wit and wealth. There are exceptions, of course, but, generally speaking, the hostess of the American colony does not have upon her visiting list the names of the greatest ladies of the French set. Her dinners cost more than any given in the Faubourg St. Germain, her cotillion favours are a nine days' Parisian wonder, she draws round her a wealthy and amusing circle of fellow Americans and foreigners, but she has not the open sesame to French doors which other Americans have gained by marriage,—paying dearly sometimes for their social privileges.
The American colony is a shifting, transient thing, changing continually, yet always the same in its general character and always an important factor in Parisian life. Americans living in other parts of Europe drift into Paris at some seasons to swell this colony, or join the crowd on the Riviera or on the Normandy coast; and then there is always the casual visitor, the American who runs over to Europe for frocks or frivolity, but makes no pretence of living abroad.
Among this last group are a majority of the smartest folk of American society, and a number of these passing visitors are accorded social honours seldom granted to the resident American in Paris. It is among these women, too, that the Parisian tradesmen find their most profitable patrons, and a large percentage of the loveliest confections turned out by the great dressmakers of Paris is carried away in the trunks of private American customers.
It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the American woman in the Parisian fashion scheme. She pays out more money to the famous dressmakers and milliners of Paris than all of their other private patrons taken together; and, even when she herself is not of the class that does its shopping in Paris, still she swells the receipts of Paris tradesfolk, for in order to satisfy her tastes an army of American buyers goes to Paris twice a year and carries home French materials, French models, and French ideas, which will be incorporated into the output of all American caterers to woman's vanity, from the manufacturer of inexpensive, ready-made frocks to the swellest of New York dressmakers.
In 1893, Worth went to the trouble of looking up Parisian dress statistics and found that the value of the material consumed annually in France for women's dress was two hundred million dollars; that one hundred million dollars' worth was supplied to the Parisian dressmakers and that the American share of the whole amount was more than that of all other countries counted together. The statistics also showed that fully one half of the Parisian dressmakers' sales was carried off in personal luggage,—which, of course, means private sales.
All this figuring was done thirteen years ago and at that time the sales had increased two hundred and fifty per cent within twenty-five years. Since then the rate of increase has been even greater. American extravagance in dress has advanced in great leaps, and M. Worth's figures would doubtless seem small if compared with to-day's statistics.
The dressmakers of Paris are, of course, disinclined to give information concerning the amounts of money paid to them by their private customers, but they are willing enough to give estimates without names attached, and the extravagant expenditures of certain wealthy Americans are common gossip in the dressmaking circles of Paris.
The most important single order for dress ever placed in Europe came from an American source, but, for certain private reasons, it did not find its way to Paris, and there was weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, mixed with the buzzing gossip of the Parisian ateliers when the facts concerning this famous order leaked out.
A bride's trousseau was the occasion for the spectacular outlay, and Drecoll of Vienna was the lucky dressmaker. Just what the bill amounted to, the firm has never been indiscreet enough to confess; but well authenticated reports place the sum at two hundred thousand dollars, and rumour runs it up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
The items were enumerated in the order, but carte blanche was given in every case and all that was demanded was that each garment should be as nearly perfect for its purpose as the firm could make it. Life has nothing better to offer an artist dressmaker than an opportunity such as this, and the Viennese firm endeavoured to live up to the situation.
There was, for example, a certain long cloth coat on the list. It was to be green, of a shade indicated, and it was to have for trimming six Imperial Russian sable skins. The skins were to be of the finest quality and perfectly matched. No limit was set to the price. A simple matter this, in the estimation of the novice, but Drecoll knows better. Three of the skins desired were obtained without trouble, a fourth was secured after some search, a fifth was found far from Vienna, but the sixth proved a will-o'-the-wisp. Buyers chased it from one end of Europe to another. There were plenty of superb sables, but not one to match perfectly the other five, and the maker's faith was pledged, his blood was up. St. Petersburg, Nijni Novgorod, Leipsic, Paris, London, all the great fur markets knew the hunters of that sixth skin, and the quarry was finally run to earth and added to the collar of the unassuming coat provided for an American bride. Not one person out of a thousand could have gauged the value of the furs, could have understood the perfection with which they were matched, but one can imagine that a dressmaking establishment does not organize an all-Europe sable hunt for any small sum.
In that matter of furs, our American women have become recklessly lavish. Everyone can remember the time when even the most fashionable of society women considered one sealskin coat a cherished possession justifying pride. Now, women of the multi-millionaire set will buy a twenty-thousand-dollar sable coat as nonchalantly as though it were a linen duster. One New York importer who caters largely to the ultra swell clique went abroad last fall commissioned to buy three sable coats, two of which were to cost any sum up to twenty thousand dollars, while the price of the third might soar to thirty thousand if the buyer should find what he would consider good value for that sum. There are several forty-thousand-dollar sable coats in this country, and sets costing from five thousand to ten thousand dollars may be counted by the hundreds.
Moreover, the fashionable woman does not content herself with one set of furs, but buys them to match her costumes, as she would buy a veil or a pair of gloves, and will own perhaps a dozen sets, discarding immediately any that begin to show wear or are not of the latest cut. One Western woman bought five fur coats in New York this season, one a superb affair of sable, one a motor coat, and the other three fancy short coats trimmed in lace and embroidery. Now that no one with money spends a summer in a warm climate, the fashionable woman's furs are in commission all the year round, and the American, like the Parisienne, will wear her sables over a summer frock in August, if she is where the temperature is chilly. Naturally the wear and tear is greater than in the old days when furs were carefully put away during half the year, and the modern élégante's furs have to be frequently replenished.
My lady's furs are only one item of many included in her year's wardrobe, and the other items are proportionately expensive. The heads of establishments counting among their clientèles the wealthiest women of New York and of the other important American cities were consulted in the compiling of the list that follows, and were asked for conservative estimates of the sums spent annually for goods in their lines, by a representative woman of the very smart set. In every case the authority consulted emphasized the fact that some of our women spend much more than the sum mentioned, and that occasionally, for some special reason, a customer will plunge into phenomenal extravagance.
Here is the list, which is, after all, but a fragmentary one, for it is hard to estimate upon the thousand and one little things of dress:
| Evening gowns | $3,500 |
| Dinner gowns | 3,500 |
| Carriage and reception gowns | 3,000 |
| Street frocks | 2,500 |
| Automobile and sports | 1,500 |
| Negligées | 1,500 |
| Lingerie | 2,500 |
| Fur | 2,000 |
| Gloves, parasols, hosiery, neckwear, etc. | 2,500 |
| Hats | 1,200 |
| $23,700 |
The reader who has not looked into the matter may consider this sum total an exaggerated one; but, on the contrary, it is, while of course only approximate, a very modest average made up from the figures furnished by reliable tradesfolk in positions warranting their speaking authoritatively. Furs, for instance, set down at two thousand dollars a year, sometimes mount to forty thousand in one season. Twenty-five hundred dollars may seem an appalling amount to pay out for lingerie during the year, but one authority quoted four thousand dollars and another thirty-five hundred, and both added that there were New York women who spent even more than that. At Mademoiselle Corne's place,—perhaps the most fashionable of the lingerie establishments of Paris, an inquirer was shown several trunkfuls of fine lingerie ready to be sent to an American customer, and among the items were sets of three pieces priced at nine hundred francs (one hundred and eighty dollars), lingerie tea-jackets at four hundred francs, lingerie petticoats at three hundred and fifty francs. At that rate twenty-five hundred dollars will not go so very far, and in this day of lingerie marvellously embellished with handwork and real lace, prices mount to surprising heights.
The elaborate negligée is of comparatively recent acceptance in America, but now the boudoir gown and tea-gown are considered important by chic Americans, and five hundred dollars is no unusual price for an exquisite tea-gown. One New York woman bought three at that price from a Paris maker last fall, so fifteen hundred dollars is surely a mild figure for the year's negligées.
Twenty-five hundred dollars will not begin to pay for the gloves, silk stockings, parasols, fans, and such little accessories bought by a woman of the class under consideration, during a year and no estimate has been made upon jewels, for there the scale may slide to any figure.
All this expert testimony as to the extravagance of the American woman of fashion may vex the souls of the righteous and lead the philosopher and student of social economy to gloomy prophecy concerning the future of American society, but the moralizing may be done elsewhere. Here is only a statement of facts, and it is undeniably a fact that the fashionable women of America spend more upon personal luxuries than any other class in the world, save only a small group of Parisian demi-mondaines.
It is not only the New York woman who is extravagant, though since wealth is concentrated there, that city is the headquarters of the spenders. The spirit has spread all over our country, and wherever one finds great American fortunes, there one finds the woman of the costly frocks and furs and jewels.
The largest single order ever placed with a Parisian dressmaker was given to Worth by a Chicago woman—and an elderly woman, not socially conspicuous despite her wealth. Twenty-five trunks were used for shipping the order, and one hundred and forty expensive garments were packed into the trays. Every city of importance and a host of the small towns are represented upon the books of the Paris houses. The City of Mexico has a clique of society women famous for dress, and the South American trade is considered very important in Paris. Dwellers in the States have a "magerful" fashion of appropriating the term American for their own private use, and appear to harbour a vague general idea that south of Palm Beach and Miami a bead necklace is the accepted costume; but the tradesfolk of Paris know better. Crowds of wealthy South Americans flock into Paris each summer and spend money lavishly upon clothes, jewels, and all the other luxuries of a prodigal civilization. In all the South American capitals one finds the woman of the French frock, and Buenos Ayres, in particular, has a smart set remarkable for the fashion and extravagance of its women.
Naturally it is not only in the province of clothes the money-spending mania of America asserts itself. Among Americans of wealth the cost of living has swelled to a startling figure. Numerous magnificent homes equipped with every luxury that money can buy, entertainment on a princely scale, servants by the score, horses, carriages, automobiles, steam-yachts,—all these are the necessities of the multi-millionaire who is in society. The floral decorations for a dinner or ball often cost thousands of dollars, and five hundred dollars' worth of flowers for a small dinner in New York or Newport is no unusual order. Cotillion favours for a large ball have been known to cost ten thousand dollars, and thousands of dollars go to the caterer upon such an occasion.
When the Castellanes, during their social career, spent forty thousand dollars on one evening's entertainment, all Paris was agog, but that sum has been far exceeded for single social functions in New York, and from ten thousand dollars to twenty thousand dollars is no surprising cost for a successful ball.
Every year the social standards mount higher, in point of expenditure, and new methods of getting rid of money are added to the already long list. The motor, for example, has added from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars to the annual expenditure of numerous wealthy men who have motor mania in its acute form, buy many superb cars, employ expensive machinists and chauffeurs, build fine garages, and race their cars.
But all this extraordinary lavishness is confined to a comparatively small part of our population, affects but a little clique of millionaires, and while even in smart society a large contingent is living beyond its means, a majority of the most extravagant American money-spenders have fortunes ample enough to justify their annual expenditures—at least from a financial point of view. It is the increasing extravagance in dress and luxury among the classes of more moderate incomes that is most interesting to a social student, and the American tendency is, proportionately, as marked here as in wealthier circles.
All along the social line American women are spending more for dress than ever before. Each year marks a rise in the grade of goods demanded and sold, and manufacturers, merchants, and dressmakers all testify to the remarkable improvement in American standards of dress during recent years.
The rise of the ready-made frock has had much to do with bringing about this result, and few outsiders have any conception of the growth and importance of this industry. Forty years ago very few models were brought to this country from Europe, and very few women even of the wealthiest class knew much about Paris shopping. As for the woman of humble social position she was quite out of touch with French fashion. About thirty-eight years ago, A. T. Stewart launched the first ready-made frocks, and record has it that they were frights. Shortly after that there were four small establishments in the United States manufacturing women's ready-made garments. To-day there are forty-eight hundred houses devoted to such business in New York City alone, and some of the largest American dressmaking factories are in towns outside of New York,—in Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Everyone of these manufacturers sends men to Paris at least twice during the season to buy models, obtain sketches, notes, and ideas. Even the cheapest of the ready-made costumes to-day has in it some faint echo of Parisian art, and there are American manufacturers of ready-made coats and frocks who make no low-class goods at all.
If one walks into Paquin's establishment and pays five hundred dollars for a frock, one feels that she is paying a good price, but there are specialty houses in New York turning out ready-made models at five hundred dollars and making nothing for less than one hundred dollars; and these expensive costumes find ready sale.
Occasionally a woman retains the old-time prejudice against ready-made garments and wonders why anyone will pay two or three hundred dollars for a ready-made gown. Given a choice between a gown made to order by Paquin and one at the same price from a New York manufacturer, it would doubtless be the part of wisdom to take the Paquin creation; but there is no Paquin in New York, and though there are some exceedingly good dressmakers here, there are also many who charge high prices without the ability to justify them. Many women who have had disastrous experiences with such makers claim that, at least, in a ready-made frock one can be sure of the general effect, and that if it comes from a good maker, whether French or American, and is well cut to begin with, it will even after alteration fit better and do more for one's figure than a made-to-order gown from incompetent hands.
There are still cheap ready-made garments on the market, but demand for good materials and fine workmanship is steadily growing and, through the efforts of manufacturers to meet this demand, ideas of better dressing have been spread broadcast.
Fortunes have been made quickly by men who have kept step with this improvement in taste and supplied good models of Parisian design and excellent workmanship for the American ready-made trade.
One manufacturer came to this country twelve years ago, in the steerage, and went upon a tailor's bench at fifteen dollars a week. He was a Russian or Polish Jew, which is equivalent to saying that he belonged to the greatest money-making race on earth. He saved a little money, opened workrooms. To-day he has a factory in which he employs nine hundred men and women, he lives in a beautiful home on Riverside Drive, he goes to business in a big automobile, he has done a two-million-dollar business within the last year—and all in ready-made frocks of the better grades.
There is much talk of sweat-shop labour in connection with women's ready-made clothing, but as a matter of fact only the very cheapest of the ready-made trade is associated with the sweat-shop. Years ago some of the better shops declared a crusade against such labour and tabooed the factories dealing with it. The other big firms fell in line, and manufacturers, realizing that their trade was at stake, came up to the mark in respect to the housing, treatment, and wages of employees.
The manufacturer of the twelve-year record has a factory absolutely sanitary and treats his nine hundred employees admirably, even supporting a small hotel in which he harbours any of his work folk who may be ill or in trouble and need help. These workers are chiefly Polish and Russian Jews and Italians, the German contingent, which was once large, having almost disappeared, and wages are good. Competent men tailors are always in demand and can make at least from fifteen to eighteen dollars a week, while many of them get as high as from forty to eighty dollars. Some of the manufacturers have salesmen on the road at fifteen thousand dollars a year, and even pay as high as twenty-two thousand dollars.
The buyers, too, command large salaries, and these salaried men very frequently become manufacturers themselves or open specialty shops for the sale of ready-made garments. One New York salesman, who has recently gone into the retail business in a comparatively small way, cleared one hundred thousand dollars last year and will do better this year. Another man of ability went to the head of one of the big dry-goods houses here and asked for a good position.
"Why don't you open workrooms of your own?" he was asked. "Haven't you any money?"
"Only twenty-five hundred dollars."
"That's enough. Go rent some rooms. We know what you can do. Let us know when you are ready and we'll place an order with you for four times twenty-five hundred dollars." That was eleven years ago. The manufacturer retired with a fortune some time since and amuses himself now by speculating largely in real estate.
One of the few dressmaking geniuses in this country is another manufacturer of ready-made frocks—but of the highest class models only. He failed at first,—possibly because he was a genius, but nine years ago he took a fresh start and now he is a millionaire—but still an artist. He takes a handful of silk and throws it at a figure, gives it a pull here, a plait there, and voilà!—an effect better than his rivals could obtain through careful and painstaking labour. In Paris that man would be great. Here he is merely rich, and his million keeps him from Paris.
All these stories of success and these business statistics merely serve to illustrate the point with which the discussion of ready-made clothing began, the increasing taste and extravagance of American dress. The American woman, whether of wealth or of very moderate means, insists upon having good clothes and is getting them.
Perhaps she buys them ready-made, perhaps she goes to Paris for them, perhaps she has them made by dressmakers who go to Paris for their models, but, in any case, she has them. For the same amount of money her mother spent she will obtain better artistic results,—but she spends more money than her mother dreamed of spending and more money than she herself would have thought of spending ten years ago. An education in extravagant dress comes easily to any woman, and once educated to the topmost notch of the domestic dress production, the Parisian frock is the American's next requirement.
There are good dressmakers on this side of the water, quite good enough to satisfy any save the hyper-fastidious, but our best dressmakers do not go about their business as do the best dressmakers of Paris. They are business men or women, their French fellow craftsmen are artists. There is in Paris the same type of dressmaker we have here, but there is, too, the artist dressmaker who is something higher in the scale, and it is through him that Paris is the fountain-head of fashion. There is little original work in dress here. Good workmanship we have. Our plain tailor work, for example, is the best in the world; but our makers are content to copy French ideas and French models and they have no such high standards as have the sponsors of those models. The Irish-American dressmaker is said to be, next to the French, the best in the world, but she adapts, she does not create. Perhaps in Paris she too might soar, but here she copies French models well, makes money, and is content.
In the early spring and in August there is a migration of American dressmakers. By the hundred they go to Paris, and buyers from all over the country swell the crowd. Some of the important buyers have set sail long before, but they are men who represent extensive interests, with whom buying is a fine art and to whose expense account the home firm sets no limitations.
One American buyer, representing the largest importer of model gowns and cloaks in this country, a man better known, perhaps, than any of his profession, in the famous Parisian ateliers, sees the models in these ateliers before the ordinary buyer is given a glimpse of them. Yet even then they are no new things to him. He has seen all of their most striking features before.
He does not drop into Paris with the buying flock, visit the great dressmaking establishments, and accept as law and gospel whatever chances to be shown there. He knows what is what. The dressmakers know that he knows and treat him accordingly.
For months he has been on a still hunt for the fashions of the spring that is yet distant. He stopped in Madeira at the very beginning of the winter season, for he knows, as the Parisian dressmakers know, that an exclusive little coterie of the world's smartest folk begins its winter with a few weeks in Madeira, and that in the Funchal toilettes are to be found many hints that will become laws when springtime comes to Paris.
Early in December the hunter follows the trail to Algiers and on to Cairo, though since the automobile has made Italian touring a fad, many of the smart folk spend a part of their winter in motoring, and the Algiers and Cairo seasons are not quite what they were as gathering places for the fashion clans.
A little later the cream of the fashionable world is on the Riviera, and our buyer haunts the Monte Carlo Casino during February. No smallest fashion straw escapes his watchful eye. He knows the fashion leaders of all Europe and America by sight. He can cap each striking costume with the name of the wearer, and, probably with the name of the maker, and he uses his time profitably until, late in the month, the birds of fine feathers take wing once more. It is almost time for Auteuil and, from all over the world, fashionable folk are pouring into Paris.
Spring models are on view there in the great ateliers, and this American receives respectful attention at the hands of the dressmakers, for his orders will be large—and have been large for many years past. Moreover, he has by this time a very good idea of what he wants, and he will demand exclusive models instead of taking the models prepared for the majority of the dressmaking and buying pilgrims. He knew many of the autocrats of fashion when they first put up their signs and, through the advertisement and backing of his firm, many a Paris dressmaker now famous obtained the American clientèle that was the foundation of his fortunes.
A valuable customer this, and there are other Americans of his class who see the best that Paris has to offer. Some of the more important American dressmakers also place large orders, insist upon exclusive models, and are greeted impressively by the saleswomen; but the most of the crowd buys as little as possible and sees as much as it can, and the saleswomen, fully alive to this fact, make a point of allowing the minor dressmakers to see as little as is consistent with courteous treatment. Often a group of little dressmakers will form a syndicate to buy one model and will go together to the great establishment. There, being really buyers, they are politely received, and they all take mental notes of every fashion hint that comes their way during the visit. They study Paris fashions, too, wherever they are to be seen, on the streets, in the theatres, at the restaurants; and during their summer visit they perhaps run up to Trouville to see the fashion show there. They have a jolly time as well as a profitable one, and after a few weeks come home to spread French fashion news from Maine to California, and furnish such adaptations of what they have seen as their varying abilities can accomplish.
The clever buyer usually stays on in Paris after the crowd of his countrymen and of European dressmakers has departed; for the more exclusive models and ideas are reserved for the delectation of the chic Parisienne and the private buyer, and he wants to see what is offered to this clientèle as well as what is shown to the trade. Finally he too sails for home, where much of his plunder has arrived before him. American women often wear a Parisian mode before it has been worn in Paris, and this is especially true of autumn modes; for Parisiennes are still away from Paris when American dressmakers and buyers are securing and sending over their autumn models, and, too, an American woman travelling in Europe for the summer may buy her fall outfit in Paris during August, bring it home and begin wearing it in September, before Parisiennes have left the seashore and settled down to thought of fall clothes. This applies, however, chiefly to the few American fashion leaders, and a radical Parisian mode seldom achieves actual popularity in America before late in the season or perhaps the following season. The models have been brought over and shown, have been bought and worn by the knowing and courageous; but the great crowd of American women is slightly conservative and hesitates to take up any radical Parisian fad until after the novelty has become somewhat familiar through being exploited by the ultra-fashionable few.
One of the greatest Parisian dressmakers said recently in a private conversation that he never felt confident of general popularity for an original and striking model until after seeing it upon one or two of his most chic American customers.
"I do not know what it is," he said, "but there is something distinctive about the way an American wears her clothes,—a grace, an elegance, but also a naturalness. A Frenchwoman has a genius for dress, but she makes up for her toilette. She is supremely artificial; she will wear anything that is launched and make herself up to fit the mode. Your American doesn't do that. She wears her clothes superbly, but the clothes must be of a kind she can wear. That a Parisienne looks well in a model means nothing as an indication of what women in general will think of the innovation; but when I put the model upon one of my best American customers, I know at once what to expect. They are lovely in their chiffons, those Americans, provided they have possibilities of loveliness. It is a pleasure to dress them."
There are American women who go to Paris regularly three times a year to replenish their wardrobes, and these private American customers are the apple of the dressmaker's eye. Madame will perhaps be in Paris only a few days. Everything is made to bend to her fittings, her own particular saleswoman gives up the days to her, the heads of the departments are called in for advice and assistance, the master himself gives the frocks his personal attention. There is a couch in the private fitting-room upon which Madame may lie down if she becomes tired, the daintiest of luncheons will be served to her there if she has not time or inclination to go elsewhere. Everything is made so smooth, so agreeable, and if the bills are large, what is that to the wife or daughter of an American multi-millionaire? There are New York women whose dressmaking bills in Paris run up to fifty and sixty thousand dollars in one year, but who could afford to spend five hundred thousand a year on clothes if they chose to do it.
Occasionally nowadays a fashion originates in America and crosses to Paris. The tourist coat with loose belted back, the long tailored coat, the walking skirt, the floating veil—all these were worn in New York and later taken up by smart Parisiennes, but the fashion tide usually sets the other way, and we accept slavishly what Paris furnishes.
The great French dressmakers to a certain extent control the fashions, but they work with the manufacturers. One will see the head of a great silk factory sitting at a table with Beer or Paquin or Doeuillet in the Café de Paris, and talking earnestly, seriously. Materials for the future season are being weighed in the balance. The artist dressmaker is the manufacturer's critic, his guide, philosopher, and friend, and in this close connection lies one of the secrets of artistic French dressmaking. In Paris one can always obtain the wherewithal to carry out an idea. If necessary the manufacturer will make the material expressly for Monsieur's purpose, and many an exquisite fabric has begun and ended with one length run through the loom. The dressmaker and his customer wanted that especial thing and wanted the gown to be absolutely unique. Expense was not considered and one can obtain anything in Paris if one will pay for it. Once an order came from a great lady in Rome. She wanted a ball gown such as she described for a certain occasion. The maker had only three days' time in which to execute the order, and the quantities of white pansies which must absolutely be the trimming were not to be found in Paris. Discouraging? Not in the least. Monsieur set a multitude of flower-makers at work making white pansies for him. The frock was finished and sent from Paris to Rome by a special messenger. Time was too short to admit of experiments with express companies.
When the American dressmaker or professional buyer chooses a model, cards to the manufacturers who furnished the fabric and trimmings for the frock are given her and she buys the materials for as many duplicates of the model as she expects to make. She buys other materials, too, laces, buttons, novelties of all kinds, that will enable her to achieve frocks differing from those of her rivals, and skilful Parisian buying is to-day a very vital part of the fashionable American dressmaker's business. Duties upon the importations are of course tremendous, and during certain months the New York Custom House is so choked with French chiffons that there are maddening delays in getting the boxes through.
Paris would miss les Americaines if they should suddenly lose their interest in French clothes, but there's no danger of that event. Paris is the fashion centre and will continue to be the fashion centre. As for our women—each year they grow more ardent in their worship of the Vanities.