Mission to Monte Carlo

Author’s NoteMonte Carlo in the last years of the last century was the smartest place in Europe. The guest list to the small Principality reads like a mixture of the Almanach de Goetha and Debrett. Yet the division between the Social classes was unbridgable. During her honeymoon in Monte Carlo after her marriage to the ninth Duke of Marlborough, the Duchess, formerly Consuelo Vanderbilt, pointed out to him the elegance and beauty of some of the women to be seen in the Casino. To her surprise he forbade her to mention them and not to recognise the men who accompanied them, even if, she had dined with them in the same party the previous night. Only gradually did she understand the lovely women were the leading courtesans of Europe. Other guests were the fascinating and extravagant Grand Duke Serge of Russia, the Grand Duke Nicolas, the Aga Khan, the beautiful, alluring Lily Langtry, the Duke of Montrose, the Prince of Denmark and inevitably the Prince of Wales. Countless novels, plays and thrillers have been written about Monte Carlo but there is no other place in the whole world which is synonymous with Kings and Princes, Grand Dukes, tricksters, cocottes, cocaine, gambling systems and suicides.