But one thing he was not afraid of, and that was spending money. To compass his business ends he laid it out lavishly, and in the end he drew all Europe to Wiesbaden. Still broader and still deeper he laid the foundations of the fortune that ultimately grew to colossal proportions. But he did not make Wiesbaden famous without keen opposition. He made the fortune of the beggarly Prince Karl and the whole hungry crowd of royal highnesses in spite of themselves. At every fresh opposition he simply opened his purse and a golden shower fell on them. It required a hard head to withstand the attacks made on him when it became known that he had bought up both prince and municipality, and proposed to make Wiesbaden par excellence the gambling city of the Continent. But, despite of all, he pushed on his plans to wonderful success. A great park was laid out and stately buildings arose, all dedicated to the goddess of chance. Slim was the chance the votaries of the game had in his gorgeous halls. He threw out his money in millions, but he knew the weak, foolish heart of man, the egotism of each and every one of us, that leads us to ignore for ourselves the immutable law of numbers. So he counted upon his returns, and never counted in vain. As I say, he had a hard head to withstand the attacks made upon him. Every day the post brought hundreds of letters containing propositions of threats from people who had lost their money and demanded its return with fierce threats, pitiful supplications and warnings of intended suicide, place, date and hour carefully specified, so there could be no mistake, and more than one attempt was made upon his life. But the equanimity of Francois Blanc was equal to all adventures. Threats, prayers, temptations, left him untouched. This man of ice, self-possessed, cold, indifferent to the ruin of the thousands of victims of his will, had a fad or fancy. It was for raising red and white roses, and while the mad throngs were fluttering in frenzy around the tables in his halls at Homburg, Wiesbaden and Monte Carlo, he, hoe or trowel in hand, would be training and transplanting his roses, solicitous over an opening bud or deploring the ravages of an insect; or, again, refusing all invitations, would sit down with his wife to a dinner of boiled turnips and bacon, washed down with a glass of Vichy water and milk. This was the town and these the scenes constantly occurring there. Now for my adventure. In 1870, just before the war cloud burst, covering all that part of the world, I was stopping for some weeks at the Hotel Nassau. It stands in the main street, opposite the park gate leading to the Casino. All the world went to Wiesbaden to be amused. However fashionable frivolity and vice may be elsewhere, here it was strictly de rigueur, and to pretend to decency and sobriety would be to stamp one's self a heathen and barbarian, all unversed in the glorious flower-wreathed Primrose Way of our orb.