Apart from its suggestion of youthfulness Monte Carlo is a town full of remarkable contrasts as extreme as the black shadow of a cypress on a marble wall. On one side of the haven, with its chapel to Ste. Dévote, rises the great rock of Monaco. On its summit stand the palace, the fortress and the little town—all three so staid, so grey, so very, very old—just as they have stood in company through some six hundred years. On the other side of the chapel, on rising ground, lies Monte Carlo, modern in every fibre of its being, a town that has sprung up in a night like a gaudily-tinted fungus, a brilliant, vivid place, slashed with colour like a jester’s coat, as ephemeral as a rainbow, since any change in the public taste may cause it to fade into nothingness. On the crest of the hill above Monte Carlo there stands, against the skyline, the massive monument in stone set up by the Emperor Augustus to mark the victory of Rome over a horde of savages; while below, by the edge of the sea, are the pinnacles of the Casino, a monument in papier mâché to mark the subjection of a cultured folk to the mastery of a passion. Climbing the mountain behind the town is still the ancient road that, more than two thousand years ago, led from the Roman forum into Gaul; while, by the water’s edge, on the other hand, are the railway, the motor track and a hydroplane that has just flown over from Corsica. All around Monte Carlo, from the east to the west, are the cave-dwellings of prehistoric men, a brutish people clad in wolf skins; while in the town itself are hotels of unparalleled luxury and, on the Terrace, a company of pampered men and women decked in all the “purple and fine linen” that the world can provide. Still more curious is it that the great modern forts of Mont Agel and the Tête de Chien actually look down upon a line of fortified camps and stone strongholds built by the Ligurians before the dawn of history. ----- [40] The name Monte Carlo is derived from Prince Charles III. of Monaco. XXVII SOME DIVERSIONS OF MONTE CARLO THE _General Atmosphere._—The atmosphere of Monte Carlo is the subject of some comment. It is in fact complained of. The air over the town is not said to be unpleasant in colour; it is not, for example, stated to be green or yellow. The charge is that the atmosphere is “vitiated.” Now in the dictionary “to vitiate” is said to mean “to corrupt, debase or contaminate” and therefore the accusation is a grave one. In defence it can be claimed that the moral atmosphere in Monte Carlo is not so vitiated as it is in London or in Paris. There are visitors to the principality—both men and women—who are indulgently described as “undesirable”; but they are not peculiar to Monte Carlo, nor do they form even a conspicuous item in its holiday population.