ROUGE OU NOIR

The soft haze of romance that hangs over Monte Carlo, periodically-shattered by the moneyed persistence of stray American millionaires, may presently be brushed aside with the bourgeoise tricolor of France. This step is not prophesied for tomorrow, of course, but if Monaco follows the lead of several other microscopic principalities which have lately given up their independence, it will not be many years until the famous casino is nothing more than a grand old memory, and until the chants of the crouplers are embalmed in the of the cropiers are embalmed in the folk lore of the countryside.

Three-quarters of a century ago the itinerant American could spend a summer wandering from tiny principality to tinier duchy, in the district made famous in literature by the late Miss Yonge, and could cross, during his peregrinations, at least half a dozen boundary lines. Such places as Sagan and Liechtenstein were not names, but independencies, each with its own little ruler, here a duke and there a baron, and its own code of customs.

Now, however, the romantic atmosphere which doubtless inspired Anthony Hope's Rudolph Rassendyll is rapidly disintegrating, and while the tourist can still walk ahead, there is a dull sameness of nationality which cannot fail to jar the geographic epicure; the personalities of the small states have been merged with those of their larger neighbors. Just lately, for instance, M. le Prince Helie de Sagan, Duke de Talleyrand-Perigord, having become sensitive, no doubt, to the weight of his increasing years and the accumulations of his unpaid estate taxes, offered for sale his entire holdings to the highest bidder; and now comes the news that the good citizens of Liechtenstein, upon the death of Prince Yohann, which is hourly expected, will give up their autonomy and amalgamate with Switzerland. Somehow the course of empire must be stayed. Whatever other rulers do the house of Monaco must realize that, although personally it may care nothing for freedom, it has a magnificent foreign reputation which must at all costs be preserved.