MONACO is assuredly the loveliest spot on the entire French coast.
More the pity that it should be delivered over to such evil associations as cling to it.
Monaco itself is a limestone crag rising out of the sea, linked to the mainland by a neck, the rocks on all sides precipitous, but cut into, to form an approach to the town. Above it towers the ridge that extends from the Mont Agel, with its fortress gleaming white against a gentian-blue sky, by La Turbie, “hunc usque Italia, abhinc Gallia,” and the Tete-de-Chien, formerly Testa- de-Camp.
The rock of Monaco takes its name from Monoikos.
It was dedicated to the Phoenician Melkarth, the One god in a house, who would suffer no other idols in his temple, and that temple anciently crowned the rock. The adoption by the Grimaldi of a monk as supporter to the arms is due to a misapprehension that Monaco is derived from Monacus.
Unhappily, matchlessly beautiful as is the situation, the buildings of Monaco do not conduce to picturesqueness.
The palace is mean and ugly to the last degree.
