St. Paul daily globe., 1889-05-13
MONTE CARLO TRAGEDY.

The True story OF an Event In0t
Points a Moral Lesson to a Tale
of Illicit Love.
There has been some argument in the
European press as to whether suicides
ever occur at Monte Carlo as the result
of losses at the gambling tables. Es'
pecially is there hot argument as to
whether a recently reported double
suicide under most romantic conditions
did or did not take place. r. &. Sims,
who has been staying there, however.
claims to have ferreted out with great
difficulty the real facts, which are as
follows:
A young married man of Lyons fell
in love with young married woman.
They met secretly. adored each other,
and agreed to fly together-tO put the
seas between themselves and their fam
lilies. But there was a slight difficulty
for long journey, and they wanted to
be far, far away-in America for choice.
Then the idea came to the man that
they would take their small capital of
few hundred francs and 60 to Monte
Carlo, and make it into fOrtune-a for
tune which would enable them to live in
peace and plenty On far-0ff shore. So
it came that one day, with small box
and portmanteau, the fugitives ar
rived at Monte Carlo. and put up at this
little hotel, where for three francs day
you can have bed and board. They had
only few hundred francs with them.
In the letter which they have left be-
hind they explained that from the first
their arrangements were complete.
They foresaw the possibilities of the
situation. They would play until they
had won enough to go to America, or
they would lose all. And if they lost all
they had, they would Gle together and
give their friends no further trouble
about them. They were a few days only
only few at time, and they spent the
remainder of the days and evenings in
strolling about the romantic glades and
quiet pathways of the beautiful gar
dens, whispering together Of love and
looking into each others eyes. The end
came quickly. One evening they went
up IN the soft moonlight to the fairy
land of Monte Carlo. They entered
the casino. They had come to their last
few golden coins. One by one the
croupier's remorseless rake swept them
away, and then the lovers went out of
the hot, crowded rooms, out from the
glare of the chandeliers and the swing
ing lamps into the tender moonlight
again. Down 1.-The staircase of fortune''
arm in arm they went along the glori-
Gus marble terraces that look upon the
sea, on to where, at the foot of
the great rock on which Monaco
stands, there lies the Condamine.
1t was their last walk together.
The lovers were going home to
die. That night in some way
which I was unable to ascertain, the
guilty and ruined man and woman OBJ
tanned some charcoal and got ints their
bedroom. They then closed the win
dows and doors and prepared for death.
They wrote letter-a letter which an
official assured me was so touching that,
as he read it in the room where they lay
dead, the tears ran down his cheeks.
Then the girl-who was but girl
dressed herself in snowy white, and
placed on her breast a sweet bouquet of
violets. Then the charcoal was lighted,
and the lovers laid themselves out for
death side by side, and passed dreamily
into sleep, from sleep to death. and from
death to judgment. Theses are the facts
of 1.-The romantic suicide at Monte
Carlo" 1t is not a moral story; it is
not new story. l have told it simply
as it happened.