Monte Carlo



Source: Wikimedia Commons


Monte Carlo was one of the places Marx visited during the last months of his life, trying to get away from London’s bad air and weather due to his increasing respiratory problems. He stayed there from 7 May to 3 June 1882.


Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, 8 May 1882, Hotel de Russie, Monte Carlo:

In Nice, where I stayed on the 5th and 6th, I soon found out that the wind here is capricious and constant uniformity of temperature is by no means to be expected. Today, my brief experience was confirmed by Dr. Delachaux, medical surgeon (resides in Interlaken), who is staying in the same hotel here. He has visited Nice, surrounding towns and generally the most famous places of the Riviera on holiday, so far with an eye to business as to ascertain which places he might best recommend to sufferers of lung diseases, bronchial catarrh of a chronic character etc.. He declared decidedly against Nice, but preferred Monte Carlo even to Mentone. Dr. Delachaux is returning to his Swiss homeland today.
[...]
In the reading room of the Monte Carlo casino they have almost all the Parisian and Italian newspapers literature; a fairly good selection of German ones, very few English. [...] The local public, on the other hand, e.g. those who share the table d'haute at the Hotel de Russie, are much more interested in what happens in the salles de jeu of the Casino (tables de roulette et de trente-et-quarante). In particular, I was amused by a son of Great Britain, all gruff, sour-faced, and grumpy, and why? Because he had lost a certain number of gold pieces, while he had been quite determined to “steal” some. He did not understand that Fortuna was not a lady to be “bullied” by British rudeness.



This site has been conceived in conjunction with the HERA-funded research project The European Spa as a Transnational Public Space and Social Metaphor. Conception: Astrid Köhler, Text © Astrid Köhler and Karen Southworth, Design © Jana Riedel.