Wheel Of Fortune

It was reported she deplored the idea of gambling and even refused a visit to the Palais du Prince. Based on historical evidence and a smidgen of fiction, Jon Bryant re-imagines Victoria's Monaco escapade on one auspicious evening in 1882.

TIRED FROM THE STEEP SLOPES of the botanical gardens, Queen Victoria felt restless in her silk-lined saloon-carriage. Her ankles ached and the smell of the Ponderosa lemons and pomelos, an unwanted gift from Sir Thomas Hanbury, had begun to pique her nose. A bolt had come loose from the carriage's rear wheel so her footmen were waiting for a lighter coach to be sent down from Menton. She thumped three times on the carriage ceiling with her cane. "Could we hurry this along? Can't one simply go in the carriage behind?"

"It's not suitable, I'm afraid, ma'am. Its cushions are depleted and there's no footrest or padding. The ride would be dreadfully cramped and uneven."

"One's quite used to uneven... it took three weeks from Calais!" She paused. "...change of plan... I want to return to Monaco. Just me. Just to see. I was talking to Empress Eugénie and she mentioned I might like a game or two... so I'd like my blue bonnet and the French hairpiece and I'd like you to take my shawl and pearls."

Victoria was seated at the roulette table before the other gamblers were allowed into the casino's vast salle. Sixty-two and only a meter and a half tall, few would have been deceived as to her true identity, but she introduced herself as the Countess of Balmoral.

"Mesdames, Messieurs, faites vos jeux!"

Thrilled by her incognito, Victoria stared at the roulette wheel and placed her jetons on the closest case to her—IMPAIR.

She felt "odd" was rather a good place to start.

"Dix-sept noir, impair et manque!" Victoria's hand darted out to gather up her winning chips and she added them to her tiny pile before placing a column of the smooth, ebony jetons on red. "I wear so much black, I think I will have a punt on ROUGE!"

The ball tinkered around the spinning wheel, clipping the cross handle and flying into the air like grouse fleeing the beater in Balmoral's moorland thickets.

"Vingt-deux, noir, pair et passe!" Didn't they know who she was? She looked at the other gamblers, counting jetons or glowering and slouched. Is this what she'd found so despicable? She'd lost but there was surely time to win.

"Mesdames, Messieurs, faites vos jeux!"

She lost again. She never liked sevens; she'd always hated the number 31 and suddenly 14 was a dreadful number.

Victoria leant over and placed her last four jetons on ten, the day she'd married Albert.

"Rien ne va plus!" The tiny ivory ball clipped its way over the tiny pockets, settling on eight before leaping again and coming to a stop on... "Dix, noir, pair et manque!"

The Queen walked down the hill from the casino to the sea in front of the chapelle Sainte-Dévote before taking a few steps onto the sand. She removed her bonnet and bent down to ease off her black boots which felt tight in the warm, Spring night. She stepped into the water, staring out into the darkness and relieved there was no one around. No one to enquire as to her wellbeing. No one to turn away as she asked for another Irish stew.

Light-headed with the success in the casino and with her boots in one hand and purse full of 100-franc gold coins around her neck, a gust of wind lifted her ballooning black gown and toppled her into the sea.

Since the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in the winter of 1861, certain aspects of his guidance and companionship had been taken on by Mr. John Brown, including teaching her to swim in the Cow Pond at Windsor Castle. While she had not mastered the newly-popular breast-stroke, she felt her side-stroke was strong enough to deal with the gentle swell of the warm Mediterranean as she drifted out towards the tip of Le Rocher.

She was now moving northwards, past the present-day Maretterra and looked back at the coast at the lights in Roquebrune. She thought about the olives hanging from that enormous tree just outside the village, about the puddingstone caves and how much she'd like another visit... to the casino. The Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, last of the Hanover and the "Grandmother of Europe" floating away into the dark ocean.

Her side-stroke had turned into a light paddle and her tiny feet moving in circles were just about keeping her afloat. Once, her favorite Pekinese had tried to swim out to join her in the pond and started to sink before Mr. Brown had dived in, still wearing his kilt, and lifted the drenched dog out by his scruff. How she longed for Mr. Brown now.

She turned away from the coast but her bombazine gown had become heavy and twisted around her legs, dragging her down as she took in gulps of salty sea and her fingers, clamped together in exhaustion, spread out to accept her final, mortal plunge.

Only meters away were the Queen's two footmen who had appropriated a pointu rowing boat for the evening and managed to lift Her Majesty out of the water using an oar and lobster basket. Her carriage was waiting for them at the Anse de Larvotto whereupon they made their way back to the Chalet des Rosiers in Menton.

Victoria, wrapped in Turkish bath towels, began to compose a letter to Eugénie about her success in the casino and the sea but that future trips to the Riviera would focus on watercolors of the coastline and flowers in Grasse and Nice, and she would leave escapades in Monaco to her son, Bertie.

By Jon Bryant

Contributor

Jon Bryant is a Nice-based journalist and travel writer. He contributes regularly to The Guardian newspaper and co-authored the 2025 edition of the Moon Guide to Provence and the French Riviera. His Lonely Planet book on the French Mediterranean comes out October 2025.