FRANCE: Deauville Drolleries

Smart folk motoring down to Biarritz, at the close of Deauville’s “fortnight,” had two droll little incidents to tell about.

A young woman rose very pale from the baccarat table at Deauville Casino. She swayed and seemed about to faint, then her eyes fixed on a swarthy, paunchy Indian, His Highness the Aga Khan. As though impelled by hypnosis she took a step toward the Khan.

“I’ve just lost my last sou,” she said a little huskily, “how does Your Highness always, always win?”

The Aga Khan is a descendant of the True Prophet, and a gallant gentleman. “Take this, Ma’m’selle,” he said, handing her a huge oblong chip. “I make only one condition. You must never play baccarat again.”

In a still more hypnotic state, Ma’m’selle moved dazedly to the cashier’s window, cashed the chip for its stamped value of 100,000 francs ($4,000), and tottered out under Deauville’s big moon.

The other drollery, trivial, befell Actress Yvette Laurent when she strolled into a Deauville bar and sang out cheerily to a middle-aged man, “How about a little drink?”

(Yvette later explained, “Of course I would never have dreamed of doing such a thing in Paris!)

“Charming,” said the middle-aged man, “Champagne?”

“What’s your name?” brightened Yvette.

“Dreyfuss.”

Some 30 minutes later an equerry entered and addressed the middle-aged man as “Highness.”

“Say Dreyfuss,” gulped Mile. Laurent, “who are you anyway?” but Dreyfuss offered an excuse, kissed her hand, was gone.

“Dreyfuss,” as the Bar Man told Yvette, was His Royal Highness, Prince Aage of Denmark, cousin of King Christian X.

H. R. H. is chiefly celebrated for his immortal and exact definition of the taste of Montmartre boite de nuite (night club) champagne.

“It tastes,” said Prince Aage, “like a dusty windowpane.”