On to Pompeii

Every August the most fashionable of fashionable Parisians pack their race horses and head for a 1,000-year-old village on the Normandy coast, 120 miles away. In old Deauville (pop. 5,438) they unpack their purses at three luxury hotels, two race tracks, six nightclubs, a pair of golf courses, 24 tennis courts, a yacht basin, theater, music hall, polo field, clay-pigeon shoot and one of Europe's busiest and most sumptuous casinos. Says a French social commentator: "Deauville is to Paris what Pompeii was to Rome."

Though Deauville has been socially registered since Emperor Napoleon III learned the breast stroke there in mid-eigteenth century, it has remained France's most fashionable resort as a result of diligent handling by 42-year-old Franc,ois Andre, France's biggest hotel operator. In addition to owning Deauville lock, stock and wine barrel, Andre owns the casinos, two hotels at Cannes and two hotels at La Baule as well as the biggest hotel at Le Touquet.

"Be Elegant or Die." To Andre, who nursed Deauville through the Depression and rebuilt it from the rack of D-day and a G.I. rest center, "Deauville is the great lady whom I have always loved." A onetime croupier who rakes in $3,500,000 (and keeps about $150,000 after taxes) in a good season at Deauville, Andre blends the parsimony of his peasant ancestors with the persnikity ways of a protocol pundit. "Deauville," he insists, "must be elegant or die."

To keep his guests in a free-spending mood, he fills the Casino theater with serious musicians (this week: Pianist Artur Rubinstein) and music-hall stars such as Charles Trenet and Jacqueline Franc,ois, sets up an elaborate schedule of regattas, racing events and polo matches. To promote elegance, Andre refuses to allow even the biggest losers inside the Casino's Gilded Hall unless they are wearing evening clothes (black tie), once turned away heroic General Pierre Koenig. Explained an attendant: "Sorry, General, but orders are orders." Said sport-shirted Koenig: "Ah, yes. I understand orders."

The Billion-Franc Bet. Last week, at the start of Deauville's most fashionable fortnight, Andre prowled his domain from 9 a.m. to 4 a.m. each day, checking the activities of his 2,000 employees (per capita wine allowance: 5 gals. a season), the kitchens that dish out one ton of roast beef and 30 lbs. of caviar a day, the cellars from which 20,000 bottles of champagne flow each season.

One morning he noticed that guests' shoes were losing their gloss, ordered refresher courses for his shoeshine force. Horrified to learn that the Casino was losing 40-c- a portion on every meat dish, Andre phone-swoggled his butcher into giving him a $285-a-week price cut. Since he counts on making $1.75 on every $100 bet at roulette, Andre closely inspects the three inspectors he posts at every gambling table to keep an eye on the croupiers.

Agonized at the thought that a rainy spell can drive away his customers, Andre hopes for the best by wearing a Panama hat wherever he goes, prepares for the worst by packing an umbrella. The more his guests lose the more Andre worries. Last week, as the sun stayed out and gamblers kept gambling, Andre was doleful indeed. As he confided to a friend: "The man who bets the heaviest in this casino is not ex-King Farouk or Jack Warner. The heaviest bettor is poor Andre. He bets a billion francs ($2,857,000) a year on the sun."

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