Lucrative
Gambling

The reign of Louis XIV. was a great development in every point of view, gambling included. The revolutions effected in the government and in public morals by Cardinal Richelieu, who played a game still more serious than those we are considering, had very considerably checked the latter; but these resumed their vigour, with interest, under another Cardinal, profoundly imbued with the Italian spirit--the celebrated Mazarin. This minister, independently of his particular taste that way, knew how to ally gambling with his political designs. By means of gambling he contrived to protract the minority of the king under whom he governed the nation.

`Mazarin,' says St Pierre, `introduced gambling at the court of Louis XIV. in the year 1648. He induced the king and the queen regent to play; and preference was given to games of chance. The year 1648 was the era of card-playing at court. Cardinal Mazarin played deep and with finesse, and easily drew in the king and queen to countenance this new entertainment, so that every one who had any expectation at court learned to play at cards. Soon after the humour changed, and games of chance came into vogue--to the ruin of many considerable families: this was likewise very destructive to health, for besides the various violent passions it excited, whole nights were spent at this execrable amusement. The worst of all was that card-playing, which the court had taken from the army, soon spread from the court into the city, and from the city pervaded the country towns.

`Before this there was something done for improving conversation; every one was ambitious of qualifying himself for it by reading ancient and modern books; memory and reflection were much more exercised. But on the introduction of gambling men likewise left of tennis, billiards, and other games of skill, and consequently became weaker and more sickly, more ignorant, less polished, and more dissipated.

`The women, who till then had commanded respect, accustomed men to treat them familiarly, by spending the whole night with them at play. They were often under the necessity of borrowing either to play, or to pay their losings; and how very ductile and complying they were to those of whom they had to borrow was well known.'

From that time gamesters swarmed all over France; they multiplied rapidly in every profession, even among the magistracy. The Cardinal de Retz tells us, in his Memoirs, that in 1650 the oldest magistrate in the parliament of Bordeaus, and one who passed for the wisest, was not ashamed to stake all his property one night at play, and that too, he adds, without risking his reputation--so general was the fury of gambling. It became very soon mixed up with the most momentous circumstances of life and affairs of the gravest importance. The States-general, or parliamentary assemblies, consisted altogether of gamblers. `It is a game,' says Madame de Sevigne, `it is an entertainment, a liberty-hall day and night, attracting all the world. I never before beheld the States-general of Bretagne. The States-general are decidedly a very fine thing.'

The same delightful correspondent relates that one of her amusements when she went to the court was to admire Dangeau at the card-table; and the following is the account of a gambling party at which she was present:--

`29th July, 1676.

`I went on Saturday with Villars to Versailles. I need not tell you of the queen's toilette, the mass, the dinner--you know it all; but at three o'clock the king rose from table, and he, the queen, Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle, all the princes and princesses, Madame de Montespan, all her suite, all the courtiers, all the ladies, in short, what we call the court of France, were assembled in that beautiful apartment which you know. It is divinely furnished, everything is magnificent; one does not know what it is to be too hot; we walk about here and there, and are not incommoded anywhere:--at last a table of reversi[53] gives a form to the crowd, and a place to every one. _THE KING IS NEXT TO MADAME DE MONTESPAN_, who deals; the Duke of Orleans, the queen, and Madame de Soubise; Dangeau and Co.; Langee and Co.; a thousand louis are poured out on the cloth-- there are no other counters. I saw Dangeau play!--what fools we all are compared to him--he minds nothing but his business, and wins when every one else loses: he neglects nothing, takes advantage of everything, is never absent; in a word, his skill defies fortune, and accordingly 200,000 francs in ten days, 100,000 crowns in a fortnight, all go to his receipt book.

[53] A kind of game long since out of fashion, and now almost forgotten; it seems to have been a compound of Loo and Commerce-- the _Quinola_ or _Pam_ was the knave of hearts.

`He was so good as to say I was a partner in his play, by which I got a very convenient and agreeable place. I saluted the king in the way you taught me, which he returned as if I had been young and handsome--I received a thousand compliments--you know what it is to have a word from everybody! This agreeable confusion without confusion lasts from three o'clock till six. If a courtier arrives, the king retires for a moment to read his letters, and returns immediately. There is always some music going on, which has a very good effect; the king listens to the music and chats to the ladies about him. At last, at six o'clock, they stop playing--they have no trouble in settling their reckonings--there are no counters--the lowest pools are five, six, seven hundred louis, the great ones a thousand, or twelve hundred; they put in five each at first, that makes one hundred, and the dealer puts in ten more--then they give four louis each to whoever has Quinola--some pass, others play, but when you play without winning the pool, you must put in sixteen to teach you how to play rashly: they talk all together, and for ever, and of everything. "How many hearts?" "Two!" "I have three!" "I have one!" "I have four!" "He has only three!" and Dangeau, delighted with all this prattle, turns up the trump, makes his calculations, sees whom he has against him, in short--in short, I was glad to see such an excess of skill. He it is who really knows "le dessous des cartes."

`At ten o'clock they get into their carriages: _THE KING, MADAME DE MONTESPAN_, the Duke of Orleans, and Madame de Thianges, and the good Hendicourt on the dickey, that is as if one were in the upper gallery. You know how these calashes are made.

`The queen was in another with the princesses; and then everybody else, grouped as they liked. Then they go on the water in gondolas, with music; they return at ten; the play is ready, it is over; twelve strikes, supper is brought in, and so passes Saturday.'

This lively picture of such frightful gambling, of the adulterous triumph of Madame de Montespan, and of the humiliating part to which the queen was condemned, will induce our readers to concur with Madame de Sevigne, who, amused as she had been by the scene she has described, calls it nevertheless, with her usual pure taste and good judgment, _l'iniqua corte_, `the iniquitous court.'

Indeed, Madame de Sevigne had ample reason to denounce this source of her domestic misery. Writing to her son and daughter, she says:--`You lose all you play for. You have paid five or six thousand francs for your amusement, and to be abused by fortune.'

If she had at first been fascinated by the spectacle which she so glowingly describes, the interest of her children soon opened her eyes to the yawning gulf at the brink of the flowery surface.

Sometimes she explains herself plainly:--`You believe that everybody plays as honestly as yourself? Call to mind what took place lately at the Hotel de la Vieuville. Do you remember that _ROBBERY?_'

The favour of that court, so much coveted, seemed to her to be purchased at too high a price if it was to be gained by ruinous complaisances. She trembled every time her son left her to go to Versailles. She says:--`He tells me he is going to play with his young master;[54] I shudder at the thought. Four hundred pistoles are very easily lost: _ce n'est rien pour Admete et c'est beaucoup pour lui_.[55] If Dangeau is in the game he will win all the pools: he is an eagle. Then will come to pass, my daughter, all that God may vouchsafe--_il en arivera, ma fille, tout ce qu'il plaira a Dieu_.'

[54] The Dauphin.

[55] `It is nothing for Admetus, but 'tis much for him.'

And again, `The game of _Hoca_ is prohibited at Paris _UNDER THE PENALTY OF DEATH_, and yet it is played at court. Five thousand pistoles before dinner is nothing. That game is a regular cut- throat.'

Hoca was prodigiously unfavourable to the players; the latter had only twenty-eight chances against thirty. In the seventeenth century this game caused such disorder at Rome that the Pope prohibited it and expelled the bankers.

The Italians whom Mazarin brought into France obtained from the king permission to set up _Hoca_ tables in Paris. The parliament launched two edicts against them, and threatened to punish them severely. The king's edicts were equally severe. Every of offender was to be fined 1000 livres, and the person in whose house Faro, Basset, or any such game was suffered, incurred the penalty of 6000 livres for each offence. The persons who played were to be imprisoned. Gaming was forbidden the French cavalry under the penalty of death, and every commanding officer who should presume to set up a Hazard table was to be cashiered, and all concerned to be rigorously imprisoned. These penalties might show great horror of gaming, but they were too severe to be steadily inflicted, and therefore failed to repress the crime against which they were directed. The severer the law the less the likelihood of its application, and consequently its power of repression.

Madame de Sevigne had beheld the gamesters only in the presence of their master the king, or in the circles which were regulated with inviolable propriety; but what would she have said if she could have seen the gamblers at the secret suppers and in the country-houses of the Superintendent Fouquet, where twenty `qualified' players, such as the Marshals de Richelieu, de Clairembaut, &c., assembled together, with a dash of bad company, to play for lands, houses, jewels, even for point-lace and neckties? There she would have seen something more than gold staked, since the players debased themselves so low as to circumvent certain opulent dupes, who were the first invited. To leave one hundred pistoles, ostensibly for `the cards,' but really as the perquisite of the master of the lordly house; to recoup him when he lost; and, when they had to deal with some unimportant but wealthy individual, to undo him completely, compelling him to sign his ruin on the gambling table-- such was the conduct which rendered a man _recherche_, and secured the title of a fine player!

It was precisely thus that the famous (or infamous) Gourville, successively valet-de-chambre to the Duc de la Rochefoucault, hanged in effigy at Paris, king's envoy in Germany, and afterwards proposed to replace Colbert--it was thus precisely, I say, that Gourville secured favour, `consideration,' fortune; for he declares, in his Memoirs, that his gains in a few years amounted to more than a million. And fortune seems to have cherished and blessed him throughout his detestable career. After having made his fortune, he retired to write the scandalous Memoirs from which I have been quoting, and died out of debt![56]

[56] Mem. de Gourville, i.

France became too narrow a theatre for the chevaliers d'industrie and all who were a prey to the fury of gambling. The Count de Grammont, a very suspicious player, turned his talents to account in England, Italy, and Spain.

This same Count de Grammont figured well at court on one occasion when Louis XIV. seemed inclined to cheat or otherwise play unfairly. Playing at backgammon, and having a doubtful throw, a dispute arose, and the surrounding courtiers remained silent. The Count de Grammont happening to come in, the king desired him to decide it. He instantly answered--`Sire, your Majesty is in the wrong.' `How,' said the king, `can you decide before you know the question?' `Because,' replied the count, `had there been any doubt, all these gentlemen would have given it in favour of your Majesty.' The plain inference is that this (at the time) great world's idol and Voltaire's god, was `up to a little cheating.' It was, however, as much to the king's credit that he submitted to the decision, as it was to that of the courtier who gave him such a lesson.

The magnanimity of Louis XIV. was still more strikingly shown on another gambling occasion. Very high play was going on at the cardinal's, and the Chevalier de Rohan lost a vast sum to the king. The agreement was to pay only in _louis d'ors;_ and the chevalier, after counting out seven or eight hundred, proposed to continue the payment in Spanish pistoles. `You promised me _louis d'ors_, and not pistoles,' said the king. `Since your Majesty refuses them,' replied the chevalier, `I don't want them either;' and thereupon he flung them out of the window. The king got angry, and complained to Mazarin, who replied:--`The Chevalier de Rohan has played the king, and you the Chevalier de Rohan.' The king acquiesced.[57]

[57] Mem. et Reflex., &e., par M. L. M. L. F. (the Marquis de la Fare).

As before stated, the court of the Roman Emperor Augustus, in spite of the many laws enacted against gambling, diffused the frenzy through Rome; in like manner the court of Louis XIV., almost in the same circumstances, infected Paris and the entire kingdom with the vice.

There is this difference between the French monarch and the Roman emperor, that the latter did not teach his successors to play against the people, whereas Louis, after having denounced gaming, and become almost disgusted with it, finished with established lotteries. High play was always the etiquette at court, but the sittings became less frequent and were abridged. `The king,' says Madame de Sevigne, `has not given over playing, but the sittings are not so long.'

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