,' for thus were
termed the gaming houses to which all classes of society beneath
the nobility and gentility, down to the lowest, rushed in crowds and
incessantly. Not a day passed without the ruin of somebody. The son of a
merchant, who possessed twenty thousand crowns, lost sixty thousand. It
seemed, says a contemporary, that a thousand pistoles at that time were
valued less than a _sou_ in the time of Francis I.

The result of this state of things was incalculable social affliction.
Usury and law-suits completed the ruin of gamblers.

The profits of the keepers of gaming houses must have been enormous, to
judge from the rents they paid. A house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain
was secured at the rental of about L70 for a fortnight, for the purpose
of gambling during the time of the fair. Small rooms and even closets
were hired at the rate of many pistoles or half-sovereigns per hour; to
get paid, however, generally entailed a fight or a law-suit.

All this took place in the very teeth of the most stringent laws enacted
against gaming and gamesters. The fact was, that among the magistrates
some closed their eyes, and others held out their hands to receive the
bribe of their connivance.

LOUIS XIII.--At the commencement of the reign of Louis XIII. the
laws against gaming were revived, and severer penalties were enacted.
Forty-seven gaming houses at Paris, which had been licensed, and from
which several magistrates drew a perquisite of a pistole or half a
sovereign a day, were shut up and suppressed.

These stringent measures checked the gambling of the 'people,' but not
that of 'the great,' who went on merrily as before.

Of course they 'kept the thing quiet'--gambled in secret--but more
desperately than ever. The Marechal d'Ancre commonly staked twenty
thousand pistoles (L10,000).

Louis XIII. was not a gambler, and so, during this reign, the court did
not set so bad an example. The king was averse to all games of chance.
He only liked chess, but perhaps rather too much, to judge from the fact
that, in order to enable him to play chess on his journeys, a chessboard
was fitted in his carriage, the pieces being furnished with pins at
the bottom so as not to be deranged or knocked down by the motion.
The reader will remember that, as already stated, a similar gaming
accommodation was provided for the Roman Emperor Claudius.

The cup and ball of Henry III. and the chessboard of Louis XIII. are
merely ridiculous. We