great engaged in the deepest play in their
mansions; but still a gamestress was always denounced with horror. 'Such
women,' says La Bruyiere, 'make us chaste; they have nothing of the sex
but its garments.'

By the end of the 18th century, gamestresses became so numerous that
they excited no surprise, especially among the higher classes; and the
majority of them were notorious for unfair play or downright cheating.
A stranger once betted on the game of a lady at a gaming-table, who
claimed a stake although on a losing card. Out of consideration for
the distinguished trickstress, the banker wished to pay the stranger as
well; but the latter with a blush, exclaimed--'Possibly madame won, but
as for myself, I am quite sure that I lost.'

But if women cheated at play, they also frequently lost; and were often
reduced to beggary, or to what is far viler, to sacrifice, not only
their own honour, but that of their daughters.

Gaming sometimes led to other crimes. The Countess of Schwiechelt, a
young and beautiful lady from Hanover, was much given to gambling, and
lost 50,000 livres at Paris. In order to repair this great loss, she
planned and executed the robbery of a fine coronet of emeralds, the
property of Madame Demidoff. She had made herself acquainted with the
place where it was kept, and at a ball given by its owner the Hanoverian
lady contrived to purloin it. Her youth and rank in life induced many
persons to solicit her pardon; but Buonaparte left her to the punishment
to which she was condemned. This occurred in 1804.

In England, too, the practice of gambling was fraught with the worst
consequences to the finest feelings and best qualities of the sex. The
chief danger is very plainly hinted at in the comedy of _The Provoked
Husband_.

_Lord Townley_.--'Tis not your ill hours that always distract me, but,
as often, the ill company that occasions those hours.

_Lady Townley_.--Sure I don't understand you now, my lord. What ill
company do I keep?

_Lord Townley_.--Why, at best, women that lose their money, and men that
win it; _or, perhaps, men that are voluntary bubbles at one game, in
hopes a lady will give them fair play at another._

'The facts,' says Mr Massey,(98) 'confirm the theory. Walpole's Letters
and Mr Jesse's volumes on George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, teem
with allusions to proved or understood cases of matrimonial infidelity;
and the manner in which notorious irregularities were brazen