.'

Still it seems that gaming had not then confounded all conditions, as
at a later period. It is evident, from the history and memoirs of the
times, that the people were more given to games of skill and exercise
than games of chance. Before the introduction of the arquebus and
gunpowder, they applied themselves to the practice of archery, and in
all times they played at quoits, ninepins, bowls, and other similar
games of skill.(41)

(41) Sauval, _Antiquites de Paris_, ii.

The invention of cards brought about some change in the mode of
amusement. The various games of this kind, however, cost more time than
money; but still the thing attracted the attention of the magistrates
and the clergy. An Augustinian friar, in the reign of Charles VII.,
effected a wonderful reformation in the matter by his preaching. At his
voice the people lit fires in several quarters of the city, and eagerly
flung into them their cards and billiard-balls.(42)

(42) Pasquier, _Recherche des Recherches_.

With the exception of a few transient follies, nothing like a rage for
gambling can be detected at that period among the lower ranks and
the middle classes. The vice, however, continued to prevail without
abatement in the palaces of kings and the mansions of the great.

It is impossible not to remark, in the history of nations, that delicacy
and good faith decline in proportion to the spread of gambling. However
select may be the society of gamesters, it is seldom that it is exempt
from all baseness. We have seen a proof of the practice of cheating
among the Hindoos. It existed also among the Romans, as proved by the
'cogged' or loaded dice dug up at Herculaneum. The fact is that cheating
is a natural, if not a necessary, incident of gambling. It may be
inferred from a passage in the old French poet before quoted,
that cheats, during the reign of Charles VI., were punished with
'bonnetting,'(43) but no instance of the kind is on record; on the
contrary, it is certain that many of the French kings patronized and
applauded well-known cheats at the gaming table.

(43) Se votre ami qui bien vous sert En jouant vous changeoit les Dez,
Auroit-il pas _Chapeau de vert_.

LOUIS XI.--Brantome says that Louis XI., who seems not to have had a
special secretary, being one day desirous of getting something written,
perceived an ecclesiastic who had an inkstand hanging at his side; and
the latter having opened it at the king's request, a