ROYAL GAMESTERS
Gambling, under one form or another, has always been a fashionable
diversion at Court. Plutarch tells a story of Parysatis, mother of
Cyrus, who played with the King, her husband, for the slave who had
slain her son, and, as she excelled at playing a certain game with dice,
she won him. History abounds in anecdotes of this kind, and we know how
popular gambling was in the old days of the Roman Empire. Augustus, for
instance, had the reputation of being fond of gambling, and Domitian,
indeed, like most of the emperors, rarely passed a day without indulging
in some gambling game.
Coming down to modern times, we find the practice more or less prevalent
in most European Courts, having naturally met with greater patronage
from some monarchs than others. Thus Alfonso of Castille tried to
prevent gambling by founding orders of chivalry in which it was
forbidden; and later, John of Castille, attempted to do the same by
edict.
In spite of several lukewarm attempts to prevent it, gambling ever
throve in France. Charles VI. lost one day five thousand livres to his
brother, and in the reign of that monarch flourished the Hôtel de
Nesle, which was notorious for its terrible gambling scandals, where--
“Maint gentilshommes tres haulx
Ont perdu armes et cheveaux,
Argent, honeuret seignourie.”
It is recorded how Philibert de Chalon, Prince d’Orange, who was in
command at the siege of Florence, under the Emperor Charles V., actually
gambled away the money which had been confided to him for the pay of the
soldiers, and “was compelled, after a struggle of eleven months, to
capitulate with those whom he might have forced to surrender.” But when
so much encouragement was given to gambling by royalty, it is by no
means surprising that the vice prevailed almost everywhere, and was not
confined to any one country, especially when many of the French kings
were said to patronise and applaud well-known cheats at the
gaming-table.[82]
The so-called cards of Charles VI., which are now in the Bibliothèque du
Roi of Paris, are in all probability the most ancient of any that are
preserved in the various public collections of Europe. They are but
seventeen, painted on a gold ground, and surrounded by a silver border,
in which is a ribbon rolled spirally round done in points.
It was at Bourges, in the Château du Berri, that the game of piquet was
invented, as tradition tells us, by Lahire, as a pastime for Charles
VII.
In an old account-book of the monarchs of France, we find that in 1392
there was paid about £8 of our present money for three packs; and the
accounts of the jeweller to Queen Marie of Anjou contain this entry: “On
the 1st of October, 1454, to William Bouchier, merchant, two games of
cards and two hundred pins, delivered to Monsieur Charles of France, to
play with, and amuse himself, five sals tournois.”
Henry IV. was an inveterate gambler, and, although not a skilful player,
he is said to have been “greedy of gain, timid in high stakes, and
ill-tempered when he lost.” In his reign gambling became the rage, and
it appears from his Majesty’s letters to Sully that he sometimes played
on credit, _e.g._ “I have lost at play 22,000 pistoles (220,000 livres);
I beg you to pay them directly to Faideau, that he may distribute them
to the persons to whom I owe them.”
“_August 20, 1609._--Pay M. Edouard, Portuguese, 51,000 livres on
account of what I owe him at play.”[83]
L’Estoile, referring to this period, says that an Italian named
Pimentello gained more than a hundred thousand crowns in the Court
circle, to which the King contributed 340,000 livres. It was this
Pimentello who one day boasted to Sully of having frequently played with
Henry IV., whereupon Sully indignantly replied: “By heavens! so you are
the Italian blood-sucker who is every day winning the King’s money! You
have fallen into the wrong box, for I neither like nor wish to have
anything to do with such fellows.”
At this remark Pimentello got warm, but Sully, giving him a push, added,
“Go about your business, your infernal gibberish will not alter my
resolve. Go!” There can be no doubt that this Pimentello was a
discreditable character, for, in order to aid his dishonesty, he is said
to have induced the dice-sellers in Paris to substitute loaded dice
instead of fair ones.
But, as Henry disliked losing, those who played with him had either to
lose their money, or to offend his Majesty by beating him. On one
occasion the Duke of Savoy, in order to humour Henry, dissimulated his
game, thus sacrificing about £28,000. And so great was this king’s
passion for the gaming-table that once when it was whispered to him that
a certain princess whom he loved was in danger of falling into other
arms, he said to Bassompierre, one of his courtiers, “Take care of my
money, and keep up the game, whilst I am absent on particular business.”
One day when Henry IV. was dining with Sully, the latter had brought in
at the close of the repast cards and dice, together with two purses of
4000 pistoles each, one for the King, the other to lend to the lords of
his suite. Whereupon his Majesty exclaimed: “Great master, come and let
me embrace you, for I love you as you deserve. I feel so comfortable
here that I shall sup and stay the night.” But it has been suggested
that the whole affair was by the King’s order. At last, if we are to
believe the following anecdote, he was cured of gambling. After losing
a large sum of money, he requested Sully to send him the amount, who
hesitated for some time. Eventually, spreading it out before the King,
he exclaimed, “There’s the sum.”
Henry fixed his eyes on the vast amount--sufficient to purchase Amiens
from the Spaniards, who then held it--and then he sorrowfully said, “I
am corrected; I will never again lose my money at gaming.”
A gaming quarrel was the cause of a slap in the face given by the Duc
René to Louis XII., then Duc d’Orleans. This slap was the origin of a
_ligue_ which was termed “the mad war.” The resentment of the outraged
prince was not appeased till he mounted the throne, when he uttered
these memorable words: “A King of France does not avenge insults offered
to a Duke of Orleans.” Similarly, on one occasion Casimir II., King of
Poland, received a blow from a Polish subject, named Konarski, who had
lost all he possessed in play. Thereupon he took to flight, and on being
captured he was condemned to lose his head. But when brought before
Casimir, his Majesty thus addressed him: “You, I perceive, are sorry for
your fault; that is sufficient. Take your money again, and let us
renounce gaming for ever.” And turning to his courtiers, the King added,
“I am the only one to blame in this matter, for I ought not by my
example to encourage a pernicious practice which may be the ruin of my
nobility.”
Louis XIII. was adverse to gambling in any form, but Louis XIV. gave it
every encouragement. Madame de Sevigné thus describes a gaming party at
which she was present: “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.” She then describes how “a table of
reversi (a compound of loo and commerce) 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 &
Co., Langée & Co.; a thousand louis are poured out on the cloth--there
are no such other counters.... There is always 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 (the knave of hearts). Some pass, others
play; but whenever you play without winning the pool, you must pay in
sixteen to teach you how to play rashly; they talk altogether, and
forever, and of everything.”
This was the kind of amusement which characterised what Madame de
Sevigné has termed “the iniquitous Court,” and well she might tremble at
the idea of her son joining such a company. She says, “He tells me he is
going to play with his young master--the Dauphin. I shudder at the
thought. Four hundred pistoles are very easily lost.”
Numerous anecdotes have been handed down of the disputes which arose at
Court owing to the high play. On one occasion, when excessive gambling
was going on at Cardinal Mazarin’s, the Chevalier de Rohan lost a large
sum to the King. It had been arranged that the money was to be paid only
in _louis d’ors_, and the Chevalier, after counting out seven or eight
hundred, proposed to pay the remainder in Spanish pistoles.
“But 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, annoyed, complained to the Cardinal, who promptly answered,
“The Chevalier de Rohan has played the King, and you the Chevalier de
Rohan.”
Quite recently at Paris a _jeu de Loye_, made for the amusement of Louis
XIV., in marqueterie of ivory, ebony, and coloured woods, fetched £9;
the Grand Monarque’s game of chance having realised a higher price than
the curls sold at the same auction, and which had once adorned the
mistress of his predecessor on the throne.
At the death of Louis XIV., it is said that three-fourths of the nation
thought of nothing but gambling, and incidentally may be noticed a
little Court occurrence associated with Louis XV. At the royal
card-table M. de Chauvelin was seized with a fit of apoplexy, of which
he died. On seeing him fall, some one exclaimed, “M. de Chauvelin is
ill!”
“Ill?” said the King, coldly turning round and looking at him; “he is
dead. Take him away; spades are trumps, gentlemen!”
During the reign of Louis XVI. gambling “kept pace if it did not
outstrip every other licentiousness of that epoch.” But Louis XVI. hated
high play, and very often showed displeasure when the loss of large sums
was mentioned. Bachaumont, in his Memoirs (tom. xii. p. 189), speaks of
the singular precautions taken at play at his Court: “The bankers at the
Queen’s table, in order to prevent the mistakes which daily happen, have
obtained permission from his Majesty that, before beginning to play, the
table shall be bordered by a ribbon entirely round it, and that no other
money than that upon the cards beyond the ribbon shall be considered as
staked.”[84]
But Marie Antoinette’s love of high play was almost a vice, and her
gaming-table often witnessed scenes far from creditable to her sex or
rank. Le Comte de Mercy informs us that the Emperor Joseph II.--not too
severe a moralist--once sent a message to the Queen to the effect that
“the play at the Queen’s table at Fontainebleau was like that in a
common gambling-house; people of all kinds were there, and mingled
without decorum; the Comte d’Artois and the Duc de Chartres displayed
there every day some fresh trait of folly, and great scandal was caused
by the fact that several ladies cheated.... Those who held the bank
arrived on the 30th of October; they acted as tellers all night and
during the morning of the 31st in the apartments of the Princess de
Lamballe. The Queen remained till five o’clock in the morning. In the
evening the Queen directed the play to begin again, and continued
playing until late in the morning of the 1st of November--All Saints’
Day.” It is not surprising that frivolity and dissipation of this kind
were much commented upon, and gave to slanderers much scope for their
attacks on her conduct. In order, also, to manage the high play at the
Queen’s faro tables, it was necessary to have a banker provided with
large sums of money.
Charles X. was an habitual whist-player, and on the eve of his
deposition enjoyed his “rubber”; and when as an exile the ex-king was
the guest of Cardinal Weld at Lulworth Castle, near Wareham, his
principal occupation was whist. Later on, during his sojourn at Prague,
at eight, after dinner, the whist-table was prepared, “where the
tranquillity of the evening was not disturbed unless Charles found
himself with an indifferent partner. He could lose a crown by his own
fault with great reluctance, but to lose a trick by the stupidity of his
partner was beyond his patience.” But his equanimity was only
temporarily ruffled, and then he was full of redundant apology.
Strange and pathetic is a well-known anecdote told of the great
Napoleon. As “the prisoner of Europe” he arrived at his last
dwelling-place on the 15th of October, and exactly one year before he
had been playing at cards with his mother in his little saloon in the
island of Elba; and as the illustrious lady was about to rise after
losing the game, her imperial son said to her laughingly, “Pay your
debts, madam, pay your debts!” Since that time, as Dr. Doran writes,
“Napoleon had played a most serious game against a host of adversaries,
and had been defeated. The winners called upon him to pay the penalty.”
But although Napoleon gambled with kingdoms, he did not do so with
cards. Indeed, he despised gamblers, and it is said that when Las Casas
in exile admitted that he had played, Napoleon declared that he was glad
he had not known it, as gamblers were always ruined in his estimation. A
story, however, has been told of his having sent Junot in 1796 to play
in order to accumulate funds for the Italian campaign, a statement which
there is every reason to disbelieve.
Catherine II. of Russia enjoyed a game of whist at ten roubles the
rubber. And at one period she would admit the Chamberlain Tchertkof to
make up the party, whose presence generally afforded some amusement.
This individual, it is said, generally got into a rage, reproached her
imperial majesty with not playing fair, and sometimes in vexation he
threw the cards in her face, an outburst of temper which she invariably
took good-humouredly.
An amusing story is told of one of the German sovereigns. A stranger,
plainly dressed, took his seat at a faro-table when the bank was richer
than usual. After looking on for a short time he challenged the bank,
and tossed his pocket-book to the banker that he might be satisfied of
his financial position. It was found to contain bills to a large amount,
and on the banker showing reluctance to accept the challenge, the
stranger sternly demanded that he should comply with the laws of the
game. The card soon turned up which decided the ruin of the banker.
“Heavens!” exclaimed an old infirm Austrian officer who had sat next to
the stranger, “the twentieth part of your gains would make me the
happiest man in the universe!” Whereupon the stranger answered, “You
shall have it then,” and quitted the room. A servant speedily returned,
and presented the officer with the twentieth part of the bank, adding,
“My master, sir, requires no answer.” The successful stranger was soon
discovered to be no other than the King of Prussia in disguise.
Henry VIII.’s losses at cards and dice are said to have been enormous,
but Anne Boleyn appears to have been a more fortunate gamester. A game
much played at Court was Pope Julius’s game, or as it is sometimes
called in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., “Pope July’s game.”
On the 20th of November 1532 we find this entry in the Privy Purse
Expenses:--“Delivered to the King’s grace at Stone, £9, 6s. 8d., which
his grace lost at ‘Pope Julius’s game’ to my lady marques [Anne Boleyn],
Mr. Bryan, and Maister Weston.” On the 25th Henry lost twenty crowns to
the same party at the same game, and the following day £18, 13s. 4d. On
the 28th Anne wins £11, 13s. 4d. in a single-handed game of cards with
her royal lover, and on the next day Henry loses £4 at Pope Julius’s
game. Henry was an inveterate gamester, and Erasmus in some emphatic
words addressed to him bears witness that his queen, Catherine of
Aragon, did not suffer such vain pursuits to divert her mind from
duties. “Your noble wife,” says he, “spends that time in reading the
sacred volume which other princesses occupy in cards and dice.” Henry
VIII. gambled away the famous Jesus Campanile bell at St. Paul’s with
the great folk-mote bell which summoned the assemblies of the citizens
with a throw of the dice at hazard to Sir Miles Patridge, who pulled it
down. “But,” adds Spelman in his “History of Sacrilege,” “in the fifth
year of King Edward VI. the gamester had worse fortune when he lost his
life, being executed on Tower Hill.”
Queen Mary in her young days was fond of betting and wagers, and many
items of high play and of money lost by her have been preserved. She
lost a frontlet, for instance, in a wager with her cousin, Lady Margaret
Douglas, for which she paid four pounds. It is said that the Princess
Mary not only pledged caps but lost breakfasts at bowls, which was then
a fashionable amusement; “and to counterbalance these vanities she paid
for the education of a poor child and the expense of binding him
apprentice.”[85] The frontlets referred to above were the ornamented
edges of coifs or caps, some of which were edged with gold lace and
others with pearls and diamonds. Hence they were occasionally very
expensive and cost a high price, and on this account they might easily
be given in payment of wagers, or losses incurred through high play.
Through the evil influence of the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Mazarine,
excessive gambling became one of the prevailing vices of the Court of
Charles II., although his Majesty was not addicted to deep playing, or
pursued cards otherwise than as an amusement. Queen Catherine was fond
of ombre--which was probably introduced by her into this country--and
quadrille, and if she played it was for the sake of the diversion rather
than the stake. But the Duchess of Portsmouth had been known to lose
five thousand guineas at a sitting, and on the evening of February 1,
1685--the last Sunday that Charles II. was permitted to spend on
earth--“the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were playing at
basset round a large table, with a bank of at least two thousand pounds
before them. The king though not engaged in the game was to the full as
scandalously occupied,”[86] “sitting,” writes Evelyn, “in open
dalliance with three of the shameless women of the Court, the Duchesses
of Portsmouth, Morland, and Mazarine, and others of the same stamp,
while a French boy was singing love-songs in that glorious gallery. Six
days after,” he adds, “all was in the dust.”
Pepys, too, alludes to the practice of card-playing on Sunday initiated
by Catherine into the English Court, and writes: “This evening, going to
the queen’s side to see the ladies, I did find the queen, the Duchess of
York, and another at cards, with the room full of ladies and great men,
which I was amazed to see on a Sunday, having not believed, but
contrarily flatly denied the same a little while to my cousin.”
In the ensuing reign, basset and other gambling games were in high vogue
in Court and fashionable society. Mary Beatrice, consort of James II.,
disliked cards, and was frightened at the idea of high play; but, it
seems, her ladies told her she must do as others did, or she would
become unpopular. Accordingly her reluctance was overcome by their
importunities, and soon she was to be seen at the card-table, losing,
time after time, large sums of money at a game in playing which she
found no pleasure. In after years she was apt to say: “I suffered great
pain from my losses at play, and all for the want of a little firmness
in not positively refusing to comply with a custom which those who were
so much older than myself told me I was not at liberty to decline. I
shall always regret my weakness, since it deprived me of the means of
doing the good I ought to have done at that time.” Such was the
acknowledgment made nearly forty years afterwards of what she always
regarded as an inexcusable error on her part.
Like her sister Anne, Mary II. was in her early life a constant
card-player, and, not satisfied with devoting her week-day evenings to
this diversion, she played on the Sabbath. In after years she maintained
her love for cards, and we find her playing at basset, a game much in
request throughout the Courts of Europe, and at which vast sums were won
and lost. After the peace of Mimeguen, the Marquis d’Avaux, the
ambassador from Louis XIV., sent word on the morning of December 3,
1680, to Monsieur Odyke--an official in the household of the
princess--that he would wait on her that evening. But he forgot to give
the notice, so that when the French Ambassador arrived he found the
princess had commenced her gambling. She rose and asked him if he would
play; he made no answer, and she resumed her game, the ambassador
sitting down and looking on. After a while he joined in the game, and
the Prince of Orange, who arrived shortly afterwards, did the same.
According to strict etiquette, however, as the visit of the ambassador
had been previously announced, the basset tables should not have been
set till his arrival.
William III., too, was much given to gambling. He passed whole days on
the race-ground, and in the evenings he gambled, losing at one sitting,
it is said, four thousand guineas at basset. The following morning, in
a state of exasperated temper, he gave a gentleman a stroke with his
horsewhip for riding in front of him on the race-ground. The proceeding
was the subject of much comment, and was satirised by a _bon-mot_,
declaring “that it was the only blow he had struck for supremacy in his
kingdoms.” William appears to have lost enormous sums at the
basset-table, and his inveterate habit of gambling, added to the passion
of his princess for cards, caused, as might be expected, the
scandalmongers of the period to scatter broadcast the most derogatory
stories respecting their Sunday gambling parties, a practice which
brought down the most unsparing remonstrances of the Church of England
clergymen, and caused Mary’s old tutor, Dr. Lake, the greatest concern.
It would seem that the game of basset occupied a considerable portion of
Queen Anne’s time, “breaking into her hours by day as well as by night.”
At the basset-table the players so closely crowded her Majesty that she
could scarcely “put her hand in her pocket,” an obligation, it is said,
not infrequent, since she was usually unfortunate at play. Allusions to
the game occur in her correspondence, as, for instance, in a letter to
the Duchess of Marlborough, written in 1703, dated “Monday night,” and
which runs thus: “Just as I came from basset I received my dear Mrs.
Freeman’s letter, and though it is very late, I cannot be content with
myself without thanking you for it.” It is not surprising that there was
a great and constant drain on the privy-purse when so much was drawn
out of it to meet the demands for play-money.
At the period of George II.’s reign there were cards everywhere. “Gaming
has become so much the fashion,” writes Seymour, the author of the
“Court Gamester,” “that he who in company should be ignorant of the
games in vogue, would be reckoned low-bred and hardly fit for
conversation.” On Twelfth Day it was customary for the Court to play in
state. “This being Twelfth-day his Majesty, the Prince of Wales, and the
Knights Companions of the Garter, Thistle, and Bath appeared in the
collars of their respective orders. Their Majesties, the Prince of
Wales, and three eldest Princesses went to the Chapel Royal, preceded by
the heralds. The Duke of Manchester carried the Sword of State. The King
and Prince made offerings at the altar of gold, frankincense, and myrrh,
according to the annual custom. At night their Majesties played at
hazard with the nobility, for the benefit of the groom-porter; and ’twas
said the King won 600 guineas; the Queen, 360; Princess Amelia, twenty;
Princess Caroline, ten; the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Portmore,
several thousands.”
George II. was once seated at a card-table, when the Countess of
Deloraine, who usually formed one of his intimate society, happened to
be one of the party at the game. In the midst of the play one of the
Princesses quietly glided behind Lady Deloraine, and suddenly drawing
the chair from under her caused her to fall on the ground. The King, by
his excessive laughter, showed himself highly amused at the occurrence,
which so enraged Lady Deloraine that, some time afterwards seizing the
King’s chair, she occasioned him the same mishap which she had
experienced herself.
But George, says Horace Walpole, “like Louis XIV., was mortal in the
part which touched the ground.” Diverted as he had been when the
misfortune occurred to another, he regarded the insult as unpardonable
when offered to himself, and henceforth Lady Deloraine was banished the
Court.[87]
The Princess Amelia Sophia, daughter of George II., was fond of the
card-table, and Horace Walpole, who was frequently invited to her
card-parties, has given many a graphic picture of the Princess on these
occasions. She was a great snuff-taker, and on one occasion, when
playing at cards in the public rooms at Bath, a general officer took a
pinch from her box, the Princess showing her sense of the liberty he had
taken by ordering an attendant to throw the contents of the box into the
fire.
But the Princess’s addiction to play was the cause of comment even in
the royal circle. Doddington was once conversing with the widow of
Frederick Prince of Wales respecting the tastes of her eldest
son--afterwards George III.--when “she began by saying that she liked
the Prince should now and then amuse himself at small play, but that
princes should never play deep, both for example, and because it did not
become them to win great sums.” From thence, says Doddington, she told
me that “it was highly improper the manner in which the Princess ----
behaved at Bath; that she played publicly all the evening very deep.” I
asked, with whom? She said, “With the Duke and Duchess of Bedford; that
it was prodigious what work she made with Lord Chesterfield; that when
his lordship was at Court she would speak to him; but that now at Bath
she sent to inquire of his coming before he arrived; and when he came
she sent her compliments to him, expecting him at all her parties at
play, and that he should always sit by her in the public rooms that he
might be sure of a warm place.” Numerous anecdotes of this kind have
been recorded illustrative of the gambling tastes of the Princess; and
yet notwithstanding the prosecution of her favourite occupation, which
frequently kept her from rest till a very late hour, she continued an
early riser throughout her life.[88]
George IV., when Prince of Wales, surpassed all his predecessors in his
gambling propensities, having lost, it is said, not much less than
£800,000 before he was twenty-one years of age--a habit which he
probably contracted through his intimacy with Fox. “It was with the
view,” it is said, “and in the hope that marriage would cure his love of
the gaming table, that his father was so anxious to see him united to
Caroline; and it was solely on account of his marriage with that
princess constituting the only condition of his debts being paid by the
country that he agreed to marry her.” Indeed, George IV. was, as
Thackeray says,[89] “a famous pigeon for the play-men;” they lived upon
him. Egalité Orleans, it was believed, punished him severely. A noble
lord is said to have mulcted him in immense sums. He frequented the
clubs where play was almost universal, and, as it was known his debts of
honour were sacred, whilst he was gambling, Jews waited outside to
purchase his notes of hand.
Wraxall, in the “Memoirs of his own Time,” describing the royal
residence at Luneville, of the ex-Polish monarch, Stanislaus Leczinski,
says that during the last years of his life he withdrew every night at
nine o’clock, when his departure constituted the signal for commencing
faro. All the persons of both sexes, comprising his Court and household,
joined in the game, which was continued to a late hour. But, as Dr.
Doran says, “a circumstance seemingly incredible is that the rage for it
became such as to attract by degrees to the table all the domestics of
the palace, down to the very turnspits or scullions, who, crowding
round, staked their _écus_ on the cards over the heads of the company.”
Such a fact, according to Wraxall, proves the relaxation of manners
which prevailed at the Court of Lorraine under Stanislaus.