  Paris, February 28, 1802. In all great cities, one may naturally expect to find great vices; but in regard to gaming, this capital presents a scene which, I will venture to affirm, is not to be matched in any part of the world. No where is the passion, the rage for play so prevalent, so universal: no where does it cause so much havock and ruin. In every class of society here, gamesters abound. From men revelling in wealth to those scarcely above beggary, every one flies to the gaming-table; so that it follows, as a matter of course, that Paris must contain a great number of Maisons de jeu, or PUBLIC GAMING-HOUSES. They are to be met with in all parts of the town, though the head-quarters are in the Palais du Tribunat, or, as it is most commonly called, the Palais Royal. Whenever you come to Paris, and see, on the first story, a suite of rooms ostentatiously illuminated, and a blazing reverberator at the door, you may be certain that it is a house of this description. Before the revolution, gaming was not only tolerated in Paris, but public gaming-houses were then licensed by the government, under the agreeable name of AcadÉmies de jeu. There, any one might ruin himself under the immediate superintendance of the police, an officer belonging to which was always present. Besides these academies, women of fashion and impures of the first class were allowed to keep a gaming-table or tripot de jeu, as it was termed, in their own house. This was a privilege granted to them in order that they might thereby recover their shattered fortune. When all the necessary expenses were paid, these ladies commonly shared the profits with their protectors, that is, with their friends in power, through whose protection the tripot was sanctioned. Every one has heard of the fatal propensity to gaming indulged in by the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. The French women of quality followed her pernicious example, as the young male nobility did that of the Count d'Artois and the Duke of Orleans; so that, however decided might be the personal aversion of Lewis XVI to gaming, it never was more in fashion at the court of France than during his reign. This is a fact, which can be confirmed by General S---th and other Englishmen who have played deep at the queen's parties. At the present day, play is, as I have before stated, much recurred to as a financial resource, by many of the ci-devant female noblesse in Paris. In their parties, bouillotte is the prevailing game; and the speculation is productive, if the company will sit and play. Consequently, the longer the sitting, the greater the profits. The same lady who moralizes in the morning, and will read you a lecture on the mischievous consequences of gaming, makes not the smallest hesitation to press you to sit down at her bouillotte in the evening, where she knows you will almost infallibly be a loser. No protection, I believe, is now necessary for a lady who chooses to have a little private gaming at her residence, under the specious names of sociÉtÉ, bal, thÉ, or concert. But this is not the case with the Maisons de jeu, where the gaming-tables are public; or even with private houses, where the object of the speculation is publicly known. These purchase a license in the following manner. A person, who is said to have several sleeping partners, engages to pay to the government the sum of 3,600,000 francs (circa £150,000 sterling) a year for the power of licensing all gaming-houses in this capital, and also to account for a tenth part of the profits, which enter the coffer of the minister at the head of the department of the police. This contribution serves to defray part of the expense of greasing the wheels of that intricate machine. Without such a license, no gaming-house can be opened in Paris. Sometimes it is paid for by a share in the profits, sometimes by a certain sum per sitting. These Maisons de jeu, where dupes are pitted against cheats, are filled from morning to night with those restless beings, who, in their eager pursuit after fortune, almost all meet with disappointment, wretchedness, ruin, and every mischief produced by gaming. This vice, however, carries with it its own punishment; but it is unconquerable in the heart which it ravages. It lays a man prostrate before those fantastic idols, distinguished by the synonymous names of fate, chance, and destiny. It banishes from his mind the idea of enriching himself, or acquiring a competence by slow and industrious means. It feeds, it inflames his cupidity, and deceives him in order to abandon him afterwards to remorse and despair. From the mere impulse of curiosity, I have been led to visit some of the principal Maisons de jeu. I shall therefore represent what I have seen. In a spacious suite of apartments, where different games of chance are played, is a table of almost immeasurable length, covered with a green cloth, with a red piece at one end, and a black, one at the other. It is surrounded by a crowd of persons of both sexes, squeezed together, who, all suspended between fear and hope, are waiting, with eager eyes and open mouth, for the favourable or luckless chance. I will suppose that the banker or person who deals the cards, announces "rouge perd, couleur gagne." The oracle has spoken. At these words of fate, on one side of the table, you see countenances smiling, but with a smile of inquietude, and on the other, long faces, on which is imprinted the palid hue of death. However, the losers recover from their stupor: they hope that the next chance will be more fortunate. If that happens, and the banker calls out "rouge gagne, couleur perd;" then the scene changes, and the same persons whom you have just seen so gay, make a sudden transition from joy to sadness, and vice versa. This contrast no language can paint, and you must see it, in order to conceive how the most headstrong gamblers can spend hour after hour in such a continual state of agitation, in which they are alternately overwhelmed by rage, anguish, and despair. Some are seen plucking out their hair by the roots, scratching their face, and tearing their clothes to pieces, when, after having lost considerable sums, frequently they have not enough left to pay for a breakfast or dinner. What an instructive lesaon for the novice! What a subject of reflection for the philosophic spectator! At these scenes of folly and rapacity it is that the demon of suicide exults in the triumphs he is on the point of gaining over the weakness, avarice, and false pride of mortals. If the wretched victim has not recourse to a pistol, he probably seeks a grave at the bottom of the river. Among these professed gamblers, it often happens that some of them, in order to create what they term resources, imagine tricks and impostures scarcely credible. I shall relate an anecdote which I picked up in the course of my inquiries respecting the garning-houses in Paris. It may be necessary to premise that the counterfeit louis, which are in circulation in this country, and have nearly the appearance of the real coin, are employed by these knaves; they commonly produce them at night, because they then run less risk of being detected in passing them; but these means are very common and almost out of date. In the great gaming-houses in Paris, it is customary to have on the table several rouleaux of louis d'or. An old, experienced gambler came one day to a house of this class, with his pockets full of leaden rouleaux of the exact form and size of those containing fifty louis d'or. He placed at one of the ends of the table (either black or red) one of his leaden rouleaux: he lost. The master of the bank took up his rouleau, and, without opening it, put it with the good rouleaux in the middle of the table, where the bank is kept. The old gambler, without being disconcerted, staked another. He won, and withdrew the good rouleau given him, leaving the counterfeit one on the table, at the same time calling out, "I stake ten louis out of the rouleau." The cards were drawn; he won: the banker, to pay him the ten louis, took a rouleau from the bank. Chance willed that he lighted on the leaden rouleau. He endeavoured to break it open by striking it on the table: the rouleau withstood his efforts. The gambler, without deranging his features, then said to the banker; "Mind you don't break it." The banker, disconcerted, tore the paper, and, on opening it, found it to contain nothing but lead. There being no positive proof against the gambler, he was permitted to retire, and his only punishment was to be in future excluded from this gaming-house. But he had the consolation of knowing that ninety-nine others would be open to him. However, this and other impostures have led to a regulation, that, in all these houses, the value of every stake should be apparent to the eye, and openly exposed on the table. From what I have said you might infer that trente-et-un (or rouge et noir) is the most fashionable game played here; but, though this is the case, it is not the only one in high vogue. Many others, equally pernicious, are pursued at the same time, such as la roulette, passe-dix, and biribi, at which cheats and sharpers can, more at their ease, execute their feats of dexterity and schemes of plunder. Women frequent the gaming-tables as well as the men, and often pledge their last shift to make up a stake. It is shocking to contemplate a young female gamester, the natural beauty of whose countenance is distorted into deformity by a succession of agonizing passions. Yet so distressing an object is no uncommon thing in Paris. You may, perhaps, be curious to know what are these games, of trente-et-un, biribi, passe-dix, and la roulette. Never having played at any of them, such a description as I might pretend to give, could at best be but imperfect. For which, reason I shall not engage in the attempt. Is it not astonishing that the government should suffer, still more promote the existence of an evil so pernicious in every point of view? From the present state of the French finances, it would, notwithstanding, appear that every consideration, however powerful, must yield to the want of money required for defraying the expenses of the department of the Police. Minima de malis was the excuse of the old government of France for promoting gaming. "From the crowd of dissipated characters of every description, accumulated in great cities," said its partisans, "governments find themselves compelled to tolerate certain abuses, in order to avoid evils of greater magnitude. They are forced to compound with the passions which they are unable to destroy; and it is better that men should be professed gamblers than usurers, swindlers, and thieves." Such was the reasoning employed in behalf of the establishment of the AcadÉmies de jeu, which existed prior to the revolution. Such is the reasoning reproduced, at the present day, in favour of the Maisons de jeu; but, when I reflect on all the horrors occasioned by gaming, I most ardently wish that every argument in favour of so destructive a vice, may be combated by a pen like that of Rousseau, which, Sir William Jones says, "had the property of spreading light before it on the darkest objects, as if he had written with phosphorus on the walls of a cavern." |
|
