THE DUC DE MIREFOIX.
The Duc de Mirefois was ambassador at the British Court, and was extremely fond of chess. A reverend gentleman being nearly his equal, they frequently played together. At that time the clergyman kept a petty day-school in a small village, and had a living of not more than twenty pounds a-year. The French nobleman made uncommon interest with a noble duke, through whose favour he obtained for his reverend protege a living of about L600 per annum—an odd way of obtaining the 'cure of souls!'
A RECLAIMED GAMBLER'S ACCOUNT OF HIS CAREER.
'Some years since I was lieutenant in a regiment, which the alarm and policy of administration occasioned to be quartered in the vicinity of the metropolis, where I was for the first time. A young nobleman of very distinguished family undertook to be my conductor. Alas! to what scenes did he introduce me! To places of debauchery and dens of destruction. I need not detail particulars. From the lures of the courtesan we went to an adjoining gaming room. Though I thought my knowledge of cards superior to those I saw play that night, I touched no card nor dice. From this my conductor, a brother officer, and myself adjourned to Pall Mall. We returned to our lodgings about six o'clock in the morning.
'I could think of nothing but Faro's magic centre, and longed for the next evening, when I determined to enter that path which has led so many to infamy, beggary, and suicide. I began cautiously, and for some time had reason to be satisfied with my success. It enabled me to live expensively. I made golden calculations of my future fortune as I improved in skill. My manuals were treatises on gaming and chances, and no man understood this doctrine better than I did. I, however, did not calculate the disparity of resisting powers—my purse with FIFTY guineas, and the Faro bank with a hundred thousand. It was ruin only which opened my eyes to this truism at last.
'Good meats, good cooking, and good wines, given gratis and plenteously, at these houses, drew many to them at first, for the sake of the society. Among them I one evening chanced to see a clerical prig, who was incumbent of a parish adjoining that in which my mother lived. I was intoxicated with wine and pleasure, when I, on this occasion, entered a haunt of ruin and enterprising avarice in Pall Mall. I played high and lost in proportion.
'The spirit of adventure was now growing on me every day. I was sometimes very successful. Yet my health was impaired, and my temper soured by the alternation of good and bad fortune, and my pity or contempt for those with whom I associated. From the nobleman, whose acres were nightly melting in the dice box, there were adventurers even to the UNFLEDGED APPRENTICE, who came with the pillage of his unsuspecting master's till, to swell the guilty bank of Dame N— and Co. Were the Commissioners of Bankruptcy to know how many citizens are prepared for them at those houses, they would be bound to thank them.
'Many a score of guineas have I won of tradesmen, who seemed only to turn an honest penny in Leadenhall Street, Aldgate, Birchin Lane, Cornhill, Cheapside, Holborn, the Borough, and other eastern spots of industry; but I fleeced them only for the benefit of the Faro bank, which is sure, finally, to absorb the gain of all. Some of the croupiers would call their gold GIFTS OF THE WISE MEN OF THE EAST; others termed their guineas COCKNEY COUNTERS!
'One night I had such a run of luck in the Hazard room, which was rather thinly attended, that I won everything, and with my load of treasure collected from the East and West, nay, probably, some of it from Finchley Common and Hounslow Heath, I went, in the flush of success, to attack the Faro bank.
'It was my determination, however, if fortune favoured me through the night, never to tempt her more. For some hours I proceeded in the torture of suspense, alternately agitated by hope and fear—but by five o'clock in the morning I attained a state of certainty similar to that of a wretch ushered into the regions of the damned. I had lost L3500 guineas, which I had brought with me from the Hazard table, together with L2000 which the bank advanced me on my credit. There they stopped; and, with an apathy peculiar to themselves, listened to a torrent of puerile abuse which I vented against them in my despair.