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 brazened out, shows that the offenders did not always encounter the universal reprobation of society.
(98) History of England, ii.
'Whist was not much in vogue until a later period, and was far too abstruse and slow to suit the depraved taste which required unadulterated stimulants.'