Such episodes were by no means rare in Russia and in Poland. The fatal passion of gambling was carried to excess. It had become a frenzy, a positive madness. Russian and Polish society teemed with victims, the whole of whose fortunes had been lost at the gaming table in a dozen hours.
I remember that after Potocki’s death at Tulczim, the children of his first marriage came into possession of his immense fortune. Two of these, educated at Leipzig, received during the life of their father only a few ducats per week for pocket-money. The moment they were the masters of their inheritance, they went headlong into all the excesses of gaming, and the elder of the two lost thirty millions of florins in three years by playing at faro with his own land-stewards. A short time after that his friend, M. de Fontenay, who had clung to him through good and evil fortune, had to borrow a hundred louis to have him buried at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he died.
Sometimes the incidents of those terrible gaming parties presented the most wonderful reversals of luck. Here is an instance. Prince Galitzin, one of the richest of Russian nobles, was playing on one occasion with the most persistent bad luck. Estates, serfs, revenues, town-houses, furniture, jewels, everything had been swallowed up. He had nothing left but his carriage. That was waiting for him outside; he staked it, and lost that in a few throws of the dice. A few minutes afterwards the horses were also gone. ‘I did not stake the harness,’ he said; ‘it is all in silver, and has just come from St. Petersburg.’
His adversary nodded, and a game was begun for the harness. At that moment, though, the luck turned as completely in the Prince’s favour as a few moments previously it had been against him. In a few hours he not only won back the horses, the carriage, and the family jewels, but everything else he had lost so rapidly, and that, thanks to the harness, which literally seemed to be attached to the wheel of fortune. It is absolutely astounding to find that men are not positively shattered by those shocks of fortune. Galitzin was not ungrateful in his worship of the harness. In his palace at Moscow I have looked at it—in fact, it was pointed out to me, suspended in the most conspicuous spot of the building, and protected from the tiniest speck of dust by a framework of glass, like a precious relic, and as a tangible proof of the strange vicissitudes of gaming.
During my stay in Russia, that same Prince Galitzin was the victim of probably the cleverest piece of fraud ever perpetrated, in which his luck forsook him. He was a great amateur of diamonds and precious stones, and also claimed to be a judge. One day, in the card-room of the English club at Moscow, he noticed an Italian wearing a ring with a diamond of the first water, and of extraordinary size. The prince went up to the wearer of this magnificent jewel, and asked to be allowed to look at it. ‘And you also, prince, are taken in by it,’ replied the Italian. ‘What looks to you like a diamond is only a bit of paste, very beautiful paste, but after all, paste.’
The prince shook his head. ‘No paste ever sparkled like that. Will you mind confiding it to me for a few hours?’ he asked. ‘I wish to show it to the emperor’s jeweller, in order to prove to him the rare degree of perfection imitation can attain.’
The Italian made not the least difficulty in granting the request. The prince ran to the jeweller to ask him the value of the magnificent single stone. The dealer examined, weighed, and tested the thing, admitting that he had rarely seen so perfect a specimen of petrified carbon. ‘But it’s a bit of paste,’ exclaimed the prince with glee. The dealer examined and weighed again, subjected the stone to more tests, and finally pronounced the gem to be a diamond, a diamond of the first water, which in the trade would fetch at the lowest estimate a hundred thousand roubles, and for which he, if it was to be disposed of, would be willing to give eighty thousand. Galitzin makes the dealer repeat his words again and again, and finally returns to the card-room, where the Italian is engaged in a quiet game of piquet. The prince gives him his ring, asking him to sell it; to which the Italian replies that he is not in want of money, and that in any case the ring has not the slightest value. Galitzin will not take no for an answer, but cannot get the Italian to budge. He sets great store by the bauble, not because of its worth, because it has none, but for the associations attached to it, inasmuch as his mother gave it to him, exacting his promise never to part with it. Seduced by the prospect of an enormous bargain, Galitzin would take no refusal, offered ten thousand roubles, increased his offer to thirty thousand, and finally proposed fifty thousand.’
‘Very well, prince,’ said the Italian, as if weary of the struggle, ‘fifty thousand be it then; and you, gentlemen—’ this, turning to the lookers-on—‘you can bear witness that the prince compels me to sell him for fifty thousand roubles a mere bit of paste.’
‘Never mind, give me the ring,’ exclaimed Galitzin impatiently; ‘I know what I am doing.’ Thereupon the Italian took the ring off his finger and handed it to the prince, who, delighted with his purchase, gave him there and then a voucher for fifty thousand roubles, to be paid at sight by his business-manager. An hour afterwards the money was in the Italian’s pocket, and the next morning Galitzin repaired once more to the jeweller’s, telling him of his success in obtaining the diamond, and holding it up for his inspection.
‘But this is only a bit of paste,’ exclaims the dealer; ‘a splendid bit of paste, but after all, paste. It’s wonderful, though, how closely it resembles the single stone you showed me yesterday. It’s the same size, the same cut, the same shape. It’s calculated to deceive better judges than your excellency.’