From these glückshäfen were produced our lotteries, when articles of merchandise were no longer employed as prizes, but certain sums of money, the value of which was determined by the amount of the money received, after the expenses and gain required by the undertakers were deducted, and when the tickets were publicly drawn by charity-boys blindfolded. As these lotteries could not be conducted without defrauding the adventurers, it was at first believed, through old-fashioned conscientiousness, that it was unlawful to take advantage of the folly and credulity of the people, but for pious or charitable purposes.
Lotteries were then established by private persons, and in the course of time even by governments; and the clear gain was applied to the purpose of portioning poor young women, of redeeming slaves, of forming funds for the indigent, and to other objects of beneficence. It was also hoped that these public games of hazard would banish other kinds still more dangerous; and no one suspected that the exposing of tickets for sale, and the division of them, so that one could purchase an eighth or even a smaller share, would maintain and diffuse the taste of the public for gambling. This, however, increased; and the profit of lotteries became so great, that princes and ministers were induced to employ them as an operation of finance, and to hold the bank which always enriched the undertakers. People were then forbidden to purchase tickets in foreign lotteries, that the money won from the adventurers might pass into the sovereign’s treasury, or at any rate be retained in the country; and in order that tickets might be disposed of sooner and with more certainty, many rulers were so shameless as to pay the salaries of their servants partly in tickets, and to compel guild companies and societies to expend in lotteries what money they had saved[1026].
Of the oldest lotteries among the Italians I have not been able to find any account. Varchi, who wrote about the year 1537, relates that during a great scarcity of money at Florence in 1530, a lottery was established for the benefit of the state, and that the price of a ticket was a ducat. He however does not employ the term lottery, but uses the words un lotto, and calls a ticket polizza, a term which, as is well known, is generally used in regard to insurance. Le Bret says, that at Venice, in 1572, the inspection of lotteries was entrusted to the proveditori del commune; but as he does not mention the historian from whom this account is borrowed, the word which he translates lottery cannot be known. We nevertheless learn from his account, that this game was established at Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century, and placed under the inspection of the government.
It is certain that the chance game which gave rise to lotteries was brought from Italy to France under the name of blanque, a word formed from the Italian bianca. The greater part of the tickets drawn were always white paper, carta bianca, consequently blanks; and because that word occurred oftenest in drawing, it gave rise to the general appellation. Hence also is derived the phrase trouver blanque, to obtain nothing, to get a blank, or to lose. At the time Pasquier wrote[1027], that is, in the last half of the sixteenth century, the name numero was also usual, because the numbers of the tickets, which were then called devises, were announced in the time of drawing. This name, instead of nombre, confirms the Italian origin. As each person in the time of drawing was attentive to his number, the phrase entendre le numero was applied to those who knew or did not forget their numbers. Hence the expression, as Pasquier remarks, Il entend le numero, which is still said of those who know their own interest, or understand how to pursue it. Frisch and others, therefore, in their dictionaries have derived it improperly from the numbers with which merchants marked their goods.
In France also the first blanques (lotteries) had no other prizes than articles of merchandise; and on that account they were set on foot only by merchants. But in the year 1539 Francis I. endeavoured to turn them to his own advantage by imitating the public establishment of them usual at Venice, Florence, and Genoa. He permitted these games of chance under the inspection of certain members of the government, with a view, as was pretended, of banishing deceptive and pernicious games of chance, on condition that for every ticket, devise or mise[1028], a teston de dix sols six deniers should be given to the king. But however small the sum required may have been, this blanque was not filled up in the course of two years, and the king was obliged to recommend it by an order issued in the month of February 1541; yet it is not known whether it was ever completed[1029].
In the years 1572 and 1588, Louis de Gonzague, duke de Nivernois and Rethelois, established a blanque at Paris, for the purpose of giving marriage portions to poor virtuous young women belonging to his estates. No lottery was ever drawn with so much ceremony and parade. Before the drawing, which began every year on Palm Sunday, mass was said; the servants employed were obliged to swear that they would act in a faithful and impartial manner; and even Sextus V. gave to those who should promote this good work remission of their sins. The prize tickets were inscribed as follows: Dieu vous a élue, or Dieu vous console. The former ensured to the young woman who drew it 500 francs, which were paid to her on her wedding-day; the latter was the inscription of blanks, but suggested the hope of being more fortunate the year following[1030].
This example induced ladies of quality from time to time to establish similar blanques (lotteries) for benevolent purposes. Some destined the profit to the building or repairing of certain churches and convents. Three ladies, whose names history has not thought proper to communicate, set on foot a lottery containing a certain number of tickets at forty sous each, and employed the gain in redeeming, by means of the Mathurines or Patres, as they were called, persons who had fallen into slavery among the Turks. On one occasion a blanque or lottery of a very singular nature was instituted by some ladies, in order to raise a fund for their spiritual guide or confessor, who had been chosen bishop, but had no property, that they might purchase for him a carriage and horses, with every thing necessary to support his ecclesiastical dignity. Each of these grateful ladies was obliged to procure or present to him the article announced by the ticket she had drawn, “pour le remercier, par cette petite largesse, pour le bon ordre qu’il avoit apporté à leurs consciences.”
But these games of chance occur much oftener in the French history, as the means employed to make valuable presents to ladies and other persons of distinction. The largest, in all probability, is that by which Cardinal Mazarine endeavoured to increase his splendour, and render himself more popular among the courtiers. The tickets were distributed as presents; each was a prize, and the prizes were rarities of various kinds, and of different values. This, says the historian, was perhaps the first time that fortune did good to all and hurt to no one[1031].
That these games of chance became in the middle of the seventeenth century lotteries, in the proper sense of the word, is unanimously asserted by all the French historians who have touched on this subject, though in some circumstances they differ from each other. In the year 1644, Laurence Tonti came from Naples to Paris, and during a scarcity of money which then prevailed, proposed that kind of life-rents or annuities which at present are named after him Tontines, though they were used in Italy long before his time. But after tedious disputes in regard to his proposal, which was at length rejected, he gave in its stead a new plan for a large blanque, or lottery, which in 1656 obtained the royal approbation. It was to consist of 50,000 tickets, each at two Louis d’ors, so that the whole receipt would amount to 1,100,000 livres; but it is to be recollected that a Louis d’or at that time was only eleven livres. Of this sum 540,000 livres were to be deducted for building a stone bridge and an aqueduct. The expenses of the blanque were estimated at 60,000 livres, and the remaining 500,000 were to be divided into prizes, the highest of which was 30,000 livres. But this blanque royale, for so it was called, was never filled up, and consequently never drawn. On this account it was found necessary to construct a wooden bridge in the room of that which had been burnt. As complaints were often made by mercantile people in regard to the disposal of merchandise in this manner, which had been hitherto permitted, and as this practice had evidently injured the blanque royale, the former in the month of January 1658 was entirely forbidden.
In the year 1660, when the conclusion of peace and the marriage of Louis XIV. were celebrated, the first lottery on the plan of Tonti was set on foot at Paris. It was drawn publicly under the inspection of the police. A ticket cost only a Louis d’or, and the highest prize was 100,000 livres. This was won by the king himself; but he would not receive it, and left it to the next lottery in which he had no ticket[1032]. This was soon followed by several others. On that account, in the year 1661, all private lotteries were expressly forbidden under severe penalties, and this prohibition was repeated in 1670, 1681, 1687, and 1700[1033]. Since that time there have been no other lotteries but the loteries royales, the profits of which were, in general, applied to public buildings, as was the case in regard to the magnificent church of St. Sulpice, and on that account they met with great support.