It is related that a French Captain, named La Roue, once offered a bet of twenty thousand crowns against one of Andrew Doria’s war galleys. Doria took the wager, but immediately declared it off, fearing the ridiculous position in which he would be left should he lose. “I don’t wish this young adventurer,” he said, “who has nothing worth naming to lose, should he win my galley, to go and triumph in France over my fortune and my honor.”
Henry IV, when very young and stinted in ready money, used to raise money with which to gratify his growing passion for gaming by sending his own promissory note to his friends with the request that they should cash it, an experiment that almost invariably succeeded, as his friends were only too glad to have the prince beholden to them. The influence of Henry IV was exceedingly pernicious in the matter of gaming, as in other vices. Gambling became the ruling vice, and many noted families were brought to ruin by it.
In a single year the Duc de Biron lost over 500,000 crowns (£125,000). The celebrated D’Audigne wrote: “My son lost twenty times more than he was worth, so that, finding himself without resources, he abjured his religion.” Henry IV was, indeed, the gambling exemplar of France. He was very avaricious, and those who played with him had either to lose or to offend their sovereign.
The Duke of Savoy, it is said, once sacrificed 40,000 pistoles (about £28,000) rather than incur the king’s enmity. The king always wanted “revanche,” or revenge, when he lost, and often used his royal authority in exacting it. The extent of gambling in France at this period was astonishing, and Paris swarmed with gamesters.
Bassompierre says in his memoirs that he won 500,000 livres in a single year, and that his friend, Pementello, won more than 200,000 crowns (£50,000—$250,000). It was at this period that, for the first time, were established “Academies de jeu,” or gaming academies, as they were called. They were public gambling houses, to which all classes of society, even to the lowest, were admitted. Scarcely a day passed without its suicide or scandal arising from the ruin of somebody through gambling.
Upon the accession of Louis XIII the laws against gambling were revived, and a vigorous attempt was made to enforce them. Nearly fifty licensed gaming houses in Paris, which had been paying half a sovereign a day to each of a number of magistrates, were closed. As a consequence of this movement, gaming among the lower classes was checked to a considerable extent, but little, if any, effect was produced upon the progress of the vice among the nobility and the rich, beyond causing the practice to be carried on with much greater secrecy.
It is said that the favorite stake of the Marechal D’Ancre was 20,000 pistoles (£10,000—$50,000). Louis XIII was opposed to gambling, and indeed to all games, with the single exception of chess, of which he was exceedingly fond.
Gambling became furious and universal again under the reign of Louis XIV. The revolutions effected in morals by Cardinal Richelieu were entirely nullified, at least so far as gambling was concerned, by Cardinal Mazarin. He introduced gaming at the court of Louis XIV in 1648, and, according to St. Pierre, induced the king and queen regent to not only countenance, but engage with much interest in various games of chance. Everybody who had expectations at court learned to play cards as a prerequisite to success. Games were often continued all through the night, and the gaming mania quickly spread from the court to the city, and thence to the country. One of the evil effects of this was shown in the marked decrease in the respect shown to women. Under the infatuation of the play they would remain up all night in company with their male fellow gamesters and would give up their honor to pay their losings, or to secure a loan with which to continue the indulgence of their passion for play.
From the time of Louis XIV., gambling again spread among the French people, even the magistrates becoming inveterate gamesters. Cardinal de Retz stated that in 1650, the oldest magistrate in the parliment[parliment] of Bordeaux, also reputed the wisest, staked his entire property at play one night, and that so general was the gambling mania, the act was in no wise thought to his discredit.
Madame de Sevigne, familiar as she was with all that transpired at the “iniquitous court,” as she calls it, has left more than one picture of the disgraceful state of the gambling habit there present. In the private houses of the crown officials, even the nobility gambled for money, lands, houses, jewels and wearing apparel. Gourville, in his memoirs, writes that within a few years he won more than a million francs, while a few won considerable amounts, many more brought ruin upon themselves and their families.