Amongst the games played were two which are now quite forgotten; these were passe-dix and craps.
Passe-dix is said to be the most ancient of all games of chance. According to tradition it was at this game that the soldiers played for the garments of Christ after the crucifixion.
There is one banker and any amount of players, each one of whom holds the box in turn. When a point under ten is thrown all the players lose their stake. If, however, a point above ten is thrown the banker pays double on all stakes. At private play every player banks in his turn, but in the Palais Royal the bank was, of course, held for the proprietors of the gaming-rooms.
The game of creps or craps mentioned in the list of tolerated games is now obsolete as a medium for any serious gambling in Europe. Curiously enough, however, it still survives in another continent, being even at the present day a favourite game in mining camps in Alaska, where it is well known in the gaming-saloons which are almost inevitable accompaniments of such settlements. The game would appear to consist of a board, something like an enlarged and glorified backgammon board, on which are emblazoned an anchor and five other emblems. The banker, when the money has been staked on these emblems, shakes out six dice, each of which bears on its facets devices corresponding with the designs on the board, the players being paid in proportion to the number of dice showing the figure they have selected. The boards used in Alaska are said to have been copied from similar ones brought by French emigrants to California during the famous gold fever in the 'forties. In some cases the identical boards exported from France are said to be still in use.
The bankers at craps claim that the odds are perfectly even as between the bank and the players, a statement which, however, would not resist the test of serious mathematical investigation.
The farmer-general of all the metropolitan houses of play at this time was Monsieur Benazet, Colonel of the Garde Nationale of Neuilly. M. Benazet, after the Revolution of 1830, was decorated by Louis Philippe with the cross of the Légion d'honneur, on account of his loyalty. Besides the officials who have been enumerated, there was a horde of attached spies, providers, pickers-up, and hangers-on, paid for doing the "dirty work" of the houses, both in and out of doors. The name, rank in life, presumed fortune, habitation, and habits of each gaming-house guest were registered; and, if they became regular customers, a sobriquet, or nickname, was given to each. By this means the constant players were, in a certain degree, known to the police. The salaried satellites of the maisons de jeu, when they entered upon their office, were peremptorily told that "it was their duty to regard every man who played at the tables as an enemy."
Three of the gaming-houses catered almost entirely for players of means, Frascati's and the Salon des Étrangers being well-known to all the gamblers of Europe. No. 154 in the Palais Royal, it should be mentioned, was also a favourite resort of high gamblers during the occupation of Paris by the Allies. Marshal Blücher lost very large sums there.
This rough old soldier was a most irascible player, and when he lost (which was more often than not) he would rap out volleys of German oaths whilst glaring at the croupiers. He usually played very high, and would grumble at the limit of 10,000 francs imposed as a maximum; so great was the sensation that he created, that any table at which he might be playing was always uncomfortably crowded.
In 1814 the stakes on the tables of the French gaming-houses consisted of the coins of all nations, it being not uncommon to see French napoléons and louis d'or, English guineas and crowns, Dutch ducats, Spanish doubloons, Russian roubles, as well as the various moneys of Prussia, Italy, and Germany, on the tables at the same moment. Notes were somewhat rare, though occasionally some daring gamester would stake a French one for a large amount.
The Salon and Frascati's were situated close together at that extremity of the Rue Richelieu which opens into the Boulevards; they both presented a highly aristocratic exterior, and both professed to be aristocratically exclusive and to admit no person without a suitable and satisfactory introduction. From this rule, however, Frascati's in its latter days departed; and the Cerberus who guarded the portals of that pandemonium very, very seldom refused admittance to any one whose exterior afforded evidence that he possessed any material wherewithal to feed (it were too much to say, satisfy) the devouring appetites of the bank.