'iniqua corte_, 'the iniquitous court.'

Indeed, Madame de Sevigne had ample reason to denounce this source of
her domestic misery. Writing to her son and daughter, she says:--'You
lose all you play for. You have paid five or six thousand francs for
your amusement, and to be abused by fortune.'

If she had at first been fascinated by the spectacle which she so
glowingly describes, the interest of her children soon opened her eyes
to the yawning gulf at the brink of the flowery surface.

Sometimes she explains herself plainly:--'You believe that everybody
plays as honestly as yourself? Call to mind what took place lately at
the Hotel de la Vieuville. Do you remember that _ROBBERY?_'

The favour of that court, so much coveted, seemed to her to be purchased
at too high a price if it was to be gained by ruinous complaisances. She
trembled every time her son left her to go to Versailles. She says:--'He
tells me he is going to play with his young master;(54) I shudder at the
thought. Four hundred pistoles are very easily lost: _ce n'est rien pour
Admete et c'est beaucoup pour lui_.(55) If Dangeau is in the game he
will win all the pools: he is an eagle. Then will come to pass, my
daughter, all that God may vouchsafe--_il en arivera, ma fille, tout ce
qu'il plaira a Dieu_.'

(54) The Dauphin.

(55) 'It is nothing for Admetus, but 'tis much for him.'

And again, 'The game of _Hoca_ is prohibited at Paris _UNDER THE PENALTY
OF DEATH_, and yet it is played at court. Five thousand pistoles before
dinner is nothing. That game is a regular cut-throat.'

Hoca was prodigiously unfavourable to the players; the latter had only
twenty-eight chances against thirty. In the seventeenth century this
game caused such disorder at Rome that the Pope prohibited it and
expelled the bankers.

The Italians whom Mazarin brought into France obtained from the king
permission to set up _Hoca_ tables in Paris. The parliament launched two
edicts against them, and threatened to punish them severely. The king's
edicts were equally severe. Every of offender was to be fined 1000
livres, and the person in whose house Faro, Basset, or any such game
was suffered, incurred the penalty of 6000 livres for each offence.
The persons who played were to be imprisoned. Gaming was forbidden the
French cavalry under the penalty of death, and every commanding officer
who should presume to set up a Hazard table was to be cashiered, and all
concerned to be rig