s and representatives of
foreign courts. Certain chevaliers d'industrie recently proposed to a
gentleman of quality, who had just been appointed plenipotentiary, to
hire an hotel for him, and to pay the expenses, on condition that
he would give up to them an apartment and permit them to have valets
wearing his livery! This base proposal was rejected with contempt,
because the Baron de ---- is one of the most honourable and enlightened
men of the age.

'The most difficult bargains are often amicably settled by a game. I
have seen persons gaming whilst taking a walk and whilst travelling in
their carriages. People game at the doors of the theatres; of course
they gamble for the price of the ticket. In every possible manner, and
in every situation, the true gamester strives to turn every instant to
profit.

'If I relate what I have seen in the matter of play during sleep, it
will be difficult to understand me. A gamester, exhausted by fatigue,
could not give up playing because he was a loser; so he requested his
adversary to play for him with his left hand, whilst he dozed off and
slept! Strange to say, the left hand of his adversary incessantly won,
whilst he snored to the sound of the dice!

'I have just read in a newspaper,(59) that two Englishmen, who left
their country to fight a duel in a foreign land, nevertheless played at
the highest stakes on the voyage; and having arrived on the field, one
of them laid a wager that he would kill his adversary. It is stated that
the spectators of the affair looked upon it as a gaming transaction.

(59) Journal de Politique, Dec. 15, 1776.

'In speaking of this affair I was told of a German, who, being compelled
to fight a duel on account of a quarrel at the gaming table, allowed his
adversary to fire at him. He was missed.

He said to his opponent, "I never miss. I bet you a hundred ducats that
I break your right or left arm, just as you please." The bet was taken,
and he won.

'I have found cards and dice in many places where people were in want
of bread. I have seen the merchant and the artisan staking gold by
handfuls. A small farmer has just gamed away his harvest, valued at 3000
francs.'(60)

(60) Dusaulx, _De la Passion du Jeu_, 1779.

Gaming houses in Paris were first licensed in 1775, by the lieutenant
of police, Sartines, who, to diminish the odium of such establishments,
decreed that the profit resulting from them should be applied to the
foundation