a generous
ostentation; this was to divide the money won at play among all the
bystanders, of whatever condition.

Montrefor relates that when the Duke of Lerma, the Spanish minister,
entertained Gaston, brother of Louis XIII., with all his retinue in the
Netherlands, he displayed a magnificence of an extraordinary kind. The
prime minister, with whom Gaston spent several days, used to put two
thousand louis d'ors on a large gaming-table after dinner. With this
money Gaston's attendants and even the prince himself sat down to play.
It is probable, however, that Voltaire extended a single instance or
two into a general habit or custom. That writer always preferred to deal
with the splendid and the marvellous rather than with plain matter of
fact.

There can be little doubt that the Spaniards pursued gaming in the
vulgar fashion, just as other people. At any rate the following anecdote
gives us no very favourable idea of Spanish generosity to strangers
in the matter of gambling in modern times; and the worst of it is the
suitableness of its application to more capitals than one among the
kingdoms of Europe. 'After the bull-feast I was invited to pass the
evening at the hotel of a lady, who had a public card-assembly.... This
vile method of subsisting on the folly of mankind is confined in Spain
to the nobility. None but women of quality are permitted to hold banks,
and there are many whose faro-banks bring them in a clear income of a
thousand guineas a year. The lady to whom I was introduced is an old
countess, who has lived nearly thirty years on the profits of the
card-tables in her house. They are frequented every day, and though
both natives and foreigners are duped of large sums by her, and her
cabinet-junto, yet it is the greatest house of resort in all Madrid. She
goes to court, visits people of the first fashion, and is received
with as much respect and veneration as if she exercised the most
sacred functions of a divine profession. Many widows of great men keep
gaming-houses and live splendidly on the vices of mankind. If you be not
disposed to play, be either a sharper or a dupe, you cannot be admitted
a second time to their assemblies. I was no sooner presented to the lady
than she offered me cards; and on my excusing myself, because I really
could not play, she made a very wry face, turned from me, and said to
another lady in my hearing, that she wondered how any foreigner could
have the impertinence to come