owns in order that she may secure the match." And when Sully,
with his usual prudence, remarked that it was more easy to talk of such
an amount than to procure it, the Chancellor continued, heedless of the
interruption: "Nay more, Sire; I am equally of opinion that you had
better give two or even three hundred thousand, if less will not
suffice. Such is my advice." [134]

It is needless to say that it was not followed.

The only amusement in which Henri IV indulged freely and earnestly was
play; and he was so reckless a gamester, that at no period has the Court
of France been so thoroughly demoralized by that frightful vice as
throughout his reign. Not only did his own example corrupt those
immediately about him, but the rage for gaming gradually pervaded all
classes. The nobility staked their estates where money failed; the
citizens trafficked in cards and dice when they should have been
employed in commerce or in science; the very valets gambled in the
halls, and the pages in the ante-chambers. Play became the one great
business of life throughout the capital; and enormous sums, which
changed the entire destiny of families, were won and lost. One or two
traits will suffice to prove this, and we will then dismiss the subject.
In the year 1607, M. de Bassompierre relates in his Memoirs, that being
unable from want of funds to purchase a new and befitting costume in
which to appear at the christening of the Dauphin, he nevertheless gave
an order to his tailor to prepare him a dress upon which the outlay was
to be fourteen thousand crowns; his actual resources amounting at that
moment only to seven hundred; and that he had no sooner done so, than he
proceeded with this trifling sum to the hotel of the Duc d'Epernon,
where he won five thousand; while before the completion of the costume,
he had not only gained a sufficient amount to discharge the debt thus
wantonly incurred, but, as he adds, with a self-gratulation worthy of a
better cause, "also a diamond-hilted sword of the value of five thousand
crowns, and five or six thousand more with which to amuse myself." [135]

In 1609, only one Year later, L'Etoile has left on record a still more
astounding and degrading fact. "In this month" (March), he says,
"several academies of play have been established, where citizens of all
ages risk considerable sums, a circumstance which proves not only an
abundance of means, but also the corruption of morals. The son of a
merchant ha