ecially forbidden to church
people, who had begun to make it their habitual pastime. The royal edict
of 1254 was equally unjust with regard to this game. "We strictly forbid,"
says Louis IX., "any person to play at dice, tables, or chess." This pious
king set himself against these games, which he looked upon as inventions
of the devil. After the fatal day of Mansorah, in 1249, the King, who was
still in Egypt with the remnants of his army, asked what his brother, the
Comte d'Anjou, was doing. "He was told," says Joinville, "that he was
playing at tables with his Royal Highness Gaultier de Nemours. The King
was highly incensed against his brother, and, though most feeble from the
effects of his illness, went to him, and taking the dice and the tables,
had them thrown into the sea." Nevertheless Louis IX. received as a
present from the _Vieux de la Montagne_, chief of the Ismalians, a
chessboard made of gold and rock crystal, the pieces being of precious
metals beautifully worked. It has been asserted, but incorrectly, that
this chessboard was the one preserved in the Musee de Cluny, after having
long formed part of the treasures of the Kings of France.

Amongst the games comprised under the name of _tables_, it is sufficient
to mention that of draughts, which was formerly played with dice and with
the same men as were used for chess; also the game of _honchet_, or
_jonchees_, that is, bones or spillikins, games which required pieces or
men in the same way as chess, but which required more quickness of hand
than of intelligence; and _epingles_, or push-pin, which was played in a
similar manner to the _honchets_, and was the great amusement of the small
pages in the houses of the nobility. When they had not epingles, honchets,
or draughtsmen to play with, they used their fingers instead, and played a
game which is still most popular amongst the Italian people, called the
_morra_, and which was as much in vogue with the ancient Romans as it is
among the modern Italians. It consisted of suddenly raising as many
fingers as had been shown by one's adversary, and gave rise to a great
amount of amusement among the players and lookers-on. The games played by
girls were, of course, different from those in use among boys. The latter
played at marbles, _luettes_, peg or humming tops, quoits, _fouquet,
merelles_, and a number of other games, many of which are now unknown. The
girls, it is almost needless to say, from the earliest times