, and to amuse the prince with
the view of diverting his mind from its all-engrossing object. In this
emergency Civitella hit upon play; and, for the purpose of driving away
most of the visitors, proposed that the stakes should be high. He hoped
by awakening in the prince a transient liking for play, from which it
would afterwards be easy to wean him, to destroy the romantic bent of
his passion. "The cards," said Civitella, "have saved me from many a
folly which I had intended to commit, and repaired many which I had
already perpetrated. At the faro table I have often recovered my
tranquillity of mind, of which a pair of bright eyes had robbed me, and
women never had more power over me than when I had not money enough to
play."

I will not enter into a discussion as to how far Civitella was right;
but the remedy we had hit upon soon began to be worse than the disease
it was intended to cure. The prince, who could only make the game at
all interesting to himself by staking extremely high, soon overstepped
all bounds. He was quite out of his element. Everything he did seemed
to be done in a passion; all his actions betrayed the uneasiness of his
mind. You know his general indifference to money; he seemed now to have
become totally insensible to its value. Gold flowed through his hands
like water. As he played without the slightest caution he lost almost
invariably. He lost immense sums, for he staked like a desperate
gamester. Dearest O------- , with an aching heart I write it, in four
days he had lost above twelve thousand zechins.

Do not reproach me. I blame myself sufficiently. But how could I
prevent it? Could I do more than warn him? I did all that was in my
power, and cannot find myself guilty. Civitella, too, lost not a
little; I won about six hundred zechins. The unprecedented ill-luck of
the prince excited general attention, and therefore he would not leave
off playing. Civitella, who is always ready to oblige him, immediately
advanced him the required sum. The deficit is made up; but the prince
owes the marquis twenty-four thousand zechins. Oh, how I long for the
savings of his pious sister. Are all sovereigns so, my dear friend?
The prince behaves as though he had done the marquis a great honor, and
he, at any rate, plays his part well.

Civitella sought to quiet me by saying that this recklessness, this
extraordinary ill-luck, would be most effectual in bringing the prince
to his senses. The money, he said