Part 17

80 Dealers, at 275 francs a month 22,000 60 Assistants, at 150 " " 9,000

For the service of the craps, biribi, and hazard:

12 Dealers, at 300 francs a month 3,600 12 Inspectors, at 120 " " 1,440 10 Aids, at 100 " " 1,000 6 Chefs de Partie at the principal houses, at 700 francs a month 4,200 3 Chefs de Partie for the Roulettes, at 500 francs a month 1,500 20 Secret Inspectors, at 200 francs a month 4,000 1 Inspector-General at 1,000 130 Waiters, at 75 francs a month 9,750 _Cards every month_ cost 1,500 Beer and refreshments 3,000 Lights 5,500 The refreshments for the grand saloon, including two dinners every week, cost 12,000 -------- The total expenses every month thus amounted to 113,930

The amount produced by the gaming-houses of Paris in 1823 was given as follows:--

Francs. Francs.

Rough Revenue 15,000,000

Expenses: upkeep of gaming-houses, pay of croupiers and the like 1,000,000 Annual tax to Government 5,000,000 Fifteen per cent for the poor 500,000 --------- 6,500,000 ----------- Total profits of proprietors 8,500,000

The scale of payment received by the croupiers and employés would seem to have somewhat closely approximated to that in vogue at Monte Carlo to-day. Every establishment employed the services of a functionary called _l'homme de force_, whose duties seem to have exactly corresponded with those of the less picturesquely named "chucker-out" of to-day.

The lowest stake permitted at trente-et-quarante was five francs--in certain rooms gold only was allowed--a lower limit of two francs being imposed at roulette. In this respect, matters were much the same as at German gaming-tables, which began to be put an end to after the war of 1866. The regulation now prevailing at Monte Carlo, which prescribes twenty francs at trente-et-quarante and five francs at roulette, is a very salutary one, preventing as it does a certain class of player from risking small sums which he can ill afford to lose. During the existence of the Paris gaming-tables there was at times a good deal of agitation in favour of raising the limit at roulette, the lowness of which was said to be responsible for widespread ruin amongst the working-classes. Occasionally, however, fortune was kind towards some of her humble worshippers. A cook employed at a Paris restaurant happened one day to stroll into the gaming-rooms established at No. 113 in the Palais Royal. He had no money, so amused himself looking at the people and eating oranges, a number of which he had brought with him. The rooms were hot, and a thirsty player offered to give the man six sous for one of the oranges, which the cook accepted. He then proceeded to throw the six sous on the biribi table, where he won six francs, which were increased to two hundred at roulette. At trente-et-quarante he was even more lucky, and after playing with the greatest success for some time found himself with a profit of some five hundred thousand francs. His master, the restaurant-keeper, who was a wise man, with some difficulty persuaded him to invest these large winnings in sound securities, whilst pointing out the folly of any further gambling. The cook never played again, and ended his days in affluence. He is said to have been the only man of this class who ever made a fortune at the Parisian gambling-tables.

Numbers of people who frequented the gaming-houses of the Palais Royal came there when they were already ruined, and, losing the small sums which still remained to them, afterwards created disturbance and scandal.

A case of this sort which attracted a good deal of attention was that of an English half-pay colonel, who, having lost all his money at one of the Palais Royal Hells, determined to kill himself and every one in the place besides. With this object in view he smuggled into the place a canister full of explosive powder, which he put under the table and furtively set alight. Though players and croupiers were very unpleasantly astonished at the result, no one was hurt except the Colonel, who was very roughly handled and was thrown into prison, from which he was after a time sent over to England as a madman.

Amongst the games played were two which are now quite forgotten; these were passe-dix and craps.

Passe-dix is said to be the most ancient of all games of chance. According to tradition it was at this game that the soldiers played for the garments of Christ after the crucifixion.

There is one banker and any amount of players, each one of whom holds the box in turn. When a point under ten is thrown all the players lose their stake. If, however, a point above ten is thrown the banker pays double on all stakes. At private play every player banks in his turn, but in the Palais Royal the bank was, of course, held for the proprietors of the gaming-rooms.

The game of creps or craps mentioned in the list of tolerated games is now obsolete as a medium for any serious gambling in Europe. Curiously enough, however, it still survives in another continent, being even at the present day a favourite game in mining camps in Alaska, where it is well known in the gaming-saloons which are almost inevitable accompaniments of such settlements. The game would appear to consist of a board, something like an enlarged and glorified backgammon board, on which are emblazoned an anchor and five other emblems. The banker, when the money has been staked on these emblems, shakes out six dice, each of which bears on its facets devices corresponding with the designs on the board, the players being paid in proportion to the number of dice showing the figure they have selected. The boards used in Alaska are said to have been copied from similar ones brought by French emigrants to California during the famous gold fever in the 'forties. In some cases the identical boards exported from France are said to be still in use.

The bankers at craps claim that the odds are perfectly even as between the bank and the players, a statement which, however, would not resist the test of serious mathematical investigation.

The farmer-general of all the metropolitan houses of play at this time was Monsieur Benazet, Colonel of the Garde Nationale of Neuilly. M. Benazet, after the Revolution of 1830, was decorated by Louis Philippe with the cross of the Légion d'honneur, on account of his loyalty. Besides the officials who have been enumerated, there was a horde of attached spies, providers, pickers-up, and hangers-on, paid for doing the "dirty work" of the houses, both in and out of doors. The name, rank in life, presumed fortune, habitation, and habits of each gaming-house guest were registered; and, if they became regular customers, a sobriquet, or nickname, was given to each. By this means the constant players were, in a certain degree, known to the police. The salaried satellites of the _maisons de jeu_, when they entered upon their office, were peremptorily told that "it was their duty to regard every man who played at the tables as an enemy."

Three of the gaming-houses catered almost entirely for players of means, Frascati's and the Salon des Étrangers being well-known to all the gamblers of Europe. No. 154 in the Palais Royal, it should be mentioned, was also a favourite resort of high gamblers during the occupation of Paris by the Allies. Marshal Blücher lost very large sums there.

This rough old soldier was a most irascible player, and when he lost (which was more often than not) he would rap out volleys of German oaths whilst glaring at the croupiers. He usually played very high, and would grumble at the limit of 10,000 francs imposed as a maximum; so great was the sensation that he created, that any table at which he might be playing was always uncomfortably crowded.

In 1814 the stakes on the tables of the French gaming-houses consisted of the coins of all nations, it being not uncommon to see French napoléons and louis d'or, English guineas and crowns, Dutch ducats, Spanish doubloons, Russian roubles, as well as the various moneys of Prussia, Italy, and Germany, on the tables at the same moment. Notes were somewhat rare, though occasionally some daring gamester would stake a French one for a large amount.

The Salon and Frascati's were situated close together at that extremity of the Rue Richelieu which opens into the Boulevards; they both presented a highly aristocratic exterior, and both professed to be aristocratically exclusive and to admit no person without a suitable and satisfactory introduction. From this rule, however, Frascati's in its latter days departed; and the Cerberus who guarded the portals of that pandemonium very, very seldom refused admittance to any one whose exterior afforded evidence that he possessed any material wherewithal to feed (it were too much to say, satisfy) the devouring appetites of the bank.

Frascati's opened rather later than the other gaming-houses, its portals being only thrown open at one in the afternoon.

The Salon des Étrangers, also a favourite resort of Marshal Blücher, was frequented chiefly by that class who could afford to frequent gaming-houses, the ambassadors of foreign potentates frequently presiding at its sumptuous and magnificent entertainments.

The opening of these houses took place with nearly as great regularity as that of any bureau in Paris.

A well-known figure at the Salon was an old gentleman whose existence was bound up with that of this gaming-house. He had been completely ruined by play, and the proprietors of the Salon allowed him a pension to support him in his miserable senility--just sufficient to supply him with a wretched lodging, bread, and a change of raiment once in every three or four years! In addition to this he was allowed a supper (which was his dinner) at the gaming-house. Thither, at about eleven o'clock at night, he went. Till supper-time (two) he amused himself in watching the games and calculating the various chances, although he was destitute of the means of playing a single coup. At four he returned to his lodging, retired to bed, and lay till between nine and ten on the following night. A cup of coffee was then brought to him; and, having dressed himself, at the usual hour he again proceeded to the Salon. This had been his round of life for several years; and during all that time (except on a few mornings about midsummer) he had not beheld the sun!

Another constant frequenter of the Salon des Étrangers during the occupation of Paris by the Allies in 1814 was a Mr. Fox, a popular Secretary of the British Embassy, who was notorious for his easy-going disposition. Though usually most unfortunate at play, he once had an extraordinary run of luck, when having taken up the dice-box, he threw eleven successful throws, broke the bank, and took home some sixty thousand francs as winnings. All of this he spent in buying presents for ladies, which he declared was the only way to prevent the rascals at the Salon from getting back their money.

At the same gambling-place Lord Thanet lost enormous sums, whilst a young Irishman, Mr. Gough by name, was totally ruined there, and in consequence blew out his brains.

On the green cloth of the Salon des Étrangers also melted away the fortune of Sir Francis Vincent, who, having dissipated the whole of a fine property at play, entirely disappeared from the gay world. Frascati's--a more amusing resort--was in its palmy days regularly haunted by an aged gentleman well dowered with means, who was daily carried by his servant to the rouge-et-noir table. There he sat playing from three o'clock until five, at which hour, precisely, the servant returned and carried him (for he had entirely lost the use of his legs) back to his carriage. He was a man of large fortune, and the stakes he played were not considerable; yet he was elated by every lucky coup, and at every reverse he gnashed his teeth and struck the table in rage. No sooner, however, had the moment for his departure arrived, than he regained his equanimity, utterly regardless as to whether he had been a winner, or a loser, by the proceedings. "I have outlived all modes of excitement," said he, "save that of gaming: it is that that takes the fastest hold on the mind and retains it the longest; my blood, but for this occasional agitation, would stagnate in my veins--I should die."

Ten fêtes were given during the year at Frascati's, the sole gaming-place to which, after 1818, women were allowed admittance.

The disinclination of the Parisian authorities to throw open the public gaming-rooms to women was founded upon very substantial grounds, for at the beginning of the nineteenth century, great scandals had arisen owing to ladies becoming desperate after unsuccessful play. In 1804, for instance, a young and beautiful Hanoverian Countess, who had lost 50,000 livres, planned and executed the robbery of a fine coronet of emeralds, which she contrived to purloin at a ball given by the owner, Madame Demidoff. The youth, beauty, and high rank of the thief caused a great agitation in favour of her being pardoned, but Napoleon, who was never moved by mere sentimental considerations, refused to annul the sentence which had been passed upon her.

When they take to gambling, Frenchwomen become passionate devotees of play, as may be verified at any casino in France when baccarat and petits chevaux are in full swing. Very often they become so fascinated by the spirit of speculation that they can think of nothing else. An instance of this was the lady who, confessing to her priest, owned she was desperately fond of gambling.

The confessor, after pointing out the evils of such a passion, advanced several arguments against play, amongst which a principal one was the great loss of time which it must inevitably occasion.

"Ah," said the lady, "that's just what vexes me--so much time lost in shuffling the cards!"

Besides the licensed gaming-houses there were at this time a number of "maisons de bouillotte," which, though unlicensed, were more or less under the surveillance of the police. Here a good deal of play went on practically unchecked, an added attraction being the female society of no very rigorous morality which frequented such resorts. The favourite game played in these bouillottes was not the "bouillotte" from which they took their name, but écarté, in some ways a modification of the old French game of "la triomphe." Écarté in its present form would seem to have been first played in the early part of the nineteenth century in Paris, whence it made its way to England about 1820.

Whilst such places, together with Frascati's and the Salon des Étrangers, were the resort of the fashionable world, humbler gamblers betook themselves to half a dozen houses which were frequented by all classes of the population, the most popular being Nos. 9, 129, and 113 in the Palais Royal. Play began at twelve in the morning, except on Sundays and holidays, when one was the hour fixed; on certain Saints' Days and at Christmas all the gambling houses were compelled by law to close at midnight, except the Salon des Étrangers and No. 9 in the Palais Royal, two of those curious exceptions for which the authorities in France have always had (and still have) a liking, being made in their favour.

On January 21, the day on which the unfortunate Louis XVI. had been guillotined, a special regulation forbade any play at all. In 1819, however, no notice was taken of this, which led to a great outcry; and the following year the gambling-houses did shut their doors on the day in question, but the keepers demanded a rebate on the sum paid to the Government as compensation for their loss of profits.

The evil days of the Palais Royal as a pleasure-resort began about the time of the Revolution of 1830, when it became evident that a determined effort was going to be made to alter the character of the place entirely. In 1831, stringent measures were adopted with regard to the class of persons allowed to frequent the galleries, the amusements permitted being exposed to a rigorous censorship, whilst every effort was made to efface the traditions of light-hearted frivolity and licence which had hung about the old place since the days of the Revolution.

Numbers of the tradesmen who owned shops in the Palais Royal had called for these measures. They were imbued with the somewhat pharisaical respectability which is so often the appanage of their class, and entertained the totally fallacious idea that the purification of the gardens would cause a greater number of visitors from abroad to frequent and make purchases at their shops. It soon became evident that the fate of the gaming-tables was sealed, a great outcry being raised against the toleration of what was characterised as a public scandal, and was denounced as such in the Press. English opinion particularly was said to be bitterly hostile to the tables, and the deluded tradesmen of Paris entertained an idea that the doubtful pleasures of the Palais Royal prevented much foreign money from pouring into their pockets.

Finally in 1836, chiefly owing to the efforts of a Mr. Delessert, it was decided that the gaming-houses of Paris should be closed two years from that date, and on the 1st of January 1838 the Palais Royal ceased to offer any attractions appealing to the gambler.

At the time when the agitation for the suppression of public gaming in Paris was going on, a good deal of abuse was heaped upon the proprietors of the tables, who were denounced as vampires sucking the blood of the poor. One of them, M. Borsant by name, was exempted from censure, being noted for many favourable traits not often to be met with in those drawing their revenue from gaming. This gentleman once actually restored 17,000 francs lost by a young man to his astonished parents. The actual date of the cessation of public play in Paris was Sunday, December 31, 1837. So numerous had the visitors been during the last few weeks preceding this date, that an additional police force had been found necessary for the maintenance of order. In consequence of the excitement, the manufacturers and tradesmen of Paris had come to a general agreement not to pay their workmen's wages before twelve o'clock on Sunday night, lest the money might be carried to swell the last day's receipts of the great joint-stock company to which all the Parisian gaming-houses belonged.

On the last evening, which was a Sunday, the rooms at Frascati's were so thronged that there was scarcely a possibility of stirring in them. The tables were overladen with money. At ten o'clock such was the crowd inside that it was found necessary to shut the street doors.

Placards stuck up in all the rooms warned the gamblers that the play would not be suffered to extend a single minute beyond midnight, which was the hour specified by the law. The Salon or Cercle des Étrangers, still the most fashionable of the gambling-houses, which usually was opened only at eleven at night and closed at three or four in the morning, opened on Sunday evening at nine o'clock, a notification to such effect having been sent round to the habitual frequenters of the place. On Saturday and Sunday all the gambling-houses of Paris, especially No. 154 of the Palais Royal and Frascati's, were immensely crowded. Several dramatic incidents occurred. A workman destroyed himself on quitting No. 113, and two young men who had lost large sums disappeared entirely.

In accordance with the edict previously announced, the game ceased exactly at midnight. The gambling during the last days of the tables had been very high, and crowds flocked to witness the end. Disturbances were anticipated, and the municipal guards were in consequence posted in considerable force about the various rooms. At Frascati's an immense crowd of visitors assembled, but they dispersed peaceably, after encountering the shouts and hisses of the mob that had collected in the Rue de Richelieu outside to witness their final exit from that historic haunt of pleasure. A dramatic incident occurred, one unhappy wretch shooting himself as the doors closed for ever. He had lost heavily, and was in despair at the prospect of being unable to retrieve his losses.

In 1838 a case came on for trial before the Court of Assizes, Paris, which excited a good deal of interest. The prisoner, a clerk to a merchant, had gambled on several occasions, and had lost at Frascati's and the gaming-houses licensed by Government upwards of 100,000 francs, the property of his employer. In the course of the trial, Benazet, the lessee of these establishments, stated that in the course of a year there was thrown on the tables of the gaming-houses comprised in his licence 800,000,000 francs (£32,000,000): that, independently of the annual sum paid to Government for the licence (which was 6,000,000 francs or £240,000), the clear profit on the tables during the last year of their life, 1837, was no less a sum than 1,900,000 francs (£76,000), but that three-fourths of this sum was paid over to the city of Paris; the other fourth (£19,000) was his proportion of the gain. M. Benazet eventually declared that he would refund his part of the sum lost by the prosecutor's clerk if the city of Paris would equally pay back the three-fourths of it which had passed to its credit. The average number of gamblers admitted to those houses had been three thousand a day, another thousand having been denied entrance.

From the moment that the tables were suppressed, the prosperity of the shops in the former Palace of Cardinal Mazarin began to wane. As the years rolled on, visitors became fewer and fewer, till the place assumed the forlorn aspect which it wears to-day, when even the tourist scarcely deigns to visit its deserted galleries.

At the time of the Revolution there had been a number of first-class restaurants in the Palais Royal. The café kept by Méot, for instance, enjoyed a great reputation for its cellar. Here could be procured twenty-two sorts of red wine, twenty-seven of white, and sixteen different kinds of liqueurs, most of which had come from the cellars of the _noblesse_. Méot's was essentially a Royalist restaurant, and contained little rooms where aristocratic clients could dine in luxurious privacy.

Beauvilliers, once cook to the Prince de Condé, also kept a restaurant much frequented by adherents of the old régime, and here Rivarol Champcenetz and others used, while dining, to compose articles for the famous Royalist sheet--_Les Actes des Apôtres_.

A well-situated restaurant was Véry's, which paid no less than 196,275 livres a year as rent for No. 83. Véry's was founded in 1790: here it was that Danton gave dinners to his friends, and pointed out to them "that their turn had come to taste the delights of life; and enjoy the sumptuous mansions, exquisite dishes, rare fabrics, and beautiful women which were the legitimate spoils of the victors." This restaurant was much frequented by foreigners, with whom it had a great reputation; every Englishman of means who visited Paris made a point of dining there once or twice.