descended to the bottom of the basin where there was a round of little numbered compartments or pigeon-holes, into one of which it finally settled, when the number was proclaimed aloud. Beside this apparatus there was painted on the green baize a table of various successive numbers, with divisions for odd and even, &c., on which the players deposited their various stakes. He who was in the compartment of the proclaimed number was a winner, and if he had singled out that individual one, which of course was of very rare occurrence, his deposit was doubled I know not how many times. The odd or even declared their own fate: they were lost or doubled. This altar of chance had but few votaries, and merely stopping a moment to admire the handsome decorations of the room we passed on into the next. "This," whispered my companion, for there was a dead silence in the apartment, although the long table was entirely surrounded by people playing, "this is only the silver room; you may deposit here as low as a five-frane piece: let us pass on to the next, where none play but those who will risk bank-notes or gold." Casting a passing glance at these comparatively humble gamesters, who were, however, all too deeply absorbed to move their eyes from the cards, I followed my conductor into the sanctuary of the gilded Mammon. Here was a Rouge-et-Noir table, exactly like the one I had just quitted. In its centre was a profuse display of gold in bowls and rouleaus, with thick piles of bank-notes, on either side of which sat a partner of the bank and an assistant, the dragon guards of this Hesperian fruit. An oblong square, painted on each end of the green table, exhibited three divisions, one for Rouge, another for Noir, and the centre was for the stakes of those who speculated upon the colour of the first and last card, with other ramifications of the art which it would be tedious to describe. Not one of the chairs around the table was unoccupied, and I observed that each banker and assistant was provided with a rateau, or rake, somewhat resembling a garden hoe, several of which were also dispersed about, that the respective winners might withdraw the gold without the objectionable intervention of fingers. When the stakes are all deposited, the dealer, one of the bankers in the centre, cries out "Le jeu est fait," after which nothing can be added or withdrawn; and then taking a packet of cards from a basket full before him, he proceeds to deal. Thirty-one is the number of the game: the colour of the first card determines whether the first row be black or red: the dealer turns up till the numbers on the cards exceed thirtyone, when he lays down a second row in the same manner, and whichever is nearest to that amount is the winning row. If both come to the same, he cries “Apres," and recommences with fresh cards; but if each division should turn up thirty-one, the bank takes half of the whole money deposited, as a forfeit from the players. In this consists their certain profit, which has been estimated at ten per cent. upon the total stakes. If the red loses, the banker on that side rakes all the deposits into his treasury; if it wins, he throws down the number of napoleons or notes necessary to cover the lodgments made by the players, each one of whom rakes off his prize, or leaves it for a fresh venture. E-explained to me the functions of the different members of the establishment-the inspector, the croupier, the tailleur, the messieurs de la chambre, &c., and also the meaning of the ruled card and pins which every one held before him, consulting it with the greatest intenseness, and occasionally calling to the people in attendance for a fresh supply. This horoscope was divided by perpendicular lines into columns, headed with an alternate R. and N. for Rouge and Noir, and the pin is employed to perforate the card as each colour wins, as a ground-work for establishing some calculation in that elaborate delusion termed the doctrine of chances. Some, having several of these records before them, closely pierced all over, were summing up the results upon paper, as if determined to play a game of chance without leaving anything to hazard; and none seemed willing to adventure without having some species of sanction from these sibylline leaves. An involuntary sickness and loathing of heart came over me as I contemplated this scene, and observed the sofas in an adjoining room, which the Parisians, who turn everything into a joke, have christened "the hospital for the wounded." There, thought I to myself, many a wretch has thrown himself down in anguish and despair of soul, cursing himself and the world with fearful imprecations, or blaspheming in that silent bitterness of spirit which is more terrific than words. I contrasted the gaudy decorations and pannelled mirrors that surrounded me with the smoky and blackened ceiling, sad evidence of the nocturnal lamps lighted up at the shrine of this Baal, and of the unhallowed worship prosecuted through the livelong night. Turning to the window, I beheld the sun shining from the bright blue sky, the rain was over, the birds were singing in the trees, and the loaves flutter ing in the wind; the external gaiety giving the character of an appalling antithesis to the painful silence, immovable attitudes, and spellbound looks of the care-worn figures within. One man, a German, was contending against a run of ill-luck with a dogged obstinacy that was obviously making deep inroads upon his purse and his peace; for though his face was invisible from being bent over his perforated card, the drops of perspiration standing upon his forehead betrayed the inward agitation. All the losers were struggling to suppress emotions which still revealed themselves by the working of some disobedient muscle, the compression of the lips, the sardonic grin, or the glaring wrath of the eye; while the winners belied their assumed indifference by flushed cheeks and an expression of anxious triumph. Two or three forlorn operators, who had been cleaned out, as the phrase is, and condemned to idleness, were eying their more fortunate neighbours with a leer of malignant envy; while the bankers and their assistants, in the certainty of their profitable trade, exhibited a calm and watchful cunning, though their features, pale and sodden, betrayed the effect of confinement, heated rooms, and midnight vigils. Einformed me that the frequenters of these houses were authorized to call for refreshments of any a scription, but no one availed himself of the privilege; the "auri sacra fames," the pervading appetite of the place, had swallowed up every other. The very thought revolted me. What! eat and drink in this arena of the hateful passions; in this fatal room, from which many a suicide has rushed out to grasp the self-destroying pistol, or plunge into the darkness of the wave! in this room, which is denounced to Heaven by the widow's tears and the orphan's maledictions! Revolving these thoughts in my mind, I surveyed once more the faces before me, and could not help exclaiming-What a hideous study of human nature! As we have employed so much time," said E-, "in taking the latitude, or rather the longitude of these various phizzes, we shall be expected to venture something: I will throw down a napoleon, as a sop to Cerberus, and will then convoy you home."-"Nay," replied I, "it was for my instruction we came hither; the lesson I have received is well worth the money, so put down this piece of gold and let us begone."—"Let us at least wait till we have lost it," he resumed; "and in the meantime we will take our places at the table." I felt that I blushed as I sat down, and was about to deposit my offering hap-hazard, when my companion stopped my hand, and, borrowing a perforated card, bade me remark, that the red and black had zigzagged, or won alternately for fourteen times; and that there had subsequently been a long run upon the black, which would now probably cross over to the other colour; from all which premises he deduced that I should venture upon the red: which I accordingly did. Sir Balaam's devil, who "now tempts by making rich, not making poor," was, I verily believe, hovering over my devoted head at that instant; my deposit was doubled, and I was preparing to decamp with my two naps, when my adviser insisted upon my not baulking my luck, as there would probably be a run upon the red, and I suffered my stake to remain, and go on doubling until I had won ten or twelve times in succession. "Now," cried E——, “I should advise you to pocket the affront, and be satisfied." Adopting his counsel, I could hardly believe his assertion. or my own eyes, when he handed me over bank-notes to the amount of twenty thousand francs, observing that I had made a tolerably successful début for a beginner. Returning home in some perturbation and astonishment of mind, I resolved to prepare a little surprise for my wife; and spreading the bank-notes upon the table with as much display as possible, I told her, upon her entering the room, how I had won them; and inquiring whether Aladdin with his wonderful lamp could have spent two or three hours more profitably, I stated my intention of appropriating a portion of it to her use in the purchase of a handsome birth-day present. In a moment the blood rushed to her face, and as quickly receded, leaving it of an ashy paleness, when she spurned the notes from her, exclaiming with a solemn terror-"I would as soon touch the forty pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed his Master." Her penetrating head instantly saw the danger to which I had exposed myself, and her fond heart as quickly gave the alarm to her feelings; but in a few seconds she threw her arms around me, and ejaculated, as the tears ran down her cheek"Forgive me, my dear Charles, pardon my vehemence, my ingratitude; I have a present to ask, a boon to implore-promise that you will grant it me."-"Most willingly," I rejoined, "if it be in my power."-"Give me then your pledge, never to play again.""Cheerfully," continued I, for I had already formed that resolution. She kissed me with many affectionate thanks, adding that I had made her completely happy. I believe it, for at that moment I felt so myself. | mediate station, which should surpass the splendour of both. Sleep presenting to me the same images through a magnifying-glass, I went forth next morning to the accomplishment of my destiny with an exaltation of mind little short of delirium. Weak and wicked reveries! a single turn of Fortune's wheel reduced me, not to reason, but to an opposite extreme of mortification and despondence. A run of ill-luck swept away in one hour more than half my gains, and unfortunately losing my temper still faster than my money, I kept doubling my stakes in the blindness of my rage, and quitted the table at night, not only lightened of all my suddenly acquired wealth, but loser of a considerable sum besides. I could now judge by experience of the bitterness of soul that I had lately inflicted upon those who had lost what I had won, and inwardly cursed the pursuit whose gratifications could only spring from the miseries of others; but so far from abandoning this inevitable see-saw of wretchedness, I felt as if I had been defrauded of my just property, and burned with the desire of taking my revenge. The heart-sickening detail of my infirmity, my reverses, and my misery, need not be followed up. Suffice it to say, that a passion, a fury, an actual frenzy of play absorbed every faculty of my soul; mine was worse than a Promethean fate; I was gnawed and devoured by an inward fire which nothing could allay. Alas! not even poverty and the want of materials could quench it. In my career of prosperity, I felt not the fraud I was practising upon my wife, for I meant to make my peace with ten or twenty thousand pounds in my hand, and a sincere renunciation of gaming in my heart; but now that I was bringing ruin upon her and my children, the sense of my falsehood and treachery embittering the anguish of my losses, plunged me into unutterable remorse and agony of soul. Still I wanted courage to make the fatal revelation, and at last only imparted it to her in the cowardice of impending disgrace. Many men who are candid and upright in arguing with others, are the most faithless and jesuitical of casuists in chopping logic with themselves. Let no one trust his head in a contest with the heart; the former, suppressing or perverting whatever is disagreeable to the latter, will assume a demure and sincere conviction, while it has all along been playing booty, and furnishing weapons to its adversary. The will must be honest if we wish the judgment to be so. A tormenting itch for following up my good luck, as I termed it, set me upon devising excuses for violating my pledge to my wife, and no shuffling or quibbling was too contemptible for my purpose. I had promised never to play again-"at that house," or if I had not actually said so, I meant to say so: there could be no forfeiture of my word, therefore, if I went to another. Miserable sophistry! yet, wretched as it was, it satisfied my conscience for the moment,- -so easily is a weak man deluded into criminal indulgence. Fort fied with such valid arguments, I made my debut at the Salon des Etrangers, and after a two hours' sitting, had the singular good luck to return home a winner of nearly as much as I had gained on the first day. Success for once made me moderate; in the humility of my prosperous play, I resolved only to continue till I had won ten thousand pounds, when I would communicate my adventures to my wife with a solemn abjuration of the pursuit in future; and as I considered myself in possession of the certain secret of winning whatever I pleased, I took credit to myself for my extreme moderation. From Frascati, the scene of my third attempt, by a lucky, or rather unlucky fatality, which my subsequent experience only renders the more wonderful, I retired with a sum exceeding the whole of my previous profits, when, like the tiger who is rendered insatiate by the taste of blood, I instantly became ravenous for larger riches; and already repenting the paltry limitation of the day before, determined on proceeding until I had doubled its amount. Another day's luck, and even this would have been spurned, for neither Johnson's Sir Epicure Mammon, nor Massinger's Luke, nor Pope's Sir Balaam, underwent a more rapid development of the latent devils of ambition. Indistinct visions of gran-pelled me but the hope of deterring others by deur floated before my eyes; my senses already seemed to be steeped in a vague magnificence; and after hesitating, in a sort of waking dream, between Wanstead House and Fonthill, one of which I held to be too near, and the other too distant from London, I dwelt complacently on the idea of building a mansion at some inter Madame Deshoulieres says very truly, that gamesters begin by being dupes and end by being knaves; and I am about to confirm it by an avowal to which nothing should have im an exposure of my own delinquency. A female relation had remitted me seven hundred pounds to purchase into the French funds, with which sum in my pocket I unfortunately called at the Salon des Etrangers in my way to the stockbroker's, and my evil genius suggesting to me that there was a glorious opportunity of re I am covering my heavy losses, I snatched the notes | I have not forgotten their kindnesses. aware that I abused their assistance, and wore No reproach ever passed her lips, or lingered in her eye; nor did I fail to observe the delicacy which, mingling up her own fate with mine, strove to soothe my feelings, by disguising my individual guilt under the cloak of a joint misfortune. Noble-minded woman! Mezentius himself could not have devised a more cruel fate than to tie thee to a soul so dead to shame, and so defunct in gratitude as mine! Will not the reader loathe and detest me, even worse than I do myself, when I inform him, that in return for all this magnanimity I had the detestable baseness to linger in Paris, to haunt the gaming-table, to venture the wretched drainings of my purse in the silver room, to become an habitual borrower of paltry sums under pledges of repayment which I knew I had not the means of redeeming, and to submit tamely to the indignity of palpable cuts from my acquaintance in the public streets? From frequently encountering at the saloons, I had formed a slight friendship with Lord T- Lord F, Sir G- W. Colonel T- and particularly with poor S- --t, before he had consummated the ruin of his fine fortune, and debilitated his frame by paralysis brought on by anxiety; and I was upon terms of intimacy with others of my countrymen, who with various success, but much more ample means than myself, were making offerings to the demon of Rouge et Noir. Should this brief memoir fall beneath the eye of any of my quondam friends, they may not impossibly derive benefit from its perusal: at all events, they may be pleased to know that true. To sit at the table with empty pockets and to see others playing, was absolutely insupportable. I envied even the heaviest losers could I have found an antagonist, I would have gambled for an eye, an arm, a leg, for life itself. A thousand devils seemed to be gnawing at my heart-I believed I was madI even hope I was. Yes. I have tasked myself to detail my moral degradation and utter prostration of character, with a fidelity worthy of Rousseau himself, and I feel it a duty not to shrink from my complete exposure. After a night passed in the state of mind I have been describing, in one of those haunts which I was justly entitled to denominate a hell, I wandered out at daybreak towards the Pont de Jena, as if I could cool my parched lips and burning brain by the heavy shower that was then falling. As the dripping rustics passed me on their market-horses, singing and whistling, their happiness, seeming to be a mockery of my wretchedness, filled me with a malignant rage. By the time I had reached the bridge the rain had ceased, the rising sun, glancing upon the river, threw a bloom over the woods in the direction of Sevres and St. Cloud, and the birds were piping in the air. Ever a passionate admirer of Nature, her charms stole me for a moment from myself, but presently my thoughts reverting from the heaven without to the hell within, I gnashed my teeth, and fell back into a double bitterness and despair of soul. I have always been a believer in sudden and irresistible impulses; an idea which will not appear ridiculous to those who are conversant with the records of crime. A portrait of Sarah Malcolm the murderess, which I had seen many years ago in the possession of Lord Mulgrave, leading me to the perusal of her trial and execution in the Newgate Calendar, induced me to give perfect credit to the averment, that the idea of the crime came suddenly into her head without the least solicitation, and that she felt driven forward to its accomplish ment by some invisible power. Similar declarations from many other offenders offer abundant confirmation of the same fact; and it will be in the recollection of many, that the murderer of Mrs. Bonar at Chiselhurst repeatedly declared that he had never dreamed of the enormity ten minutes before its commission, but that the thought suddenly rushed into his mind, and pushed him forward to the bloody deed. Many people cannot look over a precipice without feeling tempted to throw themselves down; I know a most affectionate father who never approaches a window with his infant child without being haunted by solicitations to cast it into the street; and gentleman of unimpeachable honour, who if he happens, in walking the highway, to see a note-case or handkerchief emerging from a passenger's pocket, is obliged to stop short or cross over the way, so vehemently does he feel impelled to withdraw them. These "toys of desperation," generated in the giddiness of the mind at the bare imagination of any horror, drive it to commit the reality as a relief from the fearful vision, upon the same principle that delinquents voluntarily deliver themselves up to justice, because death itself is less intolerable than the fear of it. Let it not be imagined that I am seeking to screen any of these unhappy men from the consequences of their hallucination; I am merely asserting a singular property of the mind, of which I myself am about to record a frightful confirmation. Standing on the bridge, and turning away my looks from the landscape in that despair of heart which I have described, my downcast eyes fell upon the waters gliding placidly beneath me. They seemed to invite me to quench the burning fire with which I was consumed; the river whispered to me with a distinet utterance that peace and oblivion were to be found in its Lethean bed :-every muscle of iny body was animated by an instant and insuperable impulse; and within half a minute from its first maddening sensation, I had climbed over the parapet, and plunged headlong into the water!-The gushing of waves in my ears, and the rapid flashing of innumerable lights before my eyes, are the last impressions I recollect. Into the circumstances of my preservation I never had the heart to inquire: when consciousness revisited me, I found myself lying upon my own bed with my wife weeping beside me, though she instantly assumed a cheerful look, and told me that I had met with a dreadful accident, having fallen into the river when leaning over to examine some object beneath. That she knows the whole truth I am perfectly convinced, but we scrupulously avoid the subject, by an understood, though unexpressed compact. It is added in her mind to the long catalogue of my offences, never to be alluded to, and, alas! never to be forgotten. She left my bedside for a moment to return with my children, who rushed up to me with a cry of joy; and as they contended for the first kiss, and inquired after my health with glistening eyes, the cruelty, the atrocity of my cowardly attempt struck with a withering remorse upon my heart. When I look back, and in myself behold For now I see how void youth is of skill, Thon, that didst grant the wise king his request, Thon, that by power to life didst raise the dead, 1 In state to starve"-About to perish. |