promenades, and theatres crammed with beauty and rank, in the
midst of lovely natural scenery, and under the shade of the pine-
clad heights of the Hercynian or Black Forest--the scene of so
many weird tales of old Germany--as for instance of the charming
_Undine_ of De la Mothe Fouque.

But among the seducing attractions of Baden-Baden, and of all
German bathing-places, the Rouge-et-noir and Roulette-table hold
a melancholy pre-eminence,--being at once a shameful source of
revenue to the prince,--a rallying point for the gay, the
beautiful, the professional blackleg, the incognito duke or
king,--and a vortex in which the student, the merchant, and the
subaltern officer are, in the course of the season, often
hopelessly and irrevocably ingulfed. Remembering the gaming
excitement of the primitive Germans, we can scarcely be surprised
to find that the descendants of these northern races poison the
pure stream of pleasure by the introduction of this hateful
occupation. It is, however, rather remarkable that all foreign
visitors, whether Dutch, Flemish, Swede, Italian, or even
English, of whatever age or disposition or sex, `catch the
frenzy' during the (falsely so-called) _Kurzeit_, that is, _Cure-
season_, at Baden, Ems, and Ais.

Princes and their subjects, fathers and sons, and even, horrible
to say, mothers and daughters, are hanging, side by side, for
half the night over the green table; and, with trembling hands
and anxious eyes, watching their chance-cards, or thrusting
francs and Napoleons with their rakes to the red or the black
cloth.