The king lost an immense sum at play, and requested Sully to let
him have the money to pay it. The latter demurred, so that the
king had to send to him several times. At last, however,
Sully took him the money, and spread it out before him on the
table, exclaiming--`There's the sum.' Henry fixed his eyes on
the vast amount. It is said to have been enough to purchase
Amiens from the Spaniards, who then held it. The king thereupon
exclaimed:--`I am corrected. I will never again lose my money at
gaming.'

During this reign Paris swarmed with gamesters. Then for the
first time were established _Academies de Jeu_, `Gaming
Academies,' for thus were termed the gaming houses to which all
classes of society beneath the nobility and gentility, down to
the lowest, rushed in crowds and incessantly. Not a day passed
without the ruin of somebody. The son of a merchant, who
possessed twenty thousand crowns, lost sixty thousand. It
seemed, says a contemporary, that a thousand pistoles at that
time were valued less than a _sou_ in the time of Francis I.

The result of this state of things was incalculable social
affliction. Usury and law-suits completed the ruin of gamblers.

The profits of the keepers of gaming houses must have been
enormous, to judge from the rents they paid. A house in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain was secured at the rental of about L70
for a fortnight, for the purpose of gambling during the time of
the fair. Small rooms and even closets were hired at the rate of
many pistoles or half-sovereigns per hour; to get paid, however,
generally entailed a fight or a law-suit.