system, effected a virtual hiatus of twelve
years in our social knowledge of Paris.
Political news was garbled and mis-stated
and pruning-knived enough, but of domestic
intelligence we were utterly deprived during
the war. The English flocked of course to Paris,
when the allied armies made their entries, but
how many fashions, usances, phases of
manners had been born, and had died since Charles
James Fox had dined with the Consul Buonaparte
at Malmaison after the peace of Amiens ?
Knowing how little is known of the social
aspect of the first French Empire, I very
respectfully commend the subject to the ingenious
author of " Purple Tints of Paris." He
will find plenty of authorities in old files of
French newspapers—let him give some purple
tints of the city of the first Napoleon.

Meanwhile has Doctor Véron anything
more to tell us concerning the Palais Royal ?
More, ay marry! this. You are to
remember this, traveller, next time you visit
the enchanting quadrangle of restaurants
and arcades: that from the number nine
to the number twenty-four inclusive there
was nothing but gaming-houses. From the
number one twenty-nine to the number
one thirty-seven gaming-houses. The
number one hundred and fifty-four, so called,
but extending really from the hundred and
forty-fifth to the hundred and fifty-fourth,
gaming-houses. Besides these Palais-Royal
Hades, there were other public gaming-houses
in Paris, namely, the Cercle des Etrangers,
in the Rue Grange Batelière; the Maison
de Livry (better known as Frascati's) at the
corner of the Rue de Richelieu; the Maisòn
Dunans, in the Rue du Mont Blanc; the Maison
Marivaux, in the street of that name; the Maison
Paphosin the Rue du Temple; and the Maison
Dauphine in the Rue Dauphine. Besides
these public and authorised gaming-houses,
there was an infinity of occult Hades—tripots,
gambling table d'hôtes, cafés, and even cabarets.

These were more gallico-centralised and
enregistered under the title of " la Ferme
des Jeux." In other words, the gaming-houses
were farmed out to a speculator,
who was bound to pay into the Government
treasury in monthly payments a sum
amounting annually to five millions five
hundred and fifty thousand francs—about
two hundred and twenty thousand pounds
sterling. Out of this sum one million six
hundred and sixty thousand francs were
allocated in subsidies to the theatres, to the
Conservatory of Music, and to the Hospital of
the Quinze-Vingts. The rest went to the
Ville de Paris, which is sufficiently vague.
Fancy a few hundred thousands of pounds
going annually to our city in the palmy days
of Crockford's and taken from the profits of
that immaculate establishment! It must not
be omitted to state that the last farmer of the
games, Monsieur Bénazet, was at the July
Revolution elected commander of one of the
legions of the National Guard of the Seine (so,
by the way, was Coignard the escaped convict,
falsely calling himself Comte de Sainte Hélène),
and that Louis Philippe's minister, Casimir
Périer, created this prince of gambling-house
bonnets a knight of the Legion of Honour !
O, honour ! O, liberty ! O, Madame Roland !

The Cercle des Etrangers united to its
gaming attributes balls and suppers. Under
the Directory, the Consulate, and the
commencement of the Empire, there was a frenzy
for bal masqués at these dens. The Baroness
Hamelin, Madame Tallien—all the famous
women of that famous time—used to go to
these balls. Napoleon himself used to visit
them occasionally, but only for a few minutes
at a time, masked, and leaning on the arm of
Duroc. Once, Bonaparte, when consul, had
determined to close the gaming-houses; but
he was dissuaded from his purpose by the
astute and unscrupulous Fouché, who
represented to him that the Hades of the Palais
Royal afforded him the most trustworthy and
prolific resources for police purposes: so, to
serve the meritorious spy system, public
gaming still continued to be authorised.
The gambling-houses continued in full swing
during the whole epoch of the Restoration.
They were finally closed, by a vote of the
Chamber of Deputies in eighteen hundred
and thirty-seven. Within Doctor Véron's
time there was a farmer licensed to deal in
games called Boursault. This industrial,
besides being fermier des jeux, added to it the
congenial occupation of contractor for emptying
the public cloaca, and he participated
with M. Sauson the hangman in the fantastic
merit of a passionate taste for horticulture.
How often a garden implement on his smooth
verdant lawn must have reminded him of
that other rake on the green baize gambling
table! The daisies on the sward must have
glistened in his eyes like the double
napoleons on the tapis vert of the rouge et noir
table. An allowance of two millions, four
hundred thousand francs was made to the
golden farmers for the frais de régie—the
expenses of keeping up the gaming-houses;
but as the rent, salaries, &c., fell far short of
this sum, a very pretty penny was always
sure to enter into the pocket of the farmer.
To make an end of statistics, I will state one
little fact on Doctor Véron's authority:—
the gross sum lost at play in the public
gaming-houses of Paris in the ten years
extending from eighteen hundred and nineteen
to eighteen hundred and twenty-nine,
amounted to 137,313,403 f. 81 c.—ONE
HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVEN MILLIONS, THREE
HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN THOUSAND, FOUR
HUNDRED AND THREE FRANCS, AND EIGHTY-ONE
CENTIMES ! The money lost by provincials
and foreigners formed, of course, an immense
proportion of this prodigious sum.