The Day of a King

Gambling
At an appartement (another way of saying "Louis ‘at home’") gambling was heavy, and if Louis did nothing to restrain it, he at least gave it no encouragement; his attitude to card playing was the same as his attitude towards hunting. If people liked to gamble, well and good; but you acquired no kudos by playing. Even in the King's presence, cards were played with what would today strike us as a very odd lack of decorum; oaths, curses, shouts of joy, banging of clenched fists on the table, were the usual accompaniments of deep play, and passed as unnoticed as did even less pleasant habits. St. Simon mentions, for instance, the ill-breeding of the Marquis d'Heudicourt, who at the card table would spit over his shoulder without first looking to make sure that there was no one standing behind him. The vivacity of the players is, however, understandable when we consider the sums at stake; Mme. de Montespan once lost about 160,000 louis d'or in an evening, and won it all back again during the night. This is, of course, exceptional, for few people were, like her, in the position of being able to gamble with the taxpayer's money, but her legitimate son, d'Antin, confessed to having won 28,000 louis d'or at cards, and was believed to have made considerably more. There has been much moralizing, much shaking of heads, over the recklessness with which Louis XIV's Court sat down to the card table night after night, and no doubt many of them did so from a genuine love of gambling; but I suspect that there was also a large number to whom the attraction must have been that here at last was a chance to sit down. But in order to enjoy this rare boon, it was necessary that you should be actually playing, or at least backing a player: and sharp eyes were watching you. Madame once went up to a seated duchess in the card room and asked her if she was playing: the duchess said "No." "Is it then permitted to inquire why you are seated?" said Madame. The duchess rose, made a deep curtsey, left the room, and never entered the palace again.