The locality has not changed greatly since the times of which Dumas wrote, and if one would see for himself this Rue de Bons Enfants, Numéro 22, and try to find out how the Regent of France was able to climb over the roof-tops to the Palais Royal, for a wager, he may still do so, for apparently the roof-tops have changed but little. The especial connection of the Rue des Bons Enfants with literature is perhaps Sylvestre's establishment, which will, for a price, sell you almost any French celebrity's autograph, be he king, prince, painter, or litterateur. In the "Vicomte de Bragelonne" there is a wonderfully interesting chapter, which describes Mazarin's gaming-party at the Palais Royal. In that it enters somewhat more into detail than is usual with Dumas, it appears worth quoting here, if only for its description of the furnishing of the _salle_ in which the event took place, and its most graphic and truthful picture of the great cardinal himself: "In a large chamber of the Palais Royal, covered with a dark-coloured velvet, which threw into strong relief the gilded frames of a great number of magnificent pictures, on the evening of the arrival of the two Frenchmen, the whole court was assembled before the alcove of M. le Cardinal de Mazarin, who gave a party, for the purposes of play, to the king and queen. A small screen separated three prepared tables. At one of these tables the king and the two queens were seated. Louis XIV., placed opposite to the young queen, his wife, smiled upon her with an expression of real happiness. Anne of Austria held the cards against the cardinal, and her daughter-in-law assisted her in her game, when she was not engaged in smiling at her husband. As for the cardinal, who was reclining on his bed, his cards were held by the Comtesse de Soissons, and he watched them with an incessant look of interest and cupidity.