St. Francis de Sales was, in his younger days, a card-player, though subsequently he condemned all games at cards as being in themselves unlawful.[341] According to the Duchess of Orleans, the old Marshal Villeroi, who had known him in his youth, could never bring himself to call him Saint. As often as the name of St. Francis de Sales was mentioned in his presence, he would observe, "I was delighted to learn that Mons. de Sales was a Saint. He was fond of saying smutty things, and used to cheat at cards; in other respects he was a perfect gentleman, though a ninny."[342] The excuse that he made for his cheating was, that whatever he won was for the poor. Cardinal Mazarine, another dignitary of the church of Rome, was much given to cheating at play as well as in politics; and it is related by an eye-witness, that when he was on his death-bed, he still continued to play at cards, one of the company holding his "hand;" and that he was thus employed when he received the Pope's plenary indulgence, together with the viaticum, as a prince of the church, from the Papal nuncio.[343] In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of the clergy of all degrees in France, Spain, and Italy appear to have been much addicted not only to card-playing but to gaming in general, notwithstanding the determinations of casuists and the prohibitions of councils. Masses and prayers were sometimes staked by the priest against the hard money of the layman; and even devout people, following the example set them by their pastors, used to play with each other for Aves and Pater-nosters. On the subject of the clergy staking masses at play, Barbeyrac, a Protestant, observes, "These are in truth frivolous matters, and of no effect, to say no worse; nevertheless, as those who traffic in them believe, or, at least, pretend to believe that a kind of sanctity and supernatural virtue are attached to their use, all play for such stakes is unlawful; and he who thus profanely ventures them is evidently guilty both of sacrilege and simony." With respect to playing for prayers, Thiers says that the practice is not condemned by Dr. Navarre, and that Père Raynaud bears witness of its being admitted among the devout; for his own part, however, he disapproves of it as "a heteroclite refinement of devotion;" and is of opinion that there is some degree of irreverence in playing for Psalms, Pater-nosters, and Aves.[344] The Spanish phrase, "_Jugar los Kiries_" shows that such a practice was not unusual among the clergy of that country: though the explanation of the phrase in some dictionaries is, that it relates to a clergyman who plays away the alms that are given him for praying, it yet properly relates to a clergyman who plays away prayers,--not the money given for them.