What men like Conon really enjoy, however, are games of dice. Nevertheless, since the Church has often censured these cubes of ivory, he and his baroness do not dare to use them too often; besides, they realize the havoc often wrought among the young by dice throwing, and wish to keep their own sons from temptation. In parts of France there are laws reading: "Dice shall not be made in this dominion, and those using them shall be looked upon as suspicious characters."[14] All such enactments are usually dead letters, and a high justiciar can ordinarily punish merely the manufacture and use of loaded dice. Although church prelates rail vigorously, their complaints are not merely that games of chance are, _ipso facto_, sinful, but that the blasphemies constantly uttered by losing dice players form a means of populating hell. Dice playing assuredly is extremely common. It is even impiously called "the game of God," because the regulation of chance belongs to Providence. Did not the Holy Apostles cast lots between Justus and Matthias to select a successor to the wicked Judas; and can good Christians question means acceptable to St. John and St. Peter? So gamesters will quiet their consciences. Vainly does King Philip Augustus command that any person swearing over dice in his royal presence, no matter how high his rank, shall be cast into the river. Dice are everywhere--in the travelers' and pilgrims' wallets and in almost every castle, hut, or town dwelling. Let any three or four men come together for an idle hour and fortunate it is if a set of dice does not appear to while away the time. The thirteenth century is innocent of cards; dice form the substitute. The swearing is evil, but the gambling is worse. There are at least ten gambling games, some with three dice, some needing six. Adela has been warning François, her eldest son, concerning a recent instance of reckless playing. A young squire, whose father held lands of Conon, set forth to seek his fortune at the king's court. He halted at Pontdebois, where he met an older soldier of fortune at the tavern. The poor young man was induced "to try a few casts." Soon he had lost his travel money; next his horse; next his armor. In desperation he began pledging his ordinary vesture to the tavern keeper (who acted as a kind of pawnbroker). Ill luck still pursued, and he was reduced to his bare shirt[15] before a friend of his father's, chancing about the inn, recovered his necessary clothes between them and sent him home, utterly humiliated. Such calamities are constant. Dice are daily the ruin of countless nobles and villeins--but the accursed gaming continues. It is even rumored that in certain disorderly monasteries these tools of the devil often intrude further to demoralize the brethren. [Illustration: THE GAME OF CHESS An ivory plaque of the fourteenth century (Musée du Louvre).] [Sidenote: Chess in Great Esteem]