Another great ecclesiastic who was equally good-humoured about losses at play was the Cardinal d'Este, who, one day entertaining at dinner a brother prince of the Church, the Cardinal de Medici, played with him afterwards, and quite carelessly allowed the latter to win a stake of some ten thousand crowns, because, as he told an onlooker, he did not wish his guest to go away in a bad humour, or feel that he had been made to pay for his dinner. Hoca was a very popular game about this time. Certain Italians who had come into France in the train of Cardinal Mazarin contrived to obtain a concession from the King which enabled them to establish places in which this game might be played, and as they took care always to keep the bank themselves, they soon began to attract unfavourable notice owing to the large sums which fell into their maw. The game in question was prodigiously favourable to the bank, the players having only twenty-eight chances against thirty. In consequence of the public scandal which resulted, the Parliament of Paris stepped in and threatened severe punishment against these men, whilst it was made punishable by death to play hoca at all. Nevertheless, it continued to be in high favour at the Court, where many were ruined by gambling. In 1691, Louis XIV. determined to put a stop to the evil, and issued an order that no one should engage at faro, basset, and other games of chance on any consideration; every offender was to be fined 1000 livres, and the person at whose house any such game was played incurred a penalty of 6000 livres for each offence. Gamblers were also to be imprisoned for six months. The order in question, however, appears to have effected nothing, for some years later the same prince published a still severer edict, by which he forbade, on pain of death, any gaming in the French cavalry, and sentenced every commanding officer or governor who should presume to set up a hazard-table to be cashiered, and all concerned to be immediately and rigorously imprisoned. About the commencement of the Regency all Paris went mad over gaming; many of the houses of the great nobles were virtually _tripots_, special lights outside announcing this to passers-by. Horace Walpole declared that at least a hundred and fifty people of the highest quality lived on the play which took place in their houses, which any one wishing to gamble could enter at all hours. At the mansion of the Duc de Gevres persons desirous of taking the bank paid about twelve guineas a night. Such proceedings were deemed to be no disgrace to the nobles.