kept by Madame de Selle, Rue Montmartre; la Comtesse Champeiron, Rue de Cléry; and Madame de Fonteneille. Rue de l'Arsenal. It was at the last-named place that Sartines, who often visited such places as a private individual for his own pleasure, narrowly escaped the blow of a poniard, on being recognised by a ruined gambler. A good deal of crime and misery was declared to arise from the existence of these gaming-houses, and at length, in 1781, after many suicides and bankruptcies innumerable, they were temporarily prohibited. The main cause, however, was that the brother of a favourite mistress of a pet courtier, after ruining himself and robbing a friend in order to obtain funds with which to play, had put an end to his existence, by blowing out his brains, at a gaming-house kept by Madame de la Serre, Place des Victoires. After this the demon of gaming took refuge at the Court, where shady financiers and well-dressed scoundrels carried on a very lucrative traffic almost under the nose of His Most Christian Majesty. The privileged hôtels of the ambassadors, where the police had no control, became also the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the vampires of that period. In addition to this, after a short lapse of time, the original Golgothas were re-licensed, the game called "biribi" displacing "la belle," and becoming the popular road to ruin of the day. Biribi is now probably quite obsolete. It was played upon a table which contained seventy numbers, to which there were corresponding numbers enclosed in a bag. These the banker drew out one by one, the player whose money was on the corresponding number on the table being paid a sum equivalent to sixty-four times his stake. As at roulette, there were a great number of other chances--_pair_ and _impair_, _noir_ and _rouge_, _du petit et du grand côté_, _la bordure du tableau_, _les terminaisons_, and the like. There were nine columns of numbers, each of which contained eight, with the exception of the middle column, which was the banker's; this consisted of six numbers only, which were considered zeroes. Unattractive as this game must appear to a more sophisticated generation, biribi became a regular craze. About this time another epidemic of domestic horrors and public crimes caused the Hells to be denounced to Parliament, which cited the redoubtable lieutenant of police, Sartines, to its bar, and after a good deal of gesticulation and ultra-moral oratory--most of it from those members of the Parliament who themselves kept privileged receptacles of gaming--it was decided that the high court of peers should be convoked, in order that they might deal severely with those minor ruffians, who, in contravention of the laws, carried on clandestine play. The patrician moralists shortly after issued a decree, sanctioned by Royalty, that the bankers of unauthorised gaming-houses should be liable to the _carcan_ (pillory), branding with a hot iron, and the _fout_ (flogging).