In spite of several lukewarm attempts to prevent it, gambling ever throve in France. Charles VI. lost one day five thousand livres to his brother, and in the reign of that monarch flourished the Hôtel de Nesle, which was notorious for its terrible gambling scandals, where-- “Maint gentilshommes tres haulx Ont perdu armes et cheveaux, Argent, honeuret seignourie.” It is recorded how Philibert de Chalon, Prince d’Orange, who was in command at the siege of Florence, under the Emperor Charles V., actually gambled away the money which had been confided to him for the pay of the soldiers, and “was compelled, after a struggle of eleven months, to capitulate with those whom he might have forced to surrender.” But when so much encouragement was given to gambling by royalty, it is by no means surprising that the vice prevailed almost everywhere, and was not confined to any one country, especially when many of the French kings were said to patronise and applaud well-known cheats at the gaming-table.[82] The so-called cards of Charles VI., which are now in the Bibliothèque du Roi of Paris, are in all probability the most ancient of any that are preserved in the various public collections of Europe. They are but seventeen, painted on a gold ground, and surrounded by a silver border, in which is a ribbon rolled spirally round done in points. It was at Bourges, in the Château du Berri, that the game of piquet was invented, as tradition tells us, by Lahire, as a pastime for Charles VII. In an old account-book of the monarchs of France, we find that in 1392 there was paid about £8 of our present money for three packs; and the accounts of the jeweller to Queen Marie of Anjou contain this entry: “On the 1st of October, 1454, to William Bouchier, merchant, two games of cards and two hundred pins, delivered to Monsieur Charles of France, to play with, and amuse himself, five sals tournois.” Henry IV. was an inveterate gambler, and, although not a skilful player, he is said to have been “greedy of gain, timid in high stakes, and ill-tempered when he lost.” In his reign gambling became the rage, and it appears from his Majesty’s letters to Sully that he sometimes played on credit, _e.g._ “I have lost at play 22,000 pistoles (220,000 livres); I beg you to pay them directly to Faideau, that he may distribute them to the persons to whom I owe them.” “_August 20, 1609._--Pay M. Edouard, Portuguese, 51,000 livres on account of what I owe him at play.”[83]