During this reign gamesters were in high favour, as may well be imagined. One of them received an honour never conceded even to princes and dukes. 'The latter,' says Amelot de la Houssaie, 'did not enter the court-yard of the royal mansions in a carriage before the year 1607, and they are indebted for the privilege to the first Duc d'Epernon, the favourite of the late king, Henry III., who being wont to go every day to play with the queen, Marie de Medicis, took it into his head to have his carriage driven into the court-yard of the Louvre, and had himself carried bodily by his footmen into the very chamber of the queen--under the pretext of being dreadfully tormented with the gout, so as not to be able to stand on his legs.'(52) (52) Mem. Hist. iii. It is said, however, that Henry IV. was finally cured of gambling. _Credat Judaeus!_ But the anecdote is as follows. The king lost an immense sum at play, and requested Sully to let him have the money to pay it. The latter demurred, so that the king had to send to him several times. At last, however, Sully took him the money, and spread it out before him on the table, exclaiming--'There's the sum.' Henry fixed his eyes on the vast amount. It is said to have been enough to purchase Amiens from the Spaniards, who then held it. The king thereupon exclaimed:--'I am corrected. I will never again lose my money at gaming.' During this reign Paris swarmed with gamesters. Then for the first time were established _Academies de Jeu_, 'Gaming Academies,' for thus were termed the gaming houses to which all classes of society beneath the nobility and gentility, down to the lowest, rushed in crowds and incessantly. Not a day passed without the ruin of somebody. The son of a merchant, who possessed twenty thousand crowns, lost sixty thousand. It seemed, says a contemporary, that a thousand pistoles at that time were valued less than a _sou_ in the time of Francis I. The result of this state of things was incalculable social affliction. Usury and law-suits completed the ruin of gamblers. The profits of the keepers of gaming houses must have been enormous, to judge from the rents they paid. A house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain was secured at the rental of about L70 for a fortnight, for the purpose of gambling during the time of the fair. Small rooms and even closets were hired at the rate of many pistoles or half-sovereigns per hour; to get paid, however, generally entailed a fight or a law-suit. All this took place in the very teeth of the most stringent laws enacted against gaming and gamesters. The fact was, that among the magistrates some closed their eyes, and others held out their hands to receive the bribe of their connivance.