I was to make Magny play; in this there was no great difficulty.  We had an intimacy together, for he was a good sportsman as well as myself, and we came to have a pretty considerable friendship for one another; if he saw a dice-box it was impossible to prevent him from handling it; but he took to it as natural as a child does to sweetmeats.

At first he won of me; then he began to lose; then I played him money against some jewels that he brought:  family trinkets, he said, and indeed of considerable value.  He begged me, however, not to dispose of them in the duchy, and I gave and kept my word to him to this effect.  From jewels he got to playing upon promissory notes; and as they would not allow him to play at the Court tables and in public upon credit, he was very glad to have an opportunity of indulging his favourite passion in private.  I have had him for hours at my pavilion (which I had fitted up in the Eastern manner, very splendid) rattling the dice till it became time to go to his service at Court, and we would spend day after day in this manner.  He brought me more jewels,—­a pearl necklace, an antique emerald breast ornament, and other trinkets, as a set-off against these losses:  for I need not say that I should not have played with him all this time had he been winning; but, after about a week, the luck set in against him, and he became my debtor in a prodigious sum.  I do not care to mention the extent of it; it was such as I never thought the young man could pay.

Why, then, did I play for it?  Why waste days in private play with a mere bankrupt, when business seemingly much more profitable was to be done elsewhere?  My reason I boldly confess.  I wanted to win from Monsieur de Magny, not his money, but his intended wife, the Countess Ida.  Who can say that I had not a right to use any stratagem in this matter of love?  Or, why say love?  I wanted the wealth of the lady:  I loved her quite as much as Magny did; I loved her quite as much as yonder blushing virgin of seventeen does who marries an old lord of seventy.  I followed the practice of the world in this; having resolved that marriage should achieve my fortune.

I used to make Magny, after his losses, give me a friendly letter of acknowledgment to some such effect as this,—­

’My dear monsieur de Balibari,—­I acknowledge to have lost to you this day at lansquenet [or picquet, or hazard, as the case may be:  I was master of him at any game that is played] the sum of three hundred ducats, and shall hold it as a great kindness on your part if you will allow the debt to stand over until a future day, when you shall receive payment from your very grateful humble servant.’

With the jewels he brought me I also took the precaution (but this was my uncle’s idea, and a very good one) to have a sort of invoice, and a letter begging me to receive the trinkets as so much part payment of a sum of money he owed me.