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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

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Gambling at the german bathing-places

CHAPTER VIII. page 44

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

The gaming at Aix-la-Chapelle is equally desperate and
destructive. `A Russian officer of my acquaintance,' says a
writer in the Annual Register for 1818, `was subject, like many
of his countrymen whom I have known, to the infatuation of play
to a most ridiculous excess. His distrust of himself under the
assailments which he anticipated at a place like Aix-la-Chapelle,
had induced him to take the prudent precaution of paying in
advance at his hotel for his board and lodging, and at the
bathing-house for his baths, for the time he intended to stay.
The remaining contents of his purse he thought fairly his own;
and he went of course to the table all the gayer for the license
he had taken of his conscience. On fortune showing him a few
favours, he came to me in high spirits, with a purse full of
Napoleons, and a resolute determination to keep them by venturing
no more; but a gamester can no more be stationary than the tide
of a river, and on the evening he was put out of suspense by
having not a Napoleon left, and nothing to console but
congratulation on his foresight, and the excellent supper
which was the fruit of it.'

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