Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/189

Rh Ornano, father-in-law of Count Walewski, Pactot, and Clari, as well as most of the ambassadors at the court of the Tuileries. As at Crockford's, a magnificent supper was provided every night for all who thought proper to avail themselves of it. The games principally played were rouge et noir and hazard; the former producing an immense profit, for not only were the whole of the expenses of this costly establishment defrayed by the winnings of the bank, but a very large sum was paid annually to the municipality of Paris. I recollect a young Irishman, Mr. Gough, losing a large fortune at this tapis vert. After returning home about two, he sat down and wrote a letter, giving reasons as to why he was about to commit suicide: these, it is needless to say, were simply his gambling reverses. A pistol shot through the brain terminated his existence. Sir Francis Vincent—a man of old family and considerable fortune—was another victim of this French hell, who contrived to get rid of his magnificent property, and then disappeared from society.

In calling up my recollections of the Salon des Etrangers, some forty years since, I see before me the noble form and face of the Hungarian Count