The magnificent “grande salle” in this splendid edifice, was occupied with the ball, while the “DÆMON-ROBBER bands” were plying their vocation at the end of the room. The play, however, seemed to go on languidly; and the waltz appeared to have more attractions for the company than the roulette. The dancers and spectators were by no means _distinguée_. There was not one fine woman in the room. We did not distinguish more than half a dozen English in the whole assembly. They were almost all French, Flemish, and a few Germans.
Thus ended a SPA-DAY in the Ardennes. I do not recommend an imitation of it to all those who go to Spa for health. But if the pedestrian exercise were superseded by equestrian or carriage exercise, I think a more effectual plan for the recovery of health could hardly be devised. To those who are very delicate, the paths that are cut along the face of the wooded precipices overhanging the town, afford most beautiful walks, sheltered from the winds, and commanding pleasing prospects of Ardennes scenery. The air there is bracing and elastic.
It is not likely that such a “HAVEN OF HEALTH” as this is, should be without its Cursaal, or gambling-table. The two grand hells are the Redout and the Vauxhall. A few years before the Revolution the Church sustained some damage in slander by these mansions of morality. It appears that the Bishop of Liege, who united a temporal with an eternal concern for the souls of the good citizens, had granted a monopoly of fifty years gambling to the proprietors of the Redout—of course without any other consideration than the advancement of religion and the good of the people. But a rival establishment (Vauxhall) having been started, the Bishop issued an ordonnance against the new tables, as not being orthodox. An appeal was made to the legislature, and the holy canon was reversed, on the principle that, as in a free state like that of Liege, “every man had a right to do as he liked with his own”—and as gambling was not contrary to law, so the Bishop had no right to grant a monopoly to gamblers. This was an awkward affair; but an amicable arrangement was soon made between the Bishop and the proprietors of the two hells, by which the man of God modestly declined a tenth of the spoil, and only accepted a _third_ of the profits of the tables at the end of each season! “Le PRINCE EVEQUE recevra le tiers DES BENEFICES que se feront dans ces deux maisons sur les jeux, apres la saison des Eaux.”