ROUGET DE LISLE 



ROULETTE 



825 



losers are raked by the tailleurs to the bank in the 

 centre of the table. When the value of the tirst, 

 or noir-row, is equal to that of the second, or rouge- 

 row, it is a re fait, and the dealer must commence 

 to deal anew from the cards remaining in his hand ; 

 when the refait occurs the player may either with- 

 draw his stake, or stake on a different chance, with 

 the same or more or less money as he thinks proper. 

 The game of Rouge et Noir would be an even one 

 between the players and the bank were it not for 

 the following regulation : When the points dealt 

 for the noir and the rouge each amount to thirty- 

 one ( ' un refait de trente-et-un ' ) the half of all 

 the stakes on each of the chances belongs to the 

 bank, and this the players may either pay or have 

 their stakes ' put in prison,' the next deal deter- 

 mining whether they shall belong to the bank or 

 be restored to the player. If a second doublet of 

 thirty-one occurs in the deal immediately succeed- 

 ing, the stakes which were in prison are diminished 

 by one-half, which goes to the bank, and the other 

 half is 'put into the second prison,' from which it 

 requires two successive winnings of the player to 

 regain them. The chance of ' un refait de trente- 

 et-un ' is about once in sixty-four deals. This game 

 superseded Faro (q.v.) and Biribi in France about 

 1789, but along with Roulette was forbidden by 

 law in 1838. See work cited at ROULETTE. 



Rouget de Lisle, CLAUDE JOSEPH, author of 

 the Marseillaise ( q. v. ), was born at Lons-le-Saulnier 

 on 10th May 1760. When in 1792 he wrote and 

 composed his celebrated song or hymn he was a 

 captain of engineers stationed at Strasburg. Four 

 months later, as too moderate a republican, he was 

 imprisoned in Paris, but was released after Robes- 

 pierre's fall. Wounded at Quiberon (1795), he 

 quitted the army, and lived in Paris in narrow 

 circumstances, until Louis-Philippe in 1830 awarded 

 him a small pension. He died at Choisy on 26th 

 June 1836. He published in 1796 a volume of Essais 

 en Vers et en Prose ; but none of the pieces it con- 

 tains, nor indeed any of his other books, possess 

 much real merit. The Marseillaise was his one 

 inspiration. See a Memoir by Poisle-Desgranges 

 (Paris, 1864), and one by Tiersot ( 1892). 



Ronher, EUGENE, a French statesman, was 

 born at Riom, on November 30, 1814, practised 

 there as an advocate up to 1848, and then was 

 returned to the Constituent Assembly. Towards 

 the end of 1849 he was appointed minister of 

 Justice ; and with slight interruptions he was for 

 twenty years a member of the French government. 

 He was chiefly instrumental in negotiating the 

 treaty of commerce between France and England 

 in 1860, and that between France and Italy in 1863, 

 and was thus instrumental in preparing the way for 

 the introduction of the free-trade policy of Napoleon 

 III. In 1863 he was appointed minister of State, 

 and maintained that position until 1870, when he 

 became president of the Senate. A staunch sup- 

 porter of Napoleon III., and a clever debater, 

 Rouher was, next after the emperor, the chief 

 supporter of the system, domestic and foreign, 

 which came to a disastrous end at Sedan he was 

 sometimes called the Vice-emperor. After the fall 

 of the empire he fled abroad. But he was returned 

 to the National Assembly for Corsica in 1872, and 

 sat till 1875 as a staunch defender of the ex- 

 emperor. He died at Paris, 3d February 1884. 



Routers (Flem. Rousselaere), a town of West 

 Flanders, Belgium, 19 miles by rail SSW. of 

 Bruges, has manufactures of cottons, lace, and 

 chicory, and a trade in linen. Here the French 

 defeated the Austrians on I3lh July 1794. Pop. 

 (1887) 19,735; (1896)21,603. 



Roulette (Fr., 'a little wheel'), a game of 

 chance wlii<-h from the end of the 18th century till 



the beginning of 1838 reigned supreme over all 

 others in Paris. It continued to be played at 

 German watering-places till 1872, when it ceased 

 in terms of an act passed four years before. Rou- 

 lette then found a home at Monaco. It is played 

 on a table of an oblong form, covered with green 

 cloth, which has in its centre a cavity of a little 

 more than 2 feet in diameter, in the shape of 

 a punch-bowl. This cavity, which has several 

 copper bands round its sides at equal distances 

 from each other, has its sides fixed, but the bottom 

 is movable round an axis placed in the centre of 

 the cavity, the handle by which motion is com- 

 municated being a species of cross or capstan of 

 copper fixed on the upper extremity of the axis. 

 Round the circumference of this movable bottom 

 are 38 holes, painted in black and red alternately, 

 with the first 36 numbers, and a single and 

 double zero ; and these 38 symbols are also 

 figured at each end of the table in order that 

 the players may place their stakes on the chance 

 they select. Along the margin of the table 

 and at each end of it are painted six words pair, 

 passe, noir, impair, manmie, rouge, which will 

 be afterwards explained. Those who manage the 

 table and keep the bank are called tailleurs. The 

 game is played as follows : One of the tailleurs 

 puts the movable bottom in motion by turning the 

 cross with his forefinger, and at the same instant 

 throws into the cavity an ivory ball in a direction 

 opposite to the motion of the bottom ; the ball 

 makes several revolutions, and at last falls into 

 one of the 38 holes above mentioned, the hole into 

 which it falls determining the gain or loss of the 

 players. A player may stake his money on 1, 2, 

 or any of the 38 numbers (including the zeros), 

 and shows what number or numbers he selects by 

 placing his stake upon them ; if he has selected a 

 number or zero corresponding to the one into which 

 the ball falls, he receives from one of the tailleurs 

 36 times his stake viz. his stake and 35 times 

 more if he selected only 1 number, 18 times if 2 

 numbers, 12 times if 3 numbers, &c. The blank 

 rectangles at the bottom of each of the 3 columns 

 of numbers figured on the table are for the recep- 

 tion of the stake of that player who selects a 

 column (12 numbers) as his chance, and if the ball 

 enters a hole the number of which is found in his 

 column, he is paid 3 times his stake. Those who 

 prefer staking their money on any of the chances 

 marked on the edge of the table, if they win 

 receive double their stake (their stake and as 

 much more), and under the following circum- 

 stances : The ' pair ' wins when the ball falls into 

 a hole marked by an even number; the 'impair,' 

 if the hole is marked odd; the 'manque,' if the 

 hole is numbered from 1 to 18 inclusive ; the 

 ' passe," if it is numbered from 19 to 36 inclusive ; 

 the 'rouge,' if it is coloured red; and the 'noir,' 

 if it is coloured black. If the ball should fall into 

 either of the holes marked with the single or the 

 double zero, the stakes of those players who 

 venture upon the 6 chances last described are 

 either equally divided between the bank and the 

 players, or as is more commonly the case, they 

 are ' put in prison,' as it is called, and the succeed- 

 ing trial determines whether they are to be restored 

 to the players or gained by the bank. Should it 

 so happen that at this trial the ball again falls into 

 one of the two holes marked with zeros, then half 

 of the stakes in prison are taken by the bank, and 

 the remainder are ' put into the second prison,' and 

 so on. The tailleurs thus have an advantage over 

 the players in the proportion of 19 to 18. The 

 player who bets upon the numbers labours under 

 a similar disadvantage, for although the two zero- 

 points do not affect him in the same way as the 

 player who stakes upon one of the other 6 chances, 



