Dice, Cards, Wheels: A Different History of French Culture

3. Getting God's Edge: Pascal's Gambler as Paraclete

3 Getting God's Edge: Pascal's Gambler as Paraclete THE GAMBLING SCENES in Bodel's feu de saint Nicolas are part of that work's broad canvas of medieval society. Its tavern scenes may underline a tension between sacrificial religiosity and vibrant carnality, but the play's explicit conflict is that between Crusaders and pagans. Bodel's dice games point to a popular underside of Christian France, but they refrain from issuing any direct challenge to religion's hegemony. By the end of the play, Saint Nicolas has prevailed and even inebriated gamblers find a role to play in God's plan. For France, the sixteenth century would bring an end to a unified national Christianity that had only distant heathens for enemies. As early as 1519 Lutheran tracts challenging the established church began circulating in Paris. Franc;ois I, close to war with both Emperor Charles V and King Henry VIII ofEngland, may have forbidden their publication, but nothing could contain the tension those echoes of Reform would soon generate. Building over half a century, the conflict between Catholic and Huguenot led to thirty years of religious wars between 1567 and 1598 that would devastate France. During that period, the powerful duc de Guise would create and lead the Catholic Holy League, going so far as to enlist Spanish arms in his struggle to forestall any accommodation between the French crown and the growing minority of Huguenots. The year 1572 saw not only the murder of the Protestant military leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, but the massacre in Paris of over three thousand Huguenots gathered to celebrate the marriage of Marguerite de Valois and the Protestant Henri III of Navarre. It was only after another quarter-century of civil war-and a full nine years after Henry of Navarre, having converted to Catholicism, became I