Sentence:  With forty sous which remained, he went to a low gambling house, where fortune, or something surer to the skilful practitioner, so well <WSD>besteaded</WSD> him that he was able to clothe himself decently preparatory to entering Frascati's, the fashionable hell of Paris—a den of abomination early suppressed on the accession of Louis Philippe to the French throne. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To profit; benefit; serve; avail.