[235] The presence of the gipsies in Europe can be traced prior to the fifteenth century.
[236] The authority of George Borrow is quoted for this statement.
[237] Long before Vaillant, this Chinese inscription was described by Court de Gebelin, who also believed that it was a form of the Tarot.
[238] If certain beautiful Tarot cards preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi and at the Musée Carrer are the work of Jacques Gringonneur, which is disputed, as we have seen, then the Tarot is first heard of in 1393 and as it was in 1423 that St. Bernardin of Sienna preached against playing cards, which were no doubt Tarots, it is probable that they were put to the same use at the earlier date that they were put to at the later.
[239] The romantic history of Raymund Lully on which Éliphas Lévi worked was written by Jean Marie de Vernon.
[240] What is certain historically is as follows: (a) That the story of Ambrosia di Castello, so far as regards its root-matter, concerns the original and only Raymund Lully, who was the author of the Ars Magna; (b) That it is in all probability fictitious; (c) That it has been decorated and dramatised by Éliphas Lévi, who has done his work admirably; (d) That concerning the father of the illuminated doctor we know only that he was a great soldier; (e) That the author of the alchemical treatises was not the author of the Ars Magna; (f) That the alchemical writer is said to have been (1) another Raymund Lully, which, I think, means only that he assumed the name in order to father his works upon a celebrated person, and (2) a proselyte of the gate, being a person who becomes a Jew, but this is manifestly contradicted by the evidence of the alchemical texts; (g) That when the works of Raymund Lully were collected, at the end of the eighteenth century, into eight enormous folio volumes, we find, as I have said elsewhere, a third Raymund Lully, who was a mystic; but as to his real identity we know nothing.
[241] Rose Nobles were replaced by Angels in 1465, temp. Edward IV.
[242] Louis Figuier wrote occult romances under the guise of history, and did not know what he was talking about in respect of the Ars Magna. There is no reason to suppose that it had even passed through his hands. It was otherwise as regards the little alchemical texts; and there is no reason to question what he says concerning them.
[243] The story of a transmutation performed by some one called Raymund Lully in England depends from the alchemical texts mentioned, and is therefore no evidence, and from a forged Testament of John Cremer, who called himself Abbot of Westminster, but no person of this name filled the office in question, either at the supposed period or any other.
[244] The tracts extant under the name of the alchemical Raymund Lully are enumerated by Lenglet du Fresnoy in connection with those attributed to the author of the Ars Magna. Mangetus printed sixteen in his Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, 1702. The Codicillus, Vade Mecum, or Cantilena is a considerable work, divided into 74 chapters.