It is not known whether they continued their journey North of the capital, but their memory has survived in a corner of the Department du Nord. “As a fact, in a wood near the village of Hamel, five hundred feet from a druidic monument consisting of six stones, there is a fountain which is called the Sorcerer’s Kitchen, and it is there, according to tradition, that the Cara Maras rested and quenched their thirst. Now these were assuredly the Caras’mar, namely, the Bohemians, or wandering sorcerers and diviners, to whom ancient Flemish charters granted the right to be fed by the inhabitants.”
They left Paris, but others came in their place, so that France was exploited as much as other countries. There is no record of their landing in England or in Scotland, but before very long the latter kingdom numbered more than one hundred thousand.[236] They were called seard and caird, as much as to say artisans, craftsmen, for the Scotch word is derived from the Sanskrit k + r, whence comes the verb to do, the Ker-aben of the gipsies and the Latin cerdo or bungler, which they are not. If there was no trace of them at the same period in northern Spain, where the Christians took refuge against the Moslem domination, it was doubtless because the Arabs in the South were more to their liking; however, under John II the gipsies were clearly distinguished from these latter, though no one knew whence they came. To sum up, it came about that, from the time in question forward, they were generally known over the whole European continent. One of the bands of king Sindel appeared at Ratisbon in 1433, while Sindel himself, accompanied by his reserve, camped in Bavaria in 1439. He seemed to have come from Bohemia, for the Bavarians, unaware that in 1433 the tribe had given themselves out as Egyptians, termed them Bohemians, under which name they reappeared in France and so have been known therein. Willy-nilly, they were tolerated. Some perambulated the mountains, seeking gold in the rivers; some forged shoes for horses and chains for dogs; others—more marauders than pilgrims—crept about, ferreting everywhere, and everywhere thieved and pilfered. A few of them, weary of shifting and fixing their tents continually, came to a stand and hollowed out hovels, square huts of four to six feet, underground, and covered with a roof of green branches, the ridge of which, set across two stakes, in the form of a Y, rose scarcely more than two feet above the soil. It was in this den, of which little more than the name has remained in France, that the whole family was huddled together pell-mell. In such a lodging, with no opening but the door and a hole for the smoke, the father hammered, the children—crouched round the fire—blew the bellows and the mother boiled the pot, which contained only the spoil of poaching. Among old clothes, a bridle and a knapsack hung from long wooden nails, with no other furniture than an anvil, pincers and hammer—there met credulity and love, maid and knight, lady of the manor and page. There they shewed their bare white hands to the penetrating glance of the sibyl; there love was purchased, happiness was sold, and lying found its recompense. Thence came mountebanks and cardsharpers, the star-spangled robe and peaked hat of the magician, the vagrants and their slang, street dancers and daughters of joy. It was the kingdom of idleness and trupherie, of Villon manners and free meals. They were people who were continually busy in doing nothing, as a simple story-teller of the middle ages terms it. A scholar who is equally modest and distinguished, M. Vaillant, author of a history of the Rom-Muni or Bohemians, some of whose pages we have cited, gives no more flattering portrait, though he ascribes to the gipsies great importance in the sacerdotal history of the ancient world. He recounts how these strange Protestants of primitive civilisation, travelling through the ages with a malediction on their foreheads and rapine in their hands, excited curiosity at first, then mistrust, finally proscription and hatred on the part of mediæval Christians. It will be readily understood what dangers might attach to this people without a fatherland, parasites or the whole world and citizens of nowhere. They were Bedouins who perambulated empires like deserts; they were nomadic thieves who glided about everywhere and remained nowhere. It came to pass speedily that the people regarded them as sorcerers, even as demons, casters of lots, stealers of children, and there was some ground for all this. Moreover, the nomads began to be accused everywhere of celebrating frightful mysteries in secret; they were held responsible for all unknown murders, for all mysterious abductions, as the Greeks of Damascus accused the Jews of killing one of their fraternity and drinking his blood. It was affirmed that they preferred boys and girls from twelve to fifteen years old. Here was an effectual way to insure that they should be held in horror and avoided by the young; but it was odious all the same, for the child and the common people are only too credulous, while as fear begets hatred, so also it tends to breed persecution. It was this which came to pass; they were not only avoided and fled from, but they were refused fire and water; Europe became like India in their respect and every Christian was a Brahman armed against them. In some countries, if a young girl approached one of them to give alms out of charity, her distracted governess would warn her to beware, for the gipsy was a katkaon, an ogre, who would suck her blood when she was asleep in the night. The girl drew back trembling. If a boy passed near enough for his shadow to fall on the wall near which they were seated, and where perhaps a whole gipsy family was eating or basking in the sun, his master would cry: “Keep off, child; these vampires will steal your shadow and your soul will dance at their Sabbath through all eternity.” So did Christian hatred resuscitate the lemures and goblins, the vampires and ogres as a ground of their impeachment. “They were descended from Mambres, whose miracles competed against those of Moses; they were sent by the king of Egypt to spy everywhere on the children of Israel and render their lot intolerable; they were the murderers made use of by Herod to exterminate the first-born of Bethlehem; they were pagans indeed, for others, but they did not understand a single word of Egyptian, their language comprising, on the contrary, a good deal of Hebrew, and they were therefore the refuse of that abject race who slept in the tombs of Judea after devouring the corpses which they contained; they were otherwise those miscreant Jews who were tortured, chased and burned in 1348 for having poisoned our wells and cisterns, and they had returned once again to the work. As a final alternative, whether Jews or Egyptians, Essenians or Chusians, Pharaohnians or Caphtorians, Assyrian Balistari or Philistines of Canaan, they were renegades, and it was testified in Saxony, France and everywhere that they were fit only for burning and hanging.
The proscription which came upon them fell also on that strange book in which they used to consult destiny and to obtain oracles. Its coloured cards bearing incomprehensible figures are undoubtedly the monumental summary of all ancient revelations, the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, the keys also of Solomon, the primeval scriptures of Enoch and Hermes. The author to whom we refer gives proof here of uncommon sagacity, speaking of the Tarot as a man who as yet does not understand it perfectly but has made it a profound study. What he says is as follows:—
“The form, disposition, arrangement of these tablets, and of the figures which they depict, though considerably modified by time, are so manifestly allegorical, while the allegories correspond so closely to the civil, philosophical and religious doctrine of antiquity, that one is compelled to regard them as a synthesis of the matter of faith among ancient peoples. We have sought to make evident already that the Tarot is a deduction from the sidereal Book of Enoch, who is Henochia; that it is modelled on the astral wheel of Athor, who is As-taroth; that, like the Indian Ot-tara, which is the polar bear or Arc-tura in the northern hemisphere, it is the force major (tarie), on which rests the solidity of the world and the sidereal firmament of earth. Consequently, like the polar Bear, which is regarded as the chariot of the sun, the chariot of David and of Arthur, it is the Greek fortune, the Chinese destiny, the Egyptian hazard, the lot of the Romanies; and that, in their unceasing revolution about the polar Bear, the stars pour down on earth those auspices and fatalities, that light and shadow, cold and heat, whence flow the good and evil, the love and hatred which make up human happiness.
“If the origin of this book is so lost in the night of time that no one knows where or when it was invented, everything leads us to believe that it is of Indo-Tartaric origin and that, variously modified among ancient nations, according to the phases of their doctrines and the characteristics of their wise men, it was one of their books of occult science, possibly even one of their sibylline books. We have sufficiently indicated the road by which it has reached us; we have seen that it must have been known to the Romans and that it came to them not only from the first days of the empire but of the Republic itself, by the intervention of those numerous strangers of eastern origin, who were initiated into the mysteries of Bacchus and of Isis, and who brought their knowledge to the heirs of Numa.”
Vaillant does not say that the four hieroglyphical signs of the Tarot—being Wands, Cups, Swords and Deniers, or golden circles—are found in Homer, sculptured on the shield of Achilles; but according to him: “the Cups are the arcs or arches of time, the vessels or ships of heaven. The Deniers are the constellations, fixed and movable stars. The Swords are fires, flames, rays; the Wands are shadows, stones, trees, plants. The Ace of Cups is the vase of the universe, the arch of celestial truth, the principle of earth. The Ace of Deniers is the sun, the great eye of the world, the sustenance and element of life. The Ace of Swords is the spear of Mars, whence come wars, misfortunes and victories. The Ace of Wands is the serpent’s eye, the pastoral crook, the cowherd’s goad, the club of Hercules, the emblem of agriculture. The two of Cups is the cow, Io or Isis, and the bull Apis or Mnevis. The three of Cups is Isis, the moon, lady and queen of night. The three of Deniers is Osiris, the sun, lord and king of day. The nine of Deniers is the messenger Mercury, or the angel Gabriel. The nine of Cups is the gestation of good destiny, whence comes happiness.”
Finally, M. Vaillant tells us that there is a Chinese diagram consisting of characters which form great oblong compartments, of equal size and precisely that of the Tarot cards. These compartments are arranged in six perpendicular columns, the first five consisting of fourteen compartments each, making seventy in all; whilst the sixth is only half filled and contains seven compartments. Moreover, this diagram is formed after the same combination of the number seven; each complete column is of twice seven or fourteen compartments, while the half column contains seven compartments. It is so much like the Tarot that the four suits of the latter occupy the four first columns; in the fifth column are the twenty-one trumps, while the seven remaining trumps are in the sixth column, the last representing the six days constituting the week of creation. Now, according to the Chinese, this diagram goes back to the first epoch of their empire, being the drying up of the waters of the deluge by Iao. The conclusion is, therefore, that this is either the original Tarot or a copy thereof; that in any case the Tarot is anterior to Moses, is referable to the beginning of the ages, or the epoch of the formulation of the Zodiac; and that its age is consequently six thousand six hundred years.[237]
“Such is the Romany Tarot from which by transposition the Hebrews have made the word Torah, signifying the Law of Jehovah. So far then from being a game, as it is at the present day, it was a book, and a serious book, the book of symbols and of emblems, of analogies or the relations between stars and man; the book of destiny, by the aid of which the sorcerer unveiled the mysteries of fortune. Its figures, their names, their number, and the oracles drawn from these made it naturally regarded by Christians as the instrument of a diabolical art, a work of Magic. It will be hence understood with what severity they proscribed it, the moment it became known to them by that abuse of confidence which the rashness of the Sagi committed on public credulity. In this manner, faith being lost in its message, the Tarot became a game, while its pictures underwent modification according to the taste of nations and the successive spirit of centuries.[238] It is to the work in this trivial form that we owe our modern playing cards, the combinations of which are comparable to those of the Tarot in the same way as the game of draughts is comparable to the game of chess. It follows that the origin of cards is attributed wrongly to the reign of Charles VI, and it may be noted further that the initiates of the Order of the Belt, established before 1332 by Alphons XI, king of Castile, pledged themselves not to play cards. Le Sage tells us that, in the days of Charles V, St. Bernard of Sienna condemned cards to be burnt and that they were then called triumphales after the game of triumph played in honour of the victorious Osiris or Ormuzd, represented by one of the Tarot cards. Furthermore, that king himself proscribed cards in 1369 and the reason that little Jean de Saintré was honoured by his favour was because he did not play. In those days cards were termed Naipes in Spain and Naibi in Italy, the Naibi being she-devils, sibyls and pythonesses.”
M. Vaillant, from whom we have been again quoting, considers therefore that the Tarot has been modified and altered, which is true for the German examples bearing Chinese figures, but not for those of Italy, which have only been altered in details, nor for those of Besançon, in which traces remain of primitive Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic, we have shewn how untoward in their results were the labours of Etteilla or Alliette in respect of the Tarot. This illuminated hairdresser, after working for thirty years, only succeeded in producing a bastard set, the Keys of which are transposed, so that the numbers no longer answer to the signs. In a word, it is a Tarot suited to Etteilla and to the measure of his intelligence, which was not of great extent.
We are scarcely in agreement with M. Vaillant, when he suggests that the gipsies were the lawful proprietors of this key to initiations. They owed it doubtless to the infidelity or imprudence of some Kabalistic Jew. The gipsies originated in India, or their historian has at least shown the likelihood of this theory. Now the extant Tarot is certainly that of the gipsies and has come to us by way of Judea. As a fact, its keys are in correspondence with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and some of its figures reproduce even their forms. What then were the gipsies? As a poet has said: They were the debased remnant of an ancient world; they were a sect of Indian Gnostics, whose communism caused them to be proscribed in every land; as they may be said to admit practically, they were profaners of the Great Arcanum, overtaken by a fatal malediction. A horde misled by some enthusiastic fakir, they had become wanderers through the world, protesting against all civilisations in the name of a pretended natural law which dispensed them from almost every duty. Now the law which seeks to prevail in violation of duty is aggression, pillage and rapine; it is the hand of Cain raised against his brother, and society in defending itself seems to be avenging the death of Abel.