Prophetical, Educational and Playing Cards

by Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer

L’Ombre was played during the fourteenth century in Spain, and wandered to England, France, Germany, and Austria. It still receives its original title in the first two countries, and is played by country folk, but in France it seems to have been discarded.

Under the name of Skat, and played with the pips of that country, a modified form of the game is known in Germany. In Austria the game is called Tappé Tarok, and the ancient names are assigned to strangely designed cards quite foreign to the original Tarots, although the pack includes twenty-two Atouts and fifty-two pip cards that bear the French, but not the Italian or German, designs. For this game the old rules are largely retained, and it is considered difficult and highly scientific, so this rearranged pack has taken the place of the old Tarots in Austria. Tappé Tarok is a fashionable game in Vienna, where the “Hoyle” of the day calmly announces that it originated in that city with the cards invented for it, totally ignoring the lineage of the true Tarots, of which their Tarok pack is simply an alteration, with the French pips exchanged for Cups, Money, Swords, and Staves. That the new symbols were adopted at the same time that the emblematic figures of the Atouts were cast aside, to be replaced by meaningless pictures, is most probable, and one author declares that the change was made “lately,” but a pack in the writer’s possession proves that such was not the case, for the designs are those of the old Tarots.

After the fortune-telling pack had been adopted for a tête-a-tête game, it spread rapidly from Etruria to other places, and L’Ombre is mentioned in early Italian books of history, romance, and poetry, where the game is frequently called Tarroco or Minchiate. In England the Poet-laureate Waller immortalized “a card torn at L’Ombre by the Queen,” who was Catherine of Braganza, the wife of Charles II. It is Belinda’s game in “The Rape of the Lock,” and in many pictures of that time players are depicted either tête-a-tête, or else three persons are seated at three-sided tables that were particularly fashioned for this game; these are still treasured in old mansions, where they are called Ombre or Preference tables.

The Spanish nickname for L’Ombre is Manilla, which is also that of one of their favourite cards. Some of their towns have had this name given to them, one of which is in the Philippine Islands and one on the African coast. La Manilla is one of the “Matadores,” the name given the four cards that are selected to outrank all the others, and so called because they are “killers” or “slaughterers,” since they kill or take all other cards.

The Ace of Espadas (Swords) is the first Matador, nicknamed Espadilla, or little Sword, after the Harpé of Mercury that is represented on this card, the suit being called after its emblem. In England the card is called Spadille.

The second Matador is the one named Manilla or Malilla, and is the Nine of Money. The third Matador is the Ace of Sticks, called Basto, “he who knocks or beats.” It is the Caduceus, or Rod, and the suit takes its name from it. In certain parts of the game it is played with great effect, as is mentioned in “Cranford,” by Mrs. Gaskell, where is a description of some ladies playing a game that was then called “Preference”; where Miss Barker at the card table was “basting most unmercifully, although she declared that she was too ignorant to know Spadille from Manille.” The fourth Matador is the Ace of Cups, and is called Punto, which means the point or spot.

Players of Skat will readily recognize these terms and the value of the cards. Rules and play vary in different countries, so it would take close study of each game to point out the various rules, names, etc., that connect the games of the day with their five-hundred-year-old ancestor.

In England the eldest descendant of L’Ombre seems to be Primero, Prime, Prima-sta, or Preference, for all are the same game. Some writers claim that when Philip of Spain was wooing Mary of England he taught her the game fashionable at the court of his father, Charles V, but Primero was in vogue among the people from the days of Henry VIII to that of James I, so much so that Piquet, the French game taught to Henry’s mother when the French pips were introduced into England, was greatly neglected except in court circles.

In the Earl of Northumberland’s letters we find a reference to the game, as in one of them is the following sentence: “Jocelyn Percy was playing at Primero on Sunday in Essex House, when his uncle the conspirator called on him.”

In the Sidney Papers, Vol. II (page 83), there is an account of Sir Walter Raleigh, William Ambrose Willoughby, and Mr. Parker “being at Primero in the Presence Chamber, the queen was gone to bed. Lord Southampton, as Squire of the Body, desired him, Willoughby, to give over. Soon after he spoke to them again that if they did not leave he would call in the Guard to pull down the board, which Sir Walter Rawley seeing put up his money and went his ways.” This occurred in 1598.