The Devil's picture-books

by Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer

FRANCE.

AMONG the archives preserved in the Chambre des Comptes in Paris there was at one time an account, dated 1392, which said, “Paid to Jacquemin Gringonneur, Painter, for three packs of cards of gold and different colours, ornamented with different devices for the King [Charles the Sixth], for his amusement, 50 sols parisis.”

Plate 9.

The game, which was invented merely as an amusement for the deranged King, spread with such rapidity among the people that the Prevôt de Paris, in an ordinance dated Jan. 22, 1397, was obliged to “forbid working people from playing tennis, ball, cards, or ninepins, excepting only on holidays.” Especial notice should be taken of the fact that in a celebrated and oft-quoted ordinance made only twenty-eight years previously by Charles the Fifth, in which all games of hazard were enumerated, no allusion whatever was made to cards, while in the fifteenth century they are always carefully mentioned when games of chance are enumerated. By this we can place approximately the date of their invention or introduction into France.

Although packs of Tarots have survived since the fifteenth century, and one in particular will be described, there are no existing specimens of the original Tarots (Tarocchi, Tarocchini); but there is a pack which was engraved by a burin (or graving-tool), that probably was executed about the year 1460, which is known to be an exact copy of the first Tarots.

Rafael Maffie, who lived at the end of the fifteenth century, left in his “Commentaries” a description of Tarots, which were then, said he, “a new invention;” but he probably was speaking relatively of the origin of cards. From his description and the documents of others it is clear that the pack of Tarots was composed of four or five suits, each one of the ten cards being numbered in sequence, and displaying as their symbols the Denari, the Bastoni, the Coppe, and the Spade; and these suits were headed by the court cards of King, Knight, and Knave, to which was sometimes added a Queen. Besides these cards, which were en suite, there were others which bore fanciful figures, and which were named Atouts. The Tarots have been so fully described in another place that it is not necessary to repeat the description here.

A very slight knowledge of the history of playing-cards reveals the fact that Tarots were known in France long before the invention of the game of Piquet, which is undoubtedly of French origin; and besides this, the cards which are said to have belonged to Charles the Sixth are Tarots, and must be classed as such. They are preserved in the Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, and they may be looked upon with respect as being the oldest in any collection, public or private. Although nearly five hundred years of age, they are well preserved.

Besides the Tarot pack, which is supposed to have been one of the three packs that were painted by Gringonneur, there are preserved in the same museum parts of another old pack which show distinctly that they are of a later date. These cards are essentially French, and are not to be classed among the Tarots. There are a King, Queen, and Knave in each suit. Their Saracenic origin may still be traced, as they bear the crescent of the Mussulman instead of the carreau (diamond) of the Frenchman; and the Club is shaped after the Arabic or Moorish fashion, which had four equal branches, like a four-leaved clover, instead of the three leaves that were afterward adopted as the distinctive symbol of the suit.

Another noticeable peculiarity is that the King of Hearts is represented as a monkey covered with hair or skins, and he leans on a knobby staff. The Queen of his suit is dressed in skins like her consort, and in one hand she carries a torch. It would seem natural that the Knave of Hearts should be dressed to correspond with the royal personages belonging to his suit; but instead it is the Knave of Clubs who is represented as covered with hair or dressed in skins, and he carries a knotty stick over one shoulder. A part of another card has been found among those that the book-binder’s knife has separated from the proper body (for these cards, like so many of their kind, once formed part of the binding of a book); and this one shows the legs only of a fourth hairy person. The upper part has unfortunately never been found.