(Cards taken from the Pack, said to be of Charles VI., preserved in the Bibl. Imp., Paris.)
Most of these allegorical subjects have been retained in the tarots, which include, independent of the sixteen figures of our piquet-pack, twenty-two cards, representing the Emperor, the Lover, the Chariot, the Hermit, the Gibbet, Death, the House of God, the End of the World, &c.
We should scarcely be justified in imagining that these tarots, presenting as they did a picture of life so gloomily philosophical, regarded from a Christian point of view, could have enjoyed any great favour in the centre of a frivolous and corrupt court, devoted to little else but fêtes, masquerades, and singing; this, too, at a time when the State, a prey to every kind of intrigue, was falling into ruin, and the voice of insurrection was surging up among a people burdened by taxes, and decimated by pestilence and famine. On the other hand these tarots might well please the imagination of certain good people who, having been deprived of their property in some of the disturbances incidental to these times, could not fail to accept as a consolation such emblematical representations of life and death. Artists of every kind tried their best to reproduce them in all forms; and as these designs found a place even in the ornaments of the female sex, it was scarcely probable that playing-cards would form an exception.
We are in possession of the remains of two ancient packs of cards, produced by means of engraved plates; they were discovered, like most cards of this date which have come to light, in the bindings of books of the fifteenth century. These cards, which belong to the reign of Charles VII., are essentially French in their character. We find in them the king, the queen, and the knave of each suit, as in our present pack of piquet cards. In one of these ancient packs we notice, however, traces of the Saracenic origin of the naïbi; the Mussulman “crescent” being substituted for the “diamond,” while the “club” is depicted in the Arabian or Moorish fashion; that is, with four similar branches. There is also another peculiarity; the “king of hearts” is represented by a kind of savage, or hairy ape, leaning upon a knotty stick. The “queen” of the same suit is likewise covered with hair, and holds a torch in her hand. The “knave of clubs,” who is well fitted to serve as an escort to the “king” and “queen of hearts,” is also covered with hair, and carries a knotty stick on his shoulder. We may, besides, notice the legs of a fourth hairy personage among those which have been separated from their bodies by the knife of the bookbinder. But, with the exception of these, all the other personages are clothed according to the fashion or the etiquette which prevailed at the court of Charles VII. The “queen of crescents” is represented in a costume similar to that of
Fig. 209.—Charles VI. on his Throne, from a Miniature in the MS. of the Kings of France. (Bibl. Imp., Paris.)
Mary of Anjou, the wife of the king; or in that of Gérarde Grassinel, his mistress. The representations of the kings, the hairy one excepted, are identical with those we have of Charles VII. himself, or the nobles of his suite. Their costume was a velvet hat surmounted by the crown ornamented with fleurs-de-lis; a robe open in front and lined with ermine or menu vair, a tight doublet, and close stockings. The “knaves” are copied from the pages and sergeants-at-arms of the period; one wears the plumed flat cap and long cloak; another, on the contrary, is clad in a short dress, and stands erect in his close-fitting doublet and tightly drawn breeches. The latter displays, written on a streamer which he is unrolling, the name of the card-maker, “F. Clerc.” These are certainly cards of French invention, or, at any rate, of French manufacture; but what explanation are we to give of the presence of the savage “king” and “queen,” and the “hairy knave,” among the kings, queens, and knaves all dressed according to the fashion of the time of Charles VII.? We may, perhaps, find a satisfactory reply by referring to the chronicles of the preceding reign.
On the 29th of January, 1392, there was a grand fête at the mansion of Queen Blanche in honour of the marriage of a Chevalier de Vermandois with one of the queen’s ladies. The king, Charles VI., had only just recovered from his mental malady. One of his favourites, Hugonin de Janzay, projected an entertainment in which the king and five lords were to take a part. “It was,” says Juvénal des Ursins, “a masquerade of wild men chained together, and all shaggy; their dress was made to fit close to their body, and was rendered rough by flax and tow fastened on by resinous pitch, greased so as to shine the better.” Froissart, who was an eye-witness of this fête, says that the six actors in the ballet entered the hall yelling and shaking their chains. As it was not known who these maskers were, the Duke of Orleans, brother of the king, wishing to find out, took a lighted torch from the hands of his servant, and held it so close to one of these strange personages that “the heat of the fire caught the flax.” The king was fortunately separated from his companions, who were all burned, with the exception of one only, who threw himself into a tub full of water. Although Charles VI. escaped from this peril, he was deeply affected by the thought of the danger to which he had been exposed, and the result was a relapse into his former insanity.
This fearful ballet des ardents left such an impression on the minds of people generally, that seventy years afterwards a German engraver made it the subject of a print. Should we, then, be venturing on an inadmissible hypothesis if we attribute to a cardmaker of this epoch the idea of introducing the same subject in a pack of cards? which, as is abundantly proved, was modified according to the whim of the artist. In order to justify the costume of a female savage and the torch, which are given to the “queen of hearts,” we must not forget that Isabel of Bavaria, consort of Charles VI., is accused of having assisted in devising this fatal masquerade, which was intended to get rid of the king; and of having taken as her accomplice the Duke of Orleans, her brother-in-law, who is said to have purposely set fire to the clothing of these pretended wild men, among whom was the king.