"Ludo Tesserarum Plato vitam comparavit, in quo et jacere utilia oportet, et jacientem uti benè iis quæ ceciderunt."— Plut. Op. Mor. Epist. ad Paccium.—Etudes historiques sur les Cartes à Jouer, par M. C. Leber, p. 63.
[3] In a paper entitled, l'Origine du Jeu de Piquet, trouvé dans l'Histoire de France sous le règne de Charles VII. Printed in the Mémoires pour l'Histoire des Sciences, &c.—Trévoux; in the vol. for May, 1720, p. 934-968.
[4] In a dissertation "Du Jeu de Tarots, où l'on traite de son origine, où l'on explique ses allégories, et où l'on fait voir qu'il est la source de nos Cartes modernes à jouer," &c. This dissertation is contained in his Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le Monde moderne.—Dissertations mêlées, tom. i, p. 365-394. Paris, 1781. It is not unlikely that he was led to make this discovery from the notices of a philosophic game of the ancient Egyptians, quoted by Meursius, in his treatise De Ludis Græecorum, p. 53. Lugduni Batavorum, 1622. A summary of Court de Gebelin's conceits on the subject of Tarots is to be found in Peignot's Analyse de Recherches sur les Cartes à jouer, p. 227-237.
He shall have a bell, that's Abel;
And by it standing one whose name is Dee,
In a rug gown; there's D and Rug, that's Drug;
And right anenst him a dog snarling er;
There's Drugger, Abel Drugger. That's his sign.
And here's now Mystery and Hieroglyphic!