At folio lxxii, a, Quartes—for so the word is there spelled—is noticed as a prohibited game:
"Mains ieux qui sont denyez,
Aux merelles, quartes, et dez," &c.
As there was reason to suspect that the word Cartes or Quartes, in the printed copies of De Guilleville's poem, was an interpolation, the same as it was found to be in other works examined by M. Duchesne, M. Paulin Paris, assistant-keeper of the manuscripts in the Bibliothèque du Roi, was requested by a friend of Mr. Hill, to compare the printed text with that of the earliest manuscript copies of the poem preserved in the collection under his care. The result of the collation was that the suspected words had been interpolated. The following is a translation of a portion of M. Paulin Paris's letter on the subject.
"I have compared the verses of our MSS. of the Pilgrimage of Human Life with the printed editions, and have found the latter very inexact. Cards are neither named nor alluded to in the MSS.; and in them the first passage, pointed out by your friend Mr. N. Hill, stands thus:
Ja leur fais je veoir baleurs,
Gieux de bastiaux et de jugleurs,
De tables et de eschequiers,
De boules et de mereliers,
De dez et d'entregsterie,