[78] Those observations have been chiefly derived from Mons. Duchesne's paper on cards above referred to, and from a letter written by Mons. Paulin Paris, assistant keeper of the MSS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi, in answer to certain queries submitted to him through a friend of the writer.
[79] The original Spanish edition of Guevara's Epistles was printed at Valladolid in 1539, and the work was several times reprinted in Spain and in Flanders. The letters were also translated into Italian and French; and several editions were published before the year 1600. There is an English translation by Geffery Fenton, 1582; and another by Edward Hellowes, 1584.
[80] "Mandamos y ordenamos q̄ ningunos de los de nuestros reynos, seā osados de jugar dados ni naypes, en publico ne en escōdido, y qualquier q̄ los jugare," &c.—Recopilacion de las Leyes destos Regnos, &c. Edit. 1640.
[81] Meerman, Origines Typographicæ, vol. i, p. 222. Edit. 1765.
[82] "Tout le monde sait que ce charmant ouvrage a été composé en 1459 par Antoine de Lassalle."—Duchesne, Précis Historique sur les Cartes à jouer, p. 5, prefixed to the 'Jeux de Cartes Tarots,' &c. Mons. Duchesne himself does not appear to have known "what all the world knows" when he wrote his 'Observations sur les Cartes à jouer,' printed in the Annuaire Historique, 1837; for he there seems to admit that the work was composed by a person who lived at the period to which it relates, and refers to two manuscripts in which the word "cartes" is not to be found. He says that a third manuscript, which contains it, appears to have been transcribed about the end of the fifteenth century, but does not inform the reader that the work itself is a mere romance, written in 1459.
[83] "Veez ci vostre compaignon qui, pour estre tel, a acquis la grace du Roy et de la Royne et de tous, et vous qui estes noiseux et joueux de cartes et de dez, et sieuvés deshonnestes gens, taverniers, et cabarets."
[84] Peignot considers the passages in which Cards are mentioned genuine, both in the Chronicle of Petit-Jehan de Saintré and in the romance of Renard le Contrefait. He had taken the passages just as he found them in Meerman and Jansen, and made no further inquiry. Saint-Foix appears to have been the first person in France who pointed out the passage relating to cards in the Chronicle of Petit-Jehan de Saintré. See Peignot's Recherches sur les Danses des Morts, et sur l'Origine des Cartes à jouer, pp. 211-262, 315.
[85] This work was composed about 1330.
[86] "... Voici une démonstration concluante: c'est le fac-simile d'une miniature du manuscrit de la traduction de la Citéde Dieu de Saint Augustin, par Raoul de Presles, qui le termina en 1375. Cette miniature représente des personnages de distinction du règne de Charles V, débout autour une table ronde et jouant aux cartes. Nous devons cette miniature à l'obligeance de M. le Comte H. de Viel-Castel, qui nous l'a communiquée, ainsi que d'autres documens qu'il avait réunis sur les cartes. Le manuscrit d'où on a tiré la miniature, achevé en 1375, avait été commencé en 1371."—Magasin Pittoresque, Quatrième Année, Avril, 1836, p. 131.
[87] Istoria della Citta di Viterbo, p. 213. Folio, Roma, 1742.