A FRENCH METHOD OF FORTUNE-TELLING BY CARDS

THE methods of divination by cards are sufficiently numerous in ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /France, as they are in other countries, including England. Our own, however, are chiefly of continental origin, while, so far as it is possible to speak with any positive opinion upon so dubious and involved a question, it would appear that the French systems are largely particular to themselves, subject of course to the fact that proceeding in all cases on certain general principles, to that extent they may be said to derive from one another, or at least from a common root. I have selected for inclusion one system which -- although it first came into notice at the beginning of the nineteenth century -- is likely to be new to my readers. It is worked with a piquet set of ordinary playing cards, which, as most people will know, consists of the usual picture-pieces and the ace, 10, 9, 8 and 7 of each suit, excluding the lower numbers. The method has appeared, I believe, under more than one auspice, but the imputed author termed himself an Egyptian and claimed to publish his little treatise at Memphis, which, however, stands for Paris. It is not a very full method and is not free from confusions as it was first issued. In the form which here follows it has been so far rectified and extended from other French sources that it will, I think, serve the purpose as an alternative to the English system given in the previous section. I must explain, however, that those who intend to make use of it should obtain, if possible, a set of French or Swiss cards, in which the picture-pieces appear at full length, instead of with a head at either end, and all the numbers are marked Droit and Renverse at their opposing poles, meaning right side up and reversed Otherwise, an English set may be so marked by the student. Important differences attach to the variations in question, so far as the trump-cards are concerned, as they do indeed in the English method.?xml:namespace prefix = o / It may not be impertinent to mention before proceeding that the origin of card-playing has been referred by some French writers to one Jacquemin from whom two sets were purchased in 1392 to amuse Charles VI, King of France, during his days of distraction. It is at most obvious that the simple historical fact can be only an episode in the French history of cards; the evidence is concerning sale and purchase, and it would be fantasy to assume that the vendor in the specific instance was also the inventing artist. Spain and Italy are sometimes said to have been in possession of cards prior to the French people; it has been even speculated that they were brought to Italy by Greek emigrants from Constantinople, that they drifted from Italy into Spain and thence to our Gallic neighbors.