French Playing Cards

Playing cards are known and used the world over—and almost every corner of the globe has laid claim to their invention. The Chinese assert the longest pedigree for card playing (the 'game of leaves' was played as early as the 9th century). The French avow their standardization of the carte à jouer and its ancestor, the tarot. And the British allege the earliest mention of a card game in any authenticated register.

Today, the public might know how to play blackjack or bridge, but few stop to consider that a deck of cards is a marvel of engineering, design, and history. Cards have served as amusing pastimes, high-stakes gambles, tools of occult practice, magic tricks, and mathematical probability models—even, at times, as currency and as a medium for secret messages.

In the process, decks of cards reveal peculiarities of their origins. Card names, colors, emblems, and designs change according to their provenance and the whims of card players themselves. These graphic tablets aren't just toys, or tools. They are cultural imprints that reveal popular custom.

* * *

Tarot cards had arrived in France from Italy in the first half of the 16th century. There appear to have been three standard tarot types in France: ' Tarot de Marseille ', 'Tarot de Besancon' and ' Belgian Tarot ' but today most tarot games are played in France with the ' Bourgeois Tarot '. Playing cards are known and used the world over—and almost every corner of the globe has laid claim to their invention. The Chinese assert the longest pedigree for card playing (the ' game of. This new two deck set features two standard decks of playing cards with French heritage images When speaking about Playing Cards in Austria or anywhere else in the world, PIATNIK inevitably comes to mind. The Piatnik factory was established in 1824 and is a recognized symbol of Vienna which along with its many cafes is a city of card players and board gamers.

The birthplace of ordinary playing cards is shrouded in obscurity and conjecture, but—like gunpowder or tea or porcelain—they almost certainly have Eastern origins. 'Scholars and historians are divided on the exact origins of playing cards,' explains Gejus Van Diggele, the chairman of the International Playing-Card Society, or IPCS, in London. 'But they generally agree that cards spread from East to West.'

More in this series

• Candy Land Was Invented for Polio Wards

  Alexander B. Joy

Scrolls from China's Tang Dynasty mention a game of paper tiles (though these more closely resembled modern dominoes than cards), and experts consider this the first written documentation of card playing. A handful of European literary references in the late 14th century point to the sudden arrival of a 'Saracen's game,' suggesting that cards came not from China but from Arabia. Yet another hypothesis argues that nomads brought fortune-telling cards with them from India, assigning an even longer antiquity to card playing. Either way, commercial opportunities likely enabled card playing's transmission between the Far East and Europe, as printing technology sped their production across borders.

In medieval Europe, card games occasioned drinking, gambling, and a host of other vices that drew cheats and charlatans to the table. Card playing became so widespread and disruptive that authorities banned it. In his book The Game of Tarot, the historian Michael Dummett explains that a 1377 ordinance forbade card games on workdays in Paris. Similar bans were enacted throughout Europe as preachers sought to regulate card playing, convinced that 'the Devil's picture book' led only to a life of depravity.

Everybody played cards: kings and dukes, clerics, friars and noblewomen, prostitutes, sailors, prisoners. But the gamblers were responsible for some of the most notable features of modern decks.

Today's 52-card deck preserves the four original French suits of centuries ago: clubs (♣), diamonds (♦), hearts (♥), and spades (♠). These graphic symbols, or 'pips,' bear little resemblance to the items they represent, but they were much easier to copy than more lavish motifs. Historically, pips were highly variable, giving way to different sets of symbols rooted in geography and culture. From stars and birds to goblets and sorcerers, pips bore symbolic meaning, much like the trump cards of older tarot decks. Unlike tarot, however, pips were surely meant as diversion instead of divination. Even so, these cards preserved much of the iconography that had fascinated 16th-century Europe: astronomy, alchemy, mysticism, and history.

Some historians have suggested that suits in a deck were meant to represent the four classes of Medieval society. Cups and chalices (modern hearts) might have stood for the clergy; swords (spades) for the nobility or the military; coins (diamonds) for the merchants; and batons (clubs) for peasants. But the disparity in pips from one deck to the next resists such pat categorization. Bells, for example, were found in early German 'hunting cards.' These pips would have been a more fitting symbol of German nobility than spades, because bells were often attached to the jesses of a hawk in falconry, a sport reserved for the Rhineland's wealthiest. Diamonds, by contrast, could have represented the upper class in French decks, as paving stones used in the chancels of churches were diamond shaped, and such stones marked the graves of the aristocratic dead.

But how to account for the use of clover, acorns, leaves, pikes, shields, coins, roses, and countless other imagery? 'This is part of the folklore of the subject,' Paul Bostock, an IPCS council member, tells me. 'I don't believe the early cards were so logically planned.' A more likely explanation for suit marks, he says, is that they were commissioned by wealthy families. The choice of pips is thus partly a reflection of noblemen's tastes and interests.

* * *

While pips were highly variable, courtesan cards—called 'face cards' today—have remained largely unchanged for centuries. British and French decks, for example, always feature the same four legendary kings: Charles, David, Caesar, and Alexander the Great. Bostock notes that queens have not enjoyed similar reverence. Pallas, Judith, Rachel, and Argine variously ruled each of the four suits, with frequent interruption. As the Spanish adopted playing cards, they replaced queens with mounted knights or caballeros. And the Germans excluded queens entirely from their decks, dividing face cards into könig (king), obermann (upper man), and untermann (lower man)—today's Jacks. The French reintroduced the queen, while the British were so fond of theirs they instituted the 'British Rule,' a variation that swaps the values of the king and queen cards if the reigning monarch of England is a woman.

The ace rose to prominence in 1765, according to the IPCS. That was the year England began to tax sales of playing cards. The ace was stamped to indicate that the tax had been paid, and forging an ace was a crime punishable by death. To this day, the ace is boldly designed to stand out.

The king of hearts offers another curiosity: The only king without a mustache, he appears to be killing himself by means of a sword to the head. The explanation for the 'suicide-king' is less dramatic. As printing spurred rapid reproduction of decks, the integrity of the original artwork declined. When printing blocks wore out, Paul Bostock explains, card makers would create new sets by copying either the blocks or the cards. This process amplified previous errors. Eventually, the far edge of our poor king's sword disappeared.

Hand craftsmanship and high taxation made each deck of playing cards an investment. As such, cards became a feast for the eye. Fanciful, highly specialized decks offered artists a chance to design a kind of collectible, visual essay. Playing-card manufacturers produced decks meant for other uses beyond simple card playing, including instruction, propaganda, and advertising. Perhaps because they were so prized, cards were often repurposed: as invitations, entrance tickets, obituary notes, wedding announcements, music scores, invoices—even as notes between lovers or from mothers who had abandoned their babies. In this way, the humble playing card sometimes becomes an important historical document, one that offers both scholars and amateur collectors a window into the past.

While collectors favored ornate designs, gamblers insisted on standard, symmetrical cards, because any variety or gimmickry served to distract from the game. For nearly 500 years, the backs of cards were plain. But in the early 19th century, Thomas De La Rue & Company, a British stationer and printer, introduced lithographic designs such as dots, stars, and other simple prints to the backs of playing cards. The innovation offered advantages. Plain backs easily pick up smudges, which 'mark' the cards and make them useless to gamblers. By contrast, pattern-backed cards can withstand wear and tear without betraying a cardholder's secrets.

Years later, Bostock tells me, card makers added corner indices (numbers and letters), which told the cardholder the numerical value of any card and its suit. This simple innovation, patented during the Civil War, was revolutionary: Indices allowed players to hold their cards in one hand, tightly fanned. A furtive glance offered the skilled gambler a quick tally of his holdings, that he might bid or fold or raise the ante, all the while broadcasting the most resolute of poker faces.

Standard decks normally contain two extra 'wild' cards, each depicting a traditional court jester that can be used to trump any natural card. Jokers first appeared in printed American decks in 1867, and by 1880, British card makers had followed suit, as it were. Curiously, few games employ them. For this reason, perhaps, the Joker is the only card that lacks a standard, industry-wide design. He appears by turns the wily trickster, the seducer, the wicked imp—a true calling card for the debauchery and pleasure that is card playing's promise.

The playing of cards has not always been looked upon as innocently as playing canasta with your grandmother. The earliest historical references to playing cards come from objections and prohibitions. It is little wonder, as cards were invariably associated with gambling, and around smoky dens and gaming-houses, the practice of playing cards could not easily have taken on a wholesome reputation.

No small mention that many a young prince or impudent Earl had tried their hand at games of luck and chance, and lost their fortune doing it. It should be no surprise, then that sovereigns throughout the ages have in no pretence restrained themselves from imposing taxes or duties on playing cards.

By the beginning of the Eighteenth century, war, and no doubt extravagance, had drained France's national treasury to little more than copper coins in a tin pot. In 1701 a new duty was imposed on playing cards of 18 deniers a deck. In order to collect the new tax, the country was divided into nine manufacturing regions. Each manufacturer was required to submit a design block to the ‘Recettes generales'. It was in this manner that each region was allotted its own design.

This was not the ushering in of nine entirely new designs, but rather formalized or 'registered' what was already there. At this time there was much more lucidity in the way playing cards were interpreted. There was more variation in the objects, weapons and manner of attire for our members of the Royal Household. And therefore, there was much more latitude to improvise and to create.

As you can imagine, after centuries of tradition, once the French got hold of playing cards we had Kings playing harps, Queens with pretty birds on their wrists, and even a Valet admired for his long flowing plume.

In France's high fashion world of playing cards, submitting a design to the ‘Recettes generales' did not only have the unfortunate consequence of binding one to the tax office, but it was also a means of registering a pattern, and laying exclusivity to a design. After all, if your Valet of Spades has pretty plaits, and now everybody else's does, too, you want to be able to say something about that.

It is a rich and interesting heritage from which the English pattern emerges, and it owes much to the French for their ingenuity in design and style.

The nine regions designated under this tax regime were Paris, Bourgogne, Lyonnais, Auvergne, Daulphiné, Provence, Languedoc, Guyenne and Limousine. These remained in place until the 1790s when the tax was repealed by the States General.

Paris

This region took in the whole of the north of France including the towns of St. Omer, Pas de Calais, Rouen, Brest, Nantes on the west coast, Tours, Troyes and Lille. The cities of Epinal, , Metz and Nancy as well as Strasbourg on the German frontier were added later, in 1751.

The most notable feature of this design is that all the members of the royal household have large bodies. The King of Hearts has an imperial eagle hidden in the folds of his cloak. The King of Clubs is accompanied by a small animal which is said may be a lion. The King of Diamonds has a shell-shaped panel let into his cloak and the King of Spades leans against a harp.

Each of the Queens wears a crown and holds a flower. The Queen Spades, like the King of Diamonds, has a shell-like panel on her cloak. The Queen of Diamonds, from about 1751 on, carries in her left hand a bag embroidered with a ‘thought'.

The Knave of Diamonds is drawn in profile but the Heart in full face. The Knave of Clubs leans on a halberd and the Knave of Spades wears a hat with a feather and is accompanied by a dog.

The playing cards of this region, particularly those of Rouen, were exported all over Europe. They were especially popular in Flanders, but were also well known in Spain, Russia, England, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.

Bourgogne

This district lay in the middle of France on the eastern side. The towns included Dijon, Besançon and Salins. This regional pattern was a copy of the one produced at Lyons in the 17th century and exported to Bourgogne, Lorraine, Provence and Flanders.

The chief feature is the splendid plume flowing from the Knave of Clubs' helmet, from which the deck acquired the name of La Plume à Chapeau.

In this pattern the Kings wear large floral crowns and voluminous robes trimmed with ermine and each, excepting the King of Hearts, holds a sceptre decorated with a fleur-de-lis. The King of Hearts has a kind of ring ornament on his chest.

The Queens, except the Queen of Diamonds, hold flowers and wear large embroidered cloaks. The Knave of Hearts is the only one seen in full face, the rest in profile, and the Knave of Spades has his hair in plaits.

Lyonnais

The Lyonnais design was basically that used by the card masters of Lyons and the surrounding district in the 16th and 17th century.

The four Kings and the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Spades originally carried floral sceptres. The King of Hearts has a bird on his wrist, the Queen of Hearts a flower, and the Queen of Clubs nothing at all.

The full-faced Knave of Clubs leant on a club while the Knave of Spades wore a kind of visor and was armed with an axe.

From 1711, the Knave of Spades is given a pipe to smoke. And then in 1751, the King of Clubs was given an Orb. The Queens of Hearts and Spades lose their sceptres and now all four Queens carry flowers. The Knave of Clubs club was replaced with a lance and on his right arm he now has a shield.

Lyons exported to Switzerland as its main revenue from trade.

Auvergne

This district lay in central France and included the towns of Theirs, Clermont, and Le Puy. The design seems to be a replica of one by a well known card master of Theirs in the previous century – Jean Volay.

The Kings of Diamonds, Spades and Clubs carry sceptres while the King of Hearts carries a sword. The King of Clubs has a parrot perched on his left hand.

Each Queen holds a sceptre with a flower on the tip. The Queen of Spades has a small dog blanced on her right arm, while the other three Queens each carry a flower.

Each Knave is clothed in armour, armed with a sword and leans on a halberd. The Knave of Hearts has a lyre-shaped badge representing arms, replacing what used to be placed, the Lion of Theirs.

Daulphiné

This district lay in the south east of France and was bordered by the Alps, the Rhone and Provence. The principal towns involved in playing card manufacturing were Grenoble, Romans and Valence.

Few examples have been preserved, but from the scant artefacts we do have we can see some interesting variations. For one thing, we know the King of Diamonds has a bird on his wrist. The Knave of Hearts has his sword drawn in his right hand and points upward with his left. And the Knave of Diamonds is bear-headed and wrapped in a cloak.

Provence

Provence lies in the south east corner of France. In the 18th century its main card-producing towns were Aix, Marseilles, Toulon, Avignon, Nimes and Montpellier.

This design was an older one dating from the 15th century and is thought to have evolved from playing cards shipped to Provence from Lyons at an even earlier date.

Most notable, the King of Hearts has a small bird on his wrist. The bird, like the King, wears a crown and has a human face. The King of Clubs is armed with an axe, and the King of Diamonds has an exceptionally thin sceptre. The King of Spades, seen in profile, holds his sceptre over his shoulder.

The Lyonnais design was basically that used by the card masters of Lyons and the surrounding district in the 16th and 17th century.

The four Kings and the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Spades originally carried floral sceptres. The King of Hearts has a bird on his wrist, the Queen of Hearts a flower, and the Queen of Clubs nothing at all.

The full-faced Knave of Clubs leant on a club while the Knave of Spades wore a kind of visor and was armed with an axe.

From 1711, the Knave of Spades is given a pipe to smoke. And then in 1751, the King of Clubs was given an Orb. The Queens of Hearts and Spades lose their sceptres and now all four Queens carry flowers. The Knave of Clubs club was replaced with a lance and on his right arm he now has a shield.

Lyons exported to Switzerland as its main revenue from trade.

Auvergne

This district lay in central France and included the towns of Theirs, Clermont, and Le Puy. The design seems to be a replica of one by a well known card master of Theirs in the previous century – Jean Volay.

The Kings of Diamonds, Spades and Clubs carry sceptres while the King of Hearts carries a sword. The King of Clubs has a parrot perched on his left hand.

Each Queen holds a sceptre with a flower on the tip. The Queen of Spades has a small dog blanced on her right arm, while the other three Queens each carry a flower.

Each Knave is clothed in armour, armed with a sword and leans on a halberd. The Knave of Hearts has a lyre-shaped badge representing arms, replacing what used to be placed, the Lion of Theirs.

Daulphiné

This district lay in the south east of France and was bordered by the Alps, the Rhone and Provence. The principal towns involved in playing card manufacturing were Grenoble, Romans and Valence.

Few examples have been preserved, but from the scant artefacts we do have we can see some interesting variations. For one thing, we know the King of Diamonds has a bird on his wrist. The Knave of Hearts has his sword drawn in his right hand and points upward with his left. And the Knave of Diamonds is bear-headed and wrapped in a cloak.

Provence

Provence lies in the south east corner of France. In the 18th century its main card-producing towns were Aix, Marseilles, Toulon, Avignon, Nimes and Montpellier.

This design was an older one dating from the 15th century and is thought to have evolved from playing cards shipped to Provence from Lyons at an even earlier date.

Most notable, the King of Hearts has a small bird on his wrist. The bird, like the King, wears a crown and has a human face. The King of Clubs is armed with an axe, and the King of Diamonds has an exceptionally thin sceptre. The King of Spades, seen in profile, holds his sceptre over his shoulder.

Another distinctive feature is the Queen of Hearts, who wears what seem to be scales, or perhaps fur, under her robe which can also be seen on her arms and legs. She holds her right arm up, and leaning backwards balances on her right left leg. The Queens of Clubs and Spades hold flowers, and the Queen of Diamonds wears a strange ring-like fleur-de-lis trimmed tippet.

The Knaves of Clubs and Spades have plaited hair. The Knave of Hearts is drawn full-faced, right hand on hip and holds a halberd in his left. The Knave of Diamonds wears a jerkin reaching down to his knees.

There are over and under betting odds for pretty much every sport including baseball, football, hockey, UFC, Basketball, Horse racing, and much more. Understanding Fractional / UK Odds Fractional odds, also referred to as British odds, UK odds or Traditional odds, are often used in horse racing. These odds quote the.

Languedoc

This region was in the south of France, lying between Garonne and the Rhone. The capital was Toulouse and the regional design was published in that city and also in Carcassone, Beziers, and Albi.

The most notable features are the King of Diamonds carries a purse in his right hand and holds an orb in his left. The King of Hearts wears a breast plate with a large fleur-de-lis on it.

Guyenne

This region occupied the western part of southern France. The principal towns involved in playing-card manufacture were Bordeaux, Montanban and Agen.

French Playing Card Names

The Kings of Hearts carries a very thin sceptre with a large fleur-de-lis at the top. The King of Clubs sceptre has a heart-shaped ornament at the top, and above that is a flaming vase. The King of Diamonds wears a large cloak and holds in his right hand a pointed shield upon which is the Arms of France. In his left hand is a sceptre topped with a heart-shaped ornament. Later, the Arms of France is replace by the monogram of Louis XIV, and later still by a shining sun. The King of Spades is armed with an axe and on his chest is a rose within a circle.

All the Knaves have large sleeves. The Knave of Diamonds has a pointed beard. The Knave of Spades hold his right hand on his hip and a halberd in his left. The Knave of Clubs has plaited hair beneath a flat cap and a flower.

From Bordeaux, many playing cards were shipped to Spain.

Limousine

The region of Limousine lay in the middle of France on the western side. Its design, which is regarded as a bad copy of the Auvergne design, was used by the cities of Limoges, Angoulême and Poitiers. Limoges also exported much of her production to Spain.

The 1780s

Vintage French Playing Cards

Throughout the 18th Century, French card makers had enjoyed export trade across Europe. The regions of Limoges, Bordeaux and Theirs exported to Spain, Lyons traded with Switzerland, and the Rouen pattern was circulating in as far apart as Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Flanders and England. By the 1780s, many of the regional patterns were fading away, and the Paris pattern rose to pre-eminence as the general pattern throughout France.

Further Reading

L I N K S

French Playing Cards