French Cartomancy

The record

Ever seen that picture of the madam with a fancy turban, silk robes, sitting in a chair turning over cards before an eager seeker? Many believe this is a gypsy seer, but in fact this archetypal picture takes place in a French salon. The woman, usually from the middle to upper class, has a flat and not a 8’x10’ wagon for her accommodations and portrays one of the best – and worst – times for cartomancers in the history of the art. Using the Decker, DePaulis, and Dummett (1996) work, A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot, as my source let me set the stage for this assertion. Etteilla originally used what was known as a Piquet deck in his career as the first professional cartomancer. This is a deck composed from of our pack of traditional playing cards with the French suit-system (Clubs, Spades, Hearts, & Diamonds) composed of only 32 cards. A Piquet deck is achieved by removing all the twos through sixes for a descending order of kings through sevens (aces in between jack and ten). In his 1770 treatise, Etteilla gave us a single keyword for each card’s upright and reversed position and this pattern was to continue until recent with the advent of companion volumes fo

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