French deck

The French deck is a set of playing cards or cards, made up of 52 units divided into four suits: hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades.

The sticks

Origin

The origin of the symbols on the French deck is unclear. Some consider it to be an adaptation of German signs. The acorns and leaves would have become clubs and spades, respectively, while the hearts would have remained and the bells would have been replaced by diamonds, which would be France's original contribution to the suit symbols.

Others believe in the influence of the Spanish deck and the tarot. The shape of the chalices or cups would have led to hearts, the clovers would have been a derivation of the leaves of the clubs, the spades - tips of the spears - would have replaced the swords as a military sign, and the diamonds - a symbol of the wealth—would have replaced gold. However, the French name of this last suit, carreau, has nothing to do with the richness and everything to do with the shape of the drawing.

Regardless of their origin, decks with French symbols were already used in the first decades of the 15th century. Some even attribute its invention to the knight Étienne de Vignolles, better known as La Hire, who died in 1442.

The Jesuit Father Menéstrier (1631-1705), in an article published in 1702 in the Journal de Trévoux, states that the first French letters were manufactured in Spain in 1392 for the entertainment of King Charles III of Navarre, who was suffering from attacks of melancholy, and that the game symbolized the feudal structure.

The ace

The ace can function as a card of value 1 and of greater value than the king card R (K in the English deck), this is fourteen (eleven in blackjack), very useful in the BlackJack and when forming straights in poker, giving this game the greatest chances of winning.

The figures

Each of these colors is composed of thirteen cards: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, represented by the corresponding numbers, and the three figures, which are called Valet (V), Dame (D) and Roi (R).

Compared to other decks of the time, the French one is original in the adoption of the female figure, the Dame, as an intermediate figure between the Valet and the < i>Roi, since in both the German deck (Oberman) and the Italian and Spanish ones (caballo/caballero) this figure is male. In reality, the Spanish woman once had a queen; The problem is that the suits were 14 cards, from 1 to 10, with four figures: jack, knight, queen and king, but the queen corresponded to the number 13, a bad omen for the players, it was eliminated and the king remained. as 13, so the 10 also had to be removed. However, the tarot deck still retained the four figures. In any case, the queen was chosen instead of the horse. The cause of this preference is not known, perhaps it is due to the influence of the French queens or Joan of Arc, the heroine of the Hundred Years' War.

The cards

Example of a complete French deck

Example of a full French deck, with its 52 cards

	As	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Jota (Valet)	Queen/Dama (Reine/Dame)	King (Roi)
Tréboles (Trèfles)
Diamonds (Carreaux)
Hearts (Cœurs)
Picas (Pics)

Historical and literary figures

A curious singularity of the figures in the French deck is that they have their own names, although they have not always been the same, since they have varied according to the taste of society and the ups and downs of history. Traditional figures represent characters considered heroic in the Middle Ages.

VALETS		DAMES		ROIS
	Lahire partner Juana de Arco		Judit Biblical character		Charles Carlomagno o Carlos VII
	Hector. hero of the Trojan War		Rachel Raquel, character Biblical Bible		Caesar Julius Caesar
	Ogier the Dane u Ogier one of the twelve pairs by Carlomagno		Pallas Palas Atenea		David Biblical hero
	Lancelot or Lanzarote		Argine anagram regine		Alexandre Alexander the Great

During the French Revolution, the kings became citizens and were represented by classical characters (Solon, Plato, Cato, Brutus) or famous French writers (Molière, Voltaire, La Fontaine, Rousseau); The ladies were personifications of virtues (Justice, Prudence, Union, Strength), and other characters such as Hannibal, Decius, Horatio and Scévola replaced the traditional valets. Also during the revolutionary era the figures were replaced by symbolic cards (law, freedom, providence and equality), by the four seasons of the year or the four elements of the Greeks (water, fire, air and earth).

With the post-Napoleonic monarchical restoration, kings (Charlemagne, Saint Louis, Francis I and Henry I), ladies (Hildegard, Blanche of Castile, Margaret of Valois and Joan of Albret) and valets (Rolando, Bayard, Joinville and Crillon).

Literature and politics contributed their own iconography in the 19th century, it is possible to find decks whose figures were inspired by famous novels such as The Three Musketeers, and even a deck in which the kings are Victor Hugo, Mac Mahon, Thiers and Jules Ferry.

English or French deck?

The English deck is frequently confused with the French deck, because in a certain sense they are the same. The English took the French model to create their deck, modifying some details. For example, the figures are much more abstract and do not represent any character as is the case with the French playing cards (it is said that this occurred due to the lack of skill of the Anglo-Saxon draftsmen). The figures of the English deck are full-length and the French made them symmetrical so that they could always be seen without having to turn the card, so players could know who has figures. Also, the initials of the names of the figures in English were adapted and the one was replaced by the A for ace. And in modern times, English decks include the figure of the joker or wild card.

However, strictly speaking, the deck used to play poker, bridge, reihe or basket is the French one.