Mons. Leber calls both Spanish and German cards Tarots, even though they may contain no Atous; which yet appear to have been the very pieces which were more especially distinguished as Tarocchi or Tarots; and from the use of which, in combination with other cards, a particular kind of game was called Tarocchino, or Tarocchio. Thus, in consequence of his not sufficiently distinguishing between Spanish and German cards, he speaks of the marks which occur on them indiscriminately; and explains SWORDS and MONEY as if they belonged to the same pack which has one of its suits distinguished by Bells. His account of the marks on the French cards is to the following effect. "The _Cœur_ explains itself; it is a symbol of the most noble and generous sentiments, and more especially indicates courage, valour, and intrepidity, qualities the most brilliant in princes. The _Trèfle_ has its name from its resemblance to the plant so-called; though properly it is a Flower, or rather a _Fleuron_ with three branches, symbolical of the mysterious number Three, which, in ancient times, was regarded with religious veneration. This number being the first which contained in itself the principal characteristics of numbers,--namely, Unity and Plurality, Odd and Even,--became the symbol of a union of the most excellent virtues, such as Power, Wisdom, Love; and, by analogy, Sovereignty, Wisdom, Justice. It is this three-branched Fleuron which appears on the monuments of the French kings of the first and second race; but, in consequence of its being badly designed and worse understood, it became confounded with the heraldic Fleur-de-Lis, and is in fact now displaced by it. The _Carreau_ seems to have been better understood by the French than their neighbours, with whom this figure is a jewel, a precious stone, an ornamental article. The English take it for a diamond, and the Spaniards, for a jewel worn by ladies, or for the decoration of the toilet. Their error has doubtless arisen from the comparison which they made between the _Carreaux_ of cards and the figures of precious stones which they had before their eyes.[293] The diamonds and precious stones forming the ornaments of royal vestments, and of dresses of court ladies, have usually the form of carreaux, and are painted in vermilion, or in carmine in the manuscripts of the middle age; and this conventional form, having been adopted by heralds, was introduced into armorial bearings as the _macle_ and _lozenge_. The Carreaux of cards, however, have no connexion with diamonds and precious stones, any more than they have with the _quarrells_ or square-headed arrows of a crossbow. The Carreau, as well as each of the other marks of the suits, is a symbol, and not a rebus. All iconographers represent Fortune as standing, upon one foot, on a wheel or a ball, to signify her instability. The contrary idea was necessarily attached to the figure of a square or a cube, considered as a firm and immoveable base. It was for this reason that the ancients placed the figure of Wisdom and Firmness on a cube; and Aristotle speaks in the same sense when he informs us that a true philosopher ought to be square,--carré--that is to say, immoveable in courage and virtue. Heraldry has also admitted the square, placed lozenge-wise, as an emblem of Constancy and Firmness; and the Squares of cards, called Carreaux, can only be supposed to have the same signification. As to the _Pique_, there can be no doubt with respect to its meaning. It represents the head of a lance, and is thus an emblem of military force. The Germans, however, seem to have misconceived the character of this figure, which they converted into a Leaf,--_Grün_;[294]--but this mistake, or rather this difference, may be ascribed to the imperfection of the painting in ancient cards; and more especially to the coarseness of the first essays of wood-engraving, in which it was almost impossible to distinguish the figure of a leaf from that of a pike-head. On comparing the earliest German cards with shields of arms, of the same period, and with old wood-engravings which contain trees, it will be immediately seen how easy it was to confound the two forms. There is no difference between the Piques of cards and the leaves of the tree on the right of the woodcut of St. Christopher of the date 1423; and the _Crequier_[295] of heraldry is precisely the same as the seven of Pique[296] in German cards of the fifteenth century. But whatever may have been the cause of this anomaly, it is generally admitted that the Pique in French cards is the figure of a weapon; and it can scarcely be doubted that it was the equivalent of the Sword in the Tarots. In this respect the Spanish and Italian nomenclature is in perfect accordance with our own.