Having now laid before the reader the principal authorities which have been alleged by various writers,--whether for the purpose of showing the antiquity of card-playing in Europe generally, or with the design of supporting their own opinion as to the invention of cards in some particular country--it is now time to enter on what may be termed the positive history of cards, beginning from the year 1393.
Charles VI of France lost his reason in consequence of a _coup-de-soleil_, in 1392; and during the remainder of his life continued insane, though with occasional lucid intervals. In either the same or in the following year, 1393, this entry occurs in the accounts of his treasurer, Charles Poupart, or, as he is named by Monstrelet, Charbot Poupart: "Given to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and coloured, and variously ornamented, for the amusement of the king, fifty-six sols of Paris."[92] Menestrier, who was the first to point out this passage, concluded from it that the game of cards was then first invented by Gringonneur for the purpose of diverting the king's melancholy; and his account of the invention long passed as authentic in the politely learned world. That the game of cards was invented by Gringonneur is in the highest degree improbable; for the general tenor of the passage in which they are named by Poupart implies that the game was then already known, though from the notice of the gilding and colouring of the cards, it may be supposed that Gringonneur had a special order for them, and that they were not then in general use.
"If," says Piegnot, "Père Menestrier had paid attention to the manner in which the passage is drawn up, he would have perceived that the expression 'for three packs of cards,'--'_pour trois jeux de cartes_'--clearly announces, from its very simplicity, that cards were already known, and that their invention was of a much earlier date. The writer would not have mentioned so simply a collection of figures, just conceived and painted by Gringonneur on small pieces of paper, and very remarkable, as well from their symmetry and regularity, as from the characters represented on them."[93]
The Hon. Daines Barrington, in his 'Observations on the Antiquity of Playing Cards in England,' doubts if Poupart's entry actually relates to Playing Cards. He is of opinion that the words "_trois jeux de cartes_" mean three sets of illuminations upon paper, "_carte_ originally signifying nothing more." If Mr. Barrington had produced any authority to show that, either in the time of Charles VI, or at any other period, "un _jeu_ de cartes" was used to signify a set of illuminations, or that the term ever signified anything else than a pack, or a game, of cards, his doubt would not have had so much the appearance of a starved conceit.
