French Court Game Cards, 1856

These hand-colored court cards depict beautiful expressions of French nobility. No names are listed on the jack face cards, but every suit bears the name of a famous courtier in French history on the Queens and Kings. The diamonds bear the likenesses of Louis de Bussy d'Amboise, a gentleman courtier of King Henri III, and the Dame de Monsoreau, his paramour. Clubs depict Marion Delorme, a famous French courtesan, and Henri Coiffier de Ruse, the Marquis of Cinq-Mars and favorite of King Louis XIII. On the spades, we see the Comte de Brissac (the Duke of Brissac) who is likely Charles II de Cosse, the first to hold the title, and Diane de Poitiers, King Henri II's royal mistriss and advisor. The diamonds illustrate interesting characters. The Comtesse de Rochefort, Amice, was from England but is said to have spent the majority of her life in France. However, she died 600 years before the conception of these cards and most other depictions lived within 200 years. It's possible she could be a depiction of the fictional countess from the book 'La Comtesse de Rochefort Et Ses Amis' ('The Countess of Rochefort and Her Friends'), but this book wasn't written until 1879, 23 years after the publishing of this deck. The Chever D'eon is depicted on the King of Diamonds and was a French soldier and diplomat who lived in London in the mid- to late-1700s. Most notably, D'eon decided to live as a woman from 1786-1810, causing such speculation that a court trial was held to determine D'eon's gender, ruling D'eon to, in fact, be female. At this time, the stereotype of women disguising themselves as men to join the army in pursuit of a sweetheart was widely recognized, so this D'eon being female was generally accepted. D'eon was defended by the likes of Mary Robinson and Mary Wollstonecraft as an admirable example of "female fortitude" to which British Women might aspire.