CARD FORTUNE TELLING
CHAPTER
I
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PACK OF CARDS
is
IT in
a time
a very popular belief that cards were invented
order to amuse
when
that
King Charles VI of France, at
monarch was mentally unstable. This
legend, however, like so
has no foundation in
many
pretty stories of the past,
known long
monarch's days.
It is true that a court miniature painter, named Gringonneur, did paint or originate some cards which he
introduced to the King, but cards were first used in the
East in very ancient days, and it is a curious fact that
the other great world-popular indoor game. Chess, also
originated in the East, and is still played to-day by means
of a pack of cards.
before the
fact,
as cards were
mad
seems obvious that cards reached the West in
as Chess, probably
through the gipsies, that strange, unconquerable Eastern
race of wanderers, whose actual origin still baffles our
It also
the
same way and by the same route
researches.
Naturally a race of people with no settled
nationality
would
much
home
or
moving their
personal belongings from place to place, and would appreciate any amusement that could be reduced to the form
of a
pack of cards.
find
difficulty in