About the year 1390, cards were invented, to divert Charles VI. then king of France, who was fallen into a melancholy disposition.

That they were not in use before, appears highly probable, 1st. Because no cards are to be seen in any paintings, sculpture, tapestry, etc. more ancient than the preceding period, but are represented in many works of ingenuity since that age.

2dly. No prohibitions relative to cards, by the king's edicts, are mentioned, although, some few years before, a most severe one was published, forbidding by name, all manner of sports and pastimes, in order that the subjects might exercise themselves in shooting: with bows and arrows, and be in a condi-tion to oppose the English. Now it is not to be presumed, that so luring a game as cards would have been omitted in the enumeration, had they been in use.

3dly. In all the ecclesiastical canons prior to the said time, there occurs no mention of cards; although, twenty years after that date, card-playing was interdicted by the clergy, by a Gallican synod. About the same time is found, in the account book of the king's cofferer, the following charge: - "Paid for a pack of painted leaves bought for the king's amusement, three livres." Printing and stamping being then not discovered , the cards were painted, which made them so dear. Thence, in the above synodical canons, they are called gilla pictce, painted little leaves.

4thly About thirty years after this, came a severe edict against cards in France; and another by Emanuel, duke of Savoy; only permitting the ladies this pastime, pro spinulis, for pins and needles.