The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-08-25
NO TRACE OF OLD ROYALTY WAS LET Kings and Queens Removed From Playing Cards WASHINGTON IS USED France Substituted His Picture on Playing Cards for Kings.
 How Faces on Cards
 Originated
WASHINGTON IS USED
From the New York World.

From the New York World.
 When the French cut off the head of Louis XVI and established republic upon the ruins of the monarchy they took delight in wipihs out all traces of royalty. Che of their first acts was to abolish kings and queens from their playing ters were changed to clubs or flowers; the cross wes removed from the orb of empire. leaving this a mere ball.
 The faces on the cards. had in the be- ginning been rough attenipts at portraits, these differing according to times and rlaces. The most widely diffrsed cards were those made in Paris, and the most frequent designations for the Kings were Charlemagne. Caesar David and Alex ander the Great; while the queens were sometimes famous queens of history, but more often heroines of whom Judith Rachel, Argine and Pallas were the fa- vorites, though Jeanne d'Arc. Helen of Troy, Cleopatra and Blanche of Castle were about equally popular. The jacks were the paladlns of charlemagne or the leading peers ef France. and the cards generally bore the names
 The revolutionjsts at first made no ate tempt to charge the faces Of the cos- tunes. both of which had become conven- tionalized, though still closely resembling the ancient types, but as early as 17O2 they substituted figures of sages for kings, virtues for queens and heroes for jacks. Solon was Sage of Hearts" Plato. Sage of Ciubs'' Cato, Sage of Diamonds;" Brutus, Sage of Spades. Justice. Union, Prudence and Strength took the places of the queens of hearts, clubs. diamond; and spades respectively, as did Hannibal, Decius, Horace and Scaevola for tle jacks
 There were many other variations of these revolutionary playing cards, but when Napoleon became Emperor they were thrown into the discard and new devices with imperial faces and insignia ruled in their stead. At the Restoration there was another new deal and the faces of French kings, queens and heroes reappeared.
 At the fall of the second empire repub- lican cards were again devised. Their in yentors tried in each suit to symbolize one of the great republics of the world the Roman, American, Swiss and French being most usually selected. The sym holic figure of each republic became the queen of the suit: its great hero became the king, while the jacks were secondary heroes and the aces showed historic pie lures.
 It isarom this time that dates the card in which the American republic was the spade suit and George Washington's DOT trait appeared in place of the king. This card is preserved in the collection of M. Heri Frost.
 Another deck in which Washington fig ured was made up as follows: Hearts: King. Thiers; queen, the French repub- lic jack, Etenne Marcel; ace, the As sembly of the Tihrd Estate. Clubs: King, George Washington; queen, the American republic. jack, Lafayette; ace, Columbus discovering America. Diamonds; King, William Tell queen, the Swiss republic; jack. Melchthal. ace. the Oath of Gruetli. Spades: King. Brutus; queen, the Roman republic; jack, Sextitus. the first ple- beian to be elected consul; ace, the Ro- man wolf sucking Romulus and Remus.
 Another popular deck, issued in 1881, had Victor Hugo. Thiers, MasMahon and Grevy in place of the Kings; science com merce industry and agriculture in place of the queens; Molere, Gambetta, Vol taire and Racine of the jacks.
 But it must be said that none of these republican packs of cards had more than a passing popularity; the general public, accustomed to the old faces and old names, stuck to them or speedily re- turned to them.
 The faces on the cards we have them today date from the middle or the seyen- teenth century, at which time the DOT traits were becoming conventionalized. The crude king of clubs labeled Alex andre.' Is from pack dated lC9o-17o0. published in Paris and now in the possession of Henry D'Al- lemagne. author of ponderous history of playing cards. from which all these pictures are reproduced. II shows the fuce on the card but slightly different from that universally used today. and is one of the earliest examples of what was called the Paris portrait" to differen- tiste 1t from the Banguedoc. the Guyenne, the Lyon. the Rouen, the Lorraine, etc., portraits
 There has been much speculation about the origin of playing cards; there seems to be no doubt that they were invented in the east long before they were intro duced into Europe. At the beginning of tEe fourteenth century traders with the Moors brought them either to Germany or to Italy. which, is not certain. That they almost instantly became popular is attestcd by te earliest documentary mention we have of them. which is in q pastoral letter by the bishop of Wurz- bourg. dated 1929. forbidding the monks and nuns of his diocese to play cards.