Beguiled by Tarot: Charles VI

[Joan Marie]

I'm reading something that has nothing remotely to do with Tarot (In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust) and I just read this part where the narrator is describing the windows of the local church and he says this:

There was one among them which was a tall panel composed of a hundred little rectangular panes, of blue principally, like an enormous pack of cards of the kind planned to beguile King Charles VI...

This intrigued me and so I googled and learned (as many of you prolly already know) there is a Tarot deck attributed to him (it's King Charles VI of France in case that wasn't obvi to you) but that is all I really could find in regard to the "pack of cards."

In regard to Charles VI, there is quite a lot of information and it's pretty interesting. Reading even just the wiki entry I thought what a great movie it would make.

But what I'm really wondering is what is it that Proust knew about the "pack of cards" and how was the king "beguiled" by them? I'm taking the word to mean more than that he was enchanted by them but maybe deceived or manipulated with them.

And why was a king presented a deck of Tarot cards anyway? To what end?

I think there must be a great story there.

Does anyone know? Is anyone part of any facebook groups or anything they could pose this question to?

Sounds like it could be great Tarot de Marseille lore.

[JayBee]

Your intrigue intrigued me (not least because I have designs on reading Proust sometime in the near-ish future). You probably came across these links, but in case not...
https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=25
That thread references an article by Ross Caldwell here:
http://trionfi.com/0/p/15/t1.php

I look forward to answers to your questions, Joan Marie.

[Joan Marie]

So. Many. Rabbit holes.

From Ross Gregory Caldwell (your link JayBee)

Jacquemin Gringonneur is an extremely obscure man. If a historian were to rely only on what the few scholars who know about him consider trustworthy sources, the only two things one could say about him would be that he was a painter who lived in Paris at the turn of the 14th century, and he is recorded to have been paid for painting three packs of cards for King Charles VI during his mental breakdown.

However, there is legend around him too, both concerning the apparently erroneous identification of some large tarot cards once belonging to Roger de Gaignières with the three packs of cards painted for Charles VI, as well as his association with Nicolas Flamel in the artisan's quarter of early 15th century Paris.

Further reading only begs more questions than are answered.

It's also interesting to just read about Charles VI to see if there are any clues.

He was known as Charles VI The Beloved and later Charles VI The Mad.

So a lot happened! And there were many issues of his being used by greedy relatives who took advantage of their proximity to the royal purse-strings.

The thing that makes me think there might be something to this is the way Proust references it in a not so off-hand way. Like there may have been some now lost common knowledge back in Proust's day about the influence these cards had on the King.

It's the way he says

like an enormous pack of cards of the kind planned to beguile King Charles VI...

Why "planned" ?
Seems a very specific word choice (okay, translated I know. Would love if someone has the original french..)

Still hoping to turn something up....

[Joan Marie]

Your intrigue intrigued me (not least because I have designs on reading Proust sometime in the near-ish future).

Just a quick word on this, I read the first Book, Swann's Way years ago. It was a tough slog, but about 2/3 of the way through I started to get it and then I read it again. I loved it and always meant to read the rest. Last week I decided the only way would be if I owned the whole thing, the whole collection, so I found a really good one, nicely made, 4-volume hardcover version, beautifully printed, and ordered it and am so glad. And the weird thing is I can't figure out why I thought it was so difficult before. I read it now and it's like reading a letter from a friend.

Things hit you differently at different times.

[dust]

I looked it up and here's the original French:

Il y en avait un qui était un haut compartiment divisé en une centaine de petits vitraux rectangulaires où dominait le bleu, comme un grand jeu de cartes pareil à ceux qui devaient distraire le roi Charles VI ;

My French is rusty but I believe the literal translation would be "that were to distract the king Charles VI". There's nothing about them being planned to distract the king, as far as I can tell, just maybe the implication that this was their purpose. "Distraire" also strikes me as a lot less dramatic than "beguile". Honestly, I'd just interpret this as indicating that the deck was meant as an amusement for the king and that they achieved their purpose, not necessarily something nefarious or manipulative.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no idea whether any stories circulated about this in Proust's time. Maybe there was a story about the cards being intended to distract him from his duties or manipulate him in some way. I hope someone who knows more of how the Tarot was perceived later can chime in!

Your intrigue intrigued me (not least because I have designs on reading Proust sometime in the near-ish future).

Just a quick word on this, I read the first Book, Swann's Way years ago. It was a tough slog, but about 2/3 of the way through I started to get it and then I read it again. I loved it and always meant to read the rest. Last week I decided the only way would be if I owned the whole thing, the whole collection, so I found a really good one, nicely made, 4-volume hardcover version, beautifully printed, and ordered it and am so glad. And the weird thing is I can't figure out why I thought it was so difficult before. I read it now and it's like reading a letter from a friend.

Things hit you differently at different times.

Maybe it's the translation? Some translations can feel more fluent than others.

[JayBee]

Your intrigue intrigued me (not least because I have designs on reading Proust sometime in the near-ish future).

Just a quick word on this, I read the first Book, Swann's Way years ago. It was a tough slog, but about 2/3 of the way through I started to get it and then I read it again. I loved it and always meant to read the rest. Last week I decided the only way would be if I owned the whole thing, the whole collection, so I found a really good one, nicely made, 4-volume hardcover version, beautifully printed, and ordered it and am so glad. And the weird thing is I can't figure out why I thought it was so difficult before. I read it now and it's like reading a letter from a friend.

Things hit you differently at different times.

Thank you, Joan Marie. That's encouraging. Back in the late 1970s, as I was starting university, I found the 12-volume set for a ridiculously low price, but somewhere along the way of my life I let go of it. I recently picked up a six-volume edition in preparation to begin the work again. So many other books it's competing with for my attention, however; non-fiction as well as fiction. So many books, so little time. But as a literature student who somehow never read Proust (or Milton or Dostoevsky), I am aiming to make up for lost time (so to speak).