Chapter XXI (part 3)

Spanish regulations are in existence dated long before this reign, forbidding the nobles to play at cards, and the Tarot itself is of very ancient origin. The sceptres of the Tarot have become clubs, the cups hearts, the swords spades, and the pentacles or money diamonds. We have also lost the twenty-two symbolical figures and the four knights. But if all these games are derived from the Tarot, what is its origin and its primitive derivation? These are grave questions, which for their solution lead the mind into dangerous researches. Let me therefore relate to you a certain confidence upon this subject which I received from a dusty old manuscript, forgotten in a corner of a library. Take it as romance or as history, whichever you like, it does not matter so long as your curiosity is gratified. Now, let us transport ourselves in imagination three thousand miles away, into the midst of the wonderful and grandiose Egyptian civilization, which archæologists are each day revealing more fully to our century. Let us enter one of those cities, of which Paris would form but one district, passing through the defensive outworks guarded by a well-equipped body of soldiers, and glide amongst the inhabitants, who are as numerous and as busy as those of our greatest cities. On all sides immense monuments of strange architecture rise to enormous heights; the terraces of rich houses indicate the first steps of a gigantic staircase, formed by the palaces and temples, and dominated by the silent residence of the supreme head of the Empire. The great cities are everywhere fortified, the Nile is restrained by moles, and enormous reservoirs are ready to receive its surplus waters, and thus transform terrible inundations into beneficent irrigation. All this involves science and savants, but where are they? At this epoch science and religion were blended in a single study, and all the men of science, engineers, doctors, architects, superior officers, scribes, etc., were called priests or Initiates . We must not confuse the priest of antiquity with the word taken in the modern sense, or we shall fall into many errors, amongst others that of believing that Egypt was given over to clerical despotism in its worst form. Instruction of every kind was given in the temples in various degrees, according to methods perfectly established, and, at that epoch, imitated in every country in the world. The highest instruction which man can acquire was given in the great temple of Egypt, and it was there that the great reformers of the future completed their studies: Orpheus, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, and Moses amongst many others. Astronomy was one of the sciences which became the object of constant investigation. We now know through Pythagoras, who has perpetuated the knowledge of the wise men of Egypt, that they were acquainted with the movement of the earth round the sun, as well as with the position of the latter in relation to its satellite planets. Many of the mythological stories relate to these mysteries and the wise men of the epoch, that is to say, the priests taught astronomy to their disciples, by means of small cards, which represented the months, seasons, signs of the zodiac, planets, sun, etc., etc. In this way they imprinted upon the imagination of the students the data which later on they verified in nature. A time followed when Egypt, no longer able to struggle against her invaders, prepared to die honourably. Then the Egyptian savants (at least so my mysterious informant asserts) held a great assembly to arrange how the knowledge, that until that date had been confined to men judged worthy to receive it, should be saved from destruction. At first they thought of confiding these secrets to virtuous men secretly recruited by the Initiates themselves, who would transmit them from generation to generation.