If the Tarots are the direct descendants of the occult images in the Temple of Thoth, as is conceded, it must also be acknowledged that then these cards each has a meaning or intention worth studying, if only to discover their secret; and that if they are connected with the ancient mysteries they represent human life in all its phases. To wrest their secret from them has been the endeavor of many writers, some of whom have learned their portent traditionally, others through careful historical investigation, while some confess to inspiration without authority or support, but not one of these authors discovered the important connection between the emblems on the cards and those representing Mercury heraldically under his chief guises, although such a discovery would have been conclusive proof that their surmises were correct and that cards were the survival of the cult of Mercury and his predecessors. Nevertheless, a thorough examination of all these writers shows that through different channels they all come to the same conclusions, and by comparing their writings with that of the original rules for the game of l'Ombre (or The Man) quite a definite idea of the value and meaning attached to each card by the initiates or priests of Mercury may be reached. Raymond Lulle (1235-1315) gives an historical account of Tarots in his "Ars Magna." Jerome Cardeau (1501-1576) writes of the historic pack in his work "Subtility." An English writer named Mathers has written exhaustively about the great book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, chiefly with the view of explaining fortune-telling through a correct reading of the mysterious leaves. Court de Gebelin, although sneered at by the authors who followed him, who found his learning too deep for their understanding, has given a lucid account of Tarots and their connection with divination, while Boiteau, in his "Les Cartes à Jouer et la Cartomancie"; Merlin, in his "Origin des Cartes"; Chatto, in his "Facts and Speculations About Cards," and Taylor, in his "History of Playing Cards," agree that cards appeared suddenly in Europe early in the fourteenth century, that the cards of that day were the Tarots, or the fortune-telling cards, that they were altered to suit Dutch, Swedish or German tastes, or the fancies of a French king, following also the desires of each nation that adopted them for gambling purposes, with no thought of the ancient cult to which they had belonged. Not one of them, however, pointed out the connecting link with the emblems of Mercury, or explained the reason for this sudden appearance in civilised nations of these fortune-telling packs, except De Gebelin, while even he failed to connect the attributes of Mercury with the pips on the cards or the emblematic figures on the Atouts that still show the attributes of the chief gods of Egyptian mythology, that would have been such convincing proofs of their origin.