The Piquet pack contains five pip cards, Ace, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten, with three court cards, King, Queen, and Knave, called by the French names of Le Roi, La Reine, and Le Valet or varlet. With this handful of cards we are all familiar. Here was a great modification of the old suits with their heraldic devices. The Cavalier of the Tarot pack was discarded, thus reducing the court cards to three instead of four, while five of the pip cards were also omitted. The game was thoroughly scientific, needing close attention and discretion even with the curtailed pack of cards. It showed the soldier's hand in its stratagem, and that of the artist in its simple colours. The king's banker was Jacques Coeur, whose beautiful palace in Bourges shows a pun on his name in every lintel, door or window where a heart is cut in stone or wood to remind one of the owner. Tradition states that it was in honour of Jacques Coeur that his heraldic emblem, _Coeurs_ (Hearts), was placed on the cards to perpetuate his memory, to the exclusion of that of his patron, Mercury, the god of merchants. The Money emblem was changed to _Carreaux_ (Diamonds). This device may have been inspired by the little lozenge panes of glass in the windows of Coeur's palace, or by the tiles in the floors, or perhaps by "_les fers de fiche_," which would have retained the original idea of the "divining arrows" from which the old cards came. M. la Croix says: "The Sword of the ancients became _Pique_ (Spade), to do honour to the two soldier brothers, Jean and Gaspard Bureau." The _Trèfle_ (Club) was the heraldic device of Agnes Sorel, a greatly accomplished woman who displaced the queen in the affections of her husband. Sorel is the French for what we call shamrock or clover, and was a pun on the name of the lady. M. la Croix thinks that these cards were devised some time between the years 1420 and 1440. If so, they could only have been born at the very end of the mad king's life. The distinctive marks of the French pack are the two dominating colours, red and black, that strongly contrast with the various and mingled colours seen in the Tarots. The reason for simplifying the pips in this way is not recorded, although the change makes it much easier for players and was a clever idea, but no sharp division like this is called for when playing the game of Piquet (or little Pique), for which these cards were primarily used. It was probably intended to simplify the work of the card maker, as it demanded only the two colours commonly used by printers, black and red.