Among the subjects they represent are some which deserve all the more attention, because they can hardly fail to recall to mind a conception somewhat similar to that of the “Dance of Death,” that terrible “morality” which, dating from this epoch, was destined to increase more and more in popularity. Thus, for instance, by the side of the _Emperor_, who is covered with silver armour and holds the globe and the sceptre, a _Hermit_ makes his appearance as an old man muffled in a cowl and holding up an hour-glass, an emblem of the rapidity of time. Then we have the _Pope_, who, with the tiara on his head, sits between two cardinals; but _Death_ is also there, mounted on a grey horse with a rough and shaggy coat, and sweeping down with his scythe kings, popes, bishops, and other great men of the earth. If we see _Love_, represented by three couples of lovers who embrace as they converse, while two cupids dart at them their arrows from a cloud above; we also see a _Gibbet_, on which hangs a gambler suspended by one foot, and still holding in his hand a bag of money. An _Esquire_, clothed in gold and scarlet, rides gallantly along, proudly waving his sword; a _Chariot_ bears in triumph an officer in full armour; a _Fool_ places his cap and bells under his arm that he may count upon his fingers. Finally, the last trumpets are waking up the dead, who come out of their graves to appear at the Last Judgment. [Illustrations: Fig. 207.--The Moon. Fig. 208.--Justice. (Cards taken from the Pack, said to be of Charles VI., preserved in the Bibl. Imp., Paris.)] Most of these allegorical subjects have been retained in the _tarots_, which include, independent of the sixteen figures of our piquet-pack, twenty-two cards, representing the _Emperor_, the _Lover_, the _Chariot_, the _Hermit_, the _Gibbet_, _Death_, the _House of God_, the _End of the World_, &c. We should scarcely be justified in imagining that these _tarots_, presenting as they did a picture of life so gloomily philosophical, regarded from a Christian point of view, could have enjoyed any great favour in the centre of a frivolous and corrupt court, devoted to little else but _fêtes_, masquerades, and singing; this, too, at a time when the State, a prey to every kind of intrigue, was falling into ruin, and the voice of insurrection was surging up among a people burdened by taxes, and decimated by pestilence and famine. On the other hand these _tarots_ might well please the imagination of certain good people who, having been deprived of their property in some of the disturbances incidental to these times, could not fail to accept as a consolation such emblematical representations of life and death. Artists of every kind tried their best to reproduce them in all forms; and as these designs found a place even in the ornaments of the female sex, it was scarcely probable that playing-cards would form an exception.