Etienne Chevalier, as the most skilful designer of emblems of the period, was eminently capable of substituting, in playing-cards, ladies or queens for the Oriental “viziers” or Italian “knights” which, on the _tarots_, figured alone among the “kings” and “knaves.” We must, however, repeat that we have no intention of depriving La Hire of the honour of the invention, and only hazard a supposition in addition to the opinion generally received. These cards, which bear all the characteristics of the reign of Charles VII., must be looked upon as the first attempts at wood-engraving, and at printing by means of engraved blocks. They were probably executed between 1420 and 1440, that is to say, prior to most of the known xylographic productions. Playing-cards, therefore, served as a kind of introduction or prelude to printing from engraved blocks, an invention which considerably preceded the printing from movable characters. When, however, we observe that so early as the middle of the fifteenth century playing-cards were spread all over Europe, it is but natural to imagine that some economical plan of manufacture had been discovered and employed. Thus, as we have already mentioned, Jacquemin Gringonneur, in 1392, was paid fifty-six sols of Paris, that is about £7 1_s._ 8_d._ of our present money, for three packs of _tarots_, painted for the King of France. One single pack of _tarots_, admirably painted, about the year 1415, by Marziano, secretary to the Duke of Milan, cost one thousand five hundred golden crowns (about £625); but in 1454, a pack of cards intended for the Dauphin of France cost no more than five _sous of Tours_ (about eleven or twelve shillings). In the interval between 1392 and 1454 means had been discovered of making playing-cards at a cheap rate, and of converting them into an object of trade; mercers were accustomed to sell them together with the “pins,” which then took the place of copper and silver counters; hence the French proverb, “Tirer son épingle du jeu” (to get out of a scrape).