A most interesting and almost boundless field of research opens before the student who wishes to trace in these seemingly meaningless variations the prominent events and fashions of the period, which are stamped on the cards, and can be easily traced. This has induced many persons to make elaborate studies from them; and one in particular, Père Daniel, declares that he can detect the fact that _David_, one of the original names of the King of Spades, is intended to represent Charles the Seventh of France; and he draws an elaborate parallel between the character of the real king and the characteristics of the mimic one as represented on the cardboard. Other authors demur at this, but it is at least worthy of note. During the time of the French Revolution it was not only the royal family who were deposed and beheaded; but the same fate also followed their Majesties of Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, and Hearts. “The King was slyly fingered from the deck;” the sovereigns were banished, and their places supplied by pictured representations of sages and philosophers. The Reign of Reason did not last long; and the royal family were recalled in 1813, and established more firmly than ever on their ancient thrones, from whence even the republican _cartiers_ of the present day in France have not desired to depose them, to replace their serene highnesses with presidents, senators, and other rulers of the revised republic. Some attempts have been made in the United States of America to supplant the kings in their government of the card world, by placing the pictures of prominent generals in their place; and after the triumphant termination of the war with Mexico in 1848 a pack was issued on which Generals Scott, Bragg, Wool, and Twiggs took the place of the sovereigns of the packs as rulers of the card suits. But these peculiar cards, handsome as they were in their details, did not meet with popular favour, and are only found in some collections, while the “Great Republic” meekly bows its head, and submits to the dominion of the Kings of Diamonds, of Hearts, of Clubs, and of Spades, who rule triumphantly over it as well as the greater part of the civilized world, dressed, as they have been for hundreds of years, like their brother Henry the Eighth of England; and every deviation from this quaint garb is frowned down at once by their loyal subjects, who detest all changes in card-land, and cling to the obsolete costumes and quaint figures with unswerving loyalty. It is worth while to note the interesting fact that the first sovereigns of the French cards are still in existence, and are now preserved in Paris in the Cabinet des Estampes. These are the cards which have already been mentioned as having been the identical ones invented for the amusement of Charles the Seventh by one of his courtiers. That they are the same is not doubted by any authorities.