As has been before mentioned, the court cards of the French packs have always had names placed somewhere on the face of the card; and these names, after changing with some rapidity with the fashions of the day, have now become permanent, and for some years have been retained without the slightest variation. “Hector,” as one of the Knights is dubbed, is supposed to recall Hector de Galard, Captain of the Guard, to Louis the Eleventh of France. Some authors think that Hector, the son of Priam, is intended by this name, as on some old cards the inscription is “Hector de Troye.” Another Knave bears the name of “Roland,” which was that of a nephew of Charlemagne. “Hogier,” or Ogier, was a renowned King of Denmark. Lancelot may have at first been intended as a compliment for a Paladin of the court of Charlemagne, who was a celebrated character of his day; or perhaps Lancelot du Lac, as it was sometimes written, may have been intended for one of the Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table. La Hire, another name placed beside the Knaves, was that of the celebrated Étienne de Vignolles, who contributed so much by his valour to re-establish the tottering throne of Charles the Seventh of France. Mr. Singer says that he was surnamed La Hire. Some authors attribute the arrangement of the French pack, with the symbols of the Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades, and the black and red colours, to the same La Hire. ACES AND OTHER CARDS. It would seem that the name _ace_, _as_, _asso_, or at any rate some combination of letters which convey about the same sound, is given to the first card in the pack in nearly all countries where they are used. Mr. Chatto says, according to Père Daniel, the Ace is the Latin _as_, meaning “a piece of money, coin, riches;” while Bullet derives it from the Celtic, and says that it means “origin, source, beginning, or first.” A French writer of the sixteenth century, supposed to be Charles Stephens, in a work entitled “Paradoxes,” printed at Paris, 1553, says that the “Ace or Az ought to be called _Nars_, a word which in German signifies a ‘fool.’” The German word which he alludes to, continues Mr. Chatto, “is just as likely to have been the origin of Deuce as of Ace. It has also been supposed that the term ‘ace’ was derived from a Greek word signifying ‘one.’ But as this also signified an ‘ass,’ it has been conjectured that the Ace of Cards and of Dice were so called not as a designation of unity, but as signifying an ass or a fool. Those who entertain the latter opinion are said by Hyde to be asses themselves.”