Tarot and Cartomancy in France from the French Revolution to the Twentieth Century

• 15/04/2025
• 19:00-20:30
• online talk

‘Judgement’ from ‘Jeu de tarot à enseignes italiennes, dit ‘de Marseille’, c. 1734–53’, Bibliothèque nationale de France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10537348r/f3.item

Tarot and Cartomancy in France from the French Revolution to the Twentieth Century

A Folklore Society Online Talk

by Dr William Pooley (University of Bristol)

Tuesday 15 April, 19:00 BST

The earliest evidence of fortune-telling using playing cards in Europe dates to 1765. By 1789 and the start of the French Revolution, a veritable epidemic of cartomancy was sweeping France. In this talk, I explore the who, what, when, where, why… and how much of fortune telling with playing cards in France after 1789. Were Tarot really the cartomancers and their clients’ preferred tools of divination? Why did people have their cards read? Who visited the cartomancers? And should we believe anything that the most famous cartomancers, such as Eteilla and Mademoiselle Lenormand said about their practices and their famous clients?

William Pooley is a historian of folklore and popular culture in France from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. His next book is a history of witchcraft from the French Revolution to World War Two.

Tickets £6.00 (£4.00 for Folklore Society members with the Promo Code: log in to https://folklore-society.com/members-only to get the Promo Code) from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tarot-and-cartomancy-in-france-from-the-french-revolution-to-the-20th-c-tickets-1237365235729?

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Image: ‘Judgement’ from ‘Jeu de tarot à enseignes italiennes, dit ‘de Marseille’, c. 1734–53’, Bibliothèque nationale de France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10537348r/f3.item