Albert d'Alby (1802) / Nouvel Etteilla ; theme JGSS

1
I wrote this text 27-12-2015 at ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=249006
... in the context of the Christmas talkings 2015/16 at Aeclectic about the Petit Oracle des Dames.

It was followed by some communication between Kwaw and me about details.

D''Alby had developed a system of cartomancy with 3 decks with 36 cards in 1788. Interestingly the 36 cards were divided in 32 normal cards and 4 special cards for persons. This latter system was used in the Nouvel Etteilla ou Le Petit Necromancien.
D'Alby's text was prohibited in 1788, but appeared in 1802. The first note about the Nouvel Etteilla was also found for 1802. In this note the author is given as living in Bordeaux. Labrousse, who was an engraver and a long-time-cooperator of JGSS, had close connections to Bordeaux. Saint Sauveur himself was far away in 1802, arranging a theater tournee in foreign countries. It might well be, that the Nouvel Etteilla was made by Labrousse.

*********************
DDD mentions Albert d'Alby at p. 146, with a footnote "8" at page 282 as the author of "L'Oracle Parfait".

It seems, as if DDD hadn't access of the text, as they use the description of Collin.

I found one text online ...

L'Oracle parfait, ou nouvelle manière de tirer les cartes, au moyen de laquelle chacun peut tirer son horoscope
Albert D'Alby, Mélampus
1802
https://books.google.de/books?id=nmVQAA ... navlinks_s

Worldcat offers two texts with this name for the year 1802 ...
https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3A ... dblist=638
... possibly the same edition.

Footnote "8" in DDD is of special interest:

Image

see also:
https://books.google.de/books?id=REN0H5 ... 22&f=false
see also: page 6 in the text
Image


I've no idea about divination with 3 Piquet decks, but the description with 32 + 4 additional cards (2, 3, 4 of hearts, and 4 of diamonds) related to the consultant reminds me on the
use of Eteila cards in the deck called Nouvel Eteila or Petit Necromancien, which was recently discussed with some intensity.
kwaw;4549277 wrote:Here are the four 'Eteila' cards from the Finet:

Card 2 for the male consultant
Card 25 for the female consultant
Card 3 for the (? pour la rend ?), something opposite to success? or the reader's significator? or that renders to (serves?) the consultant
Card 12 for the success of the consulatant

Image
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=122602&page=39

***********

Inside the discussions to this deck appeared the note of Fleischer in the same year 1802 (as the d'Alby text):

Image


No. 62 ...

... reports a production of "Le Petit Necromancien", and, as far we know, it's the first sure appearance of this title.

Image

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1 ... t%20Eteila
... claims late 18th century for it, but is itself from a text in 1898 (so insecure).

However, the text to No. 62 doesn't refer specifically to divination cards, only to the method. Possibly this production hadn't cards, but was just a description, how to interpret a cartomancy reading.
The address refers to the not noted author, who lives in Bordeaux near the theatre ... and it's a rather remarkable theatre:

from Huck (2012)
The author address was "A Bordeaux, chez l'Auteur, sous le péristile de la grande comédie". A "peristyle" in French is a great room with columns ... likely the address means, that you get the decks inside the theater, or, cause it is said "sous le péristile" possible downstairs, either inside (below) or outside in front of the theater, "chez L'Auteur"

The following postcard confirms, that the "Place de la comédie" was an old address in Bordeaux near a famous theater.



Image


The production is also offered by "Chez Barba" in Paris and Barba is known to have offered in 1795 mainly the texts of theatre plays.
https://books.google.de/books?id=s_NuYT ... 22&f=false

From theatres in Vienna and also in Florence and Tuscany I have clear research, that they often were connected to Casinos and to card-gambling, which accompanied the theater plays (it was a way to finance the expensive theaters during 18th century). I don't know, if a similar connection existed in France and Bordeaux.

I suspect, that the Bordeaux address belongs to Jacques Grasset St-Saveur, author or producer of the Petit Oracle des Dames or a person connected to him (possibly Labrousse, who engraved a lot for Sauveur). The same addresses "chez Barba" and "Bordeaux" are used for No. 64 (see below).

No. 63 ...

... is the Petit Oracle des Dames (earlier authored by Jacques Grasset St-Sauveur), now distributed by Gueffier jeune. It seems to contain on its 42 cards with 72 motifs also 52 small cards of a normal playing card deck (which possibly was a novelty in 1802).

No. 64 ...

A "Petit Horoscope des Dames" doesn't reappear elsewhere in announcements. It are the same addresses used as for No. 62 (Barba + Bordeaux). Possibly the difference to the offered PODD is simply the condition, that it didn't include the 52 small playing card pictures on the 42 cards. Possibly these were older PODD cards, produced before 1802.

No. 65

This object, somehow parted from the other productions by a line, is offered by "Chez Labrousse".
Now "Labrousse" had been the name of an engraver, who accompanied a lot of the Grasset St-Sauveur book productions. The "Chez Labrousse" doesn't appear in the announcements of the time elsewhere (as far I know), this seems to be a single product, which didn't sell very well and wasn't repeated.

Loterie cards have an article in wikipedia ...

Image

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loter%C3%ADa

... and for the mentioned source name "Fortunato Indovino" ... I found the following picture and note at https://in.pinterest.com/pin/96827460709656965/

Image

Lottery Dream Book, Fortunato Indovino....(the Surest Means to Win the Lottery Drawing, or a New General List Containing Entries for All the Everyday Things Found Inside Visions and Drams, With Their Numbers). Venice: Sylvester Gnoato, 1809. Frontespiece and 19 plates of woodcuts, with an additional full-page woodcut date 7 February 1754. (Fortunato Indovino or Lucky Guesser was the pseudonym for an 18th c. Italian astrologer).
One might suspect, that the engraveur Labrousse made something more professional than that, if he really participated in the production.

This blog ...
https://blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts ... unato.html
.. gives some further info.

************

Labrousse isn't easy to research:

Image


Well, he had his origin in Bordeaux. It's not impossible, that he lived in 1802 in Bordeaux and that he was the man behind the adresse near to the Bordeaux theatre.

Image


There's a series of pictures of people from Bordeaux, signed by Jacques Grasset St-Sauveur at the left bottom and by Labrousse at the right.
http://collections-musees.bordeaux.fr/o ... Jacques&e=

The family of Sauveur wasn't from Bordeaux, but from Montpellier, and Sauveur was born in Canada ... and it seems not plausible, that he spend much time there. It's plausible, that Labrousse initiated this picture series.

**********
**********

Back to d'Alby:

Etteilla had as divination scheme clearly 32+1 in 1791, but likely earlier (already in 1771 ?).

Albert d'Alby (I don't have any other info to the person) had 32+4 in 1788 according his editor, but wasn't allowed to publish. The text was published in 1802, the same year of the appearance of a text called Le Petit Necromancien, which later clearly had a 32+4 scheme (and used then pictures of th PODD clearly related to St.Sauvert or Labrousse). The announcement of 1802 (Necromancien) also looks, as if it was related to Larousse or Sauvert).

What shall one assume about it?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Albert d'Alby (1802) / Nouvel Etteilla ; theme JGSS

2
I'll try to reduce the communication, which followed the starting post at Aeclectic.

It was found to Barba, who appears as publisher (or seller) of the Nouvel Etteilla in the announcement of 1802:

http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpresseboo ... and=eschol
Between 1795 and 1799 Barba registered thirty-eight works at the dépôt . His first deposit was Charles-Pierre Ducancel's Thermidorean drama L'Intérieur des comités révolutionnaires . All of his titles were in theater, ranging from serious tragedies like Marie-Joseph Chénier's Azémire or the theatrical rendering of Voltaire's great anticlerical cause in Jean Calas , to comic operas like Severin's Le Villageois qui cherche son veau .
He was also a notorious literary pirate and dealer in pornography. In 1796, he was accused of pirating Philippe Fabre d'Eglantine's Intrigue épistolaire , and in 1797, Migneret's edition of de LaHarpe's Du fanatisme dans la langue révolutionnaire .[107] By 1802 Barba was, as the prefect of Paris described him, "very well known for this kind of trade."[108] Barba also orchestrated numerous illegal editions of the marquis de Sade's Justine , until the police finally discovered his secret warehouse in 1802.[109] Known for driving hard bargains, both legal and illegal, Barba was enormously successful.
By 1795 he had moved to the rue Git-le-coeur, in the heart of the old publishing district, and he maintained a second shop in the Palais Royal. Five years later he also had an outlet nearer to the theater at the Palais du Tribunat. Having founded one of the great publishing fortunes of the revolutionary era through popular theater, pornography, and literary pirating, Barba, too, branched out into the novel, beginning with Guillaume-Charles-Antoine Pigault-Lebrun's libertine romances. By the 1820s Barba had become one of the first editors of Honoré de Balzac.[110] Like Maradan and Migneret, Barba was instrumental in turning Paris publishing from classical theater to the romantic novel, from civic to domestic genres.
It was found to Labrousse (suspected to be the distributor and possibly also the author of the Nouvel Etteilla) in Bordeaux:
I got the impression, that the graveur Labrousse had a relation to the theatre and searched for "Labrousse" and "theatre". A result was ...
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Labrousse
... a Fabrice Labrousse (* 1806, perhaps ? son, ? grand-son or other relative), who was very active in the 1830s for the development of theatre plays (lots of them at Gallica) as part of a Napoleon nostalgy. I found him also connected to graphic works in connection to his theater work, which definitely looked like "made by the graveurs of Grasset St.Sauver".



The French name distribution tool for "Labrousse 1891-1915" demonstrates, that the name likely spread from the region around Bordeaux.
http://www.genealogie.com/nom-de-famille/labrousse.html

Image
Kwaw made a big find with ...
Another 36 card pseudo-astrological method from 1788 is described in:
Etrennes nouvelles de l'horoscope de l'homme et de la femme" By M. G. D. R., published by G. Quinet, Libraire, dans la Salle du Palaise, using an expanded piquet set of 36 cards.

It is available online here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Bmg ... &q&f=false

It is second edition, so possibly available earlier than 1788. It was republished (or elements in it was copied) in L'Oracle Parfait, by Jean Peyre, in 2003.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ET- ... on&f=false
... which led to the following observation:
The 9x4 spread, with the names of card placements, is the same as described as 'after Lenormand' in the 'L'Oracle Parfait'.

The 36 positions in the 1788 9x4 spread:

1 projet; 2 satisfaction; 3 reussite; 4 esperance; 5 hazard; 6 desir; 7 injustice; 8 ingratitude; 9 association; 10 perte; 11 peine; 12 etat; 13 joie; 14 amour; 15 prosperite; 16 mariage; 17 affliction; 18 jouissance; 19 heritage; 20 trahison; 21 rival; 22 present; 23 amant; 24 elevation; 25 bienfait merite; 26 enterprise; 27 changement; 28 death; 29 recompense; 30 disgrace; 31 bonheur; 32 fortune; 33 indifference; 34 faveur; 35 ambition; 36 maladie.

The 36 positions in the 9x4 Mlle Lenormand spread:

1, projet; 2, satisfaction; 3, réussite; 4, espérance; 5, hasard; 6, désir; 7, injustice; 8, ingratitude; 9, association; 10, perte; 11, peine; 12, état; 13, joie; 14, amour; 15, prospérité; 16, mariage; 17, affection; 18, jouissance; 19, héritage; 20, trahison; 21, rival; 22, présent; 23, amant; 24, élévation; 25, bienfait; 26, entreprise; 27, changement; 28, fin; 29, récompense; 30, disgrâce; 31, bonheur; 32, fortune; 33, indifférence; 34, faveur; 35, ambition, 36, indisposition.

From 1788 re: reading the kings:

Image


From L'Oracle Parfait, 1875, after 'the method of Lenormand':

1, Roi de coeur; 2, roi de carreau; 3, roi de trèfle. La personne, d'un état malheureux, passera à un qui sera très heureux; elle possédera des biens, des honneurs, des richesses immenses.
However, later research resulted in the observation, that the later Oracle Parfait wasn't identical to the d'Ably version.
But it stays, that 36-cards-version of Cartomancy was used in 1788 (or earlier) in France.
Last edited by Huck on 16 Jan 2017, 20:14, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Albert d'Alby (1802) / Nouvel Etteilla ; theme JGSS

3
I had a high-resolution quality image of the Finet sheet on my computer - unfortunately now lost (along with my library and cards collection since the fire) :(

In one frame on the edge, if I remember correctly, was printed 'Oracle des Dames', in another, Nouvel Etteilla, ou le petit necromancien'

Which means nomenclature alone (eg Nouvel Etteilla, or Oracle des Dames) is not enough to identify which version you refer too, as different decks shared same or similar names ---
cron