With original punctuation, here is the sentence in question:
Après avoir expliqué le plus familièrement qu'il nous a été possible, les proportions des nombres, les consonances et Harmonies qui en proviennent: il convient declarer les secrets qui sont cachés en ce jeu des cartes - lequel a été inventé et mis en usage par quelques hommes savants en Philosophie Pythagorique: Attendu que les Pythagoriques affirmaient qu'il y a de très grands secrets de nature cachés sous les nombres; Et aussi, [31]que la plus grande victoire du jeu des cartes consiste au nombre de trente et un, lequel selon ses parties contient une très excellente Harmonie comme nous le démontrons présentement.
In a transcription, I do not think the punctuation should be changed, because it is a clue to how it should be punctuated in a translation. I do not know how the punctuation would go in modern French, only modern English. It would be something like this:
After having explained, as clearly as has been possible for us, the proportions of numbers and the consonances and Harmonies that arise from them, it is appropriate to declare the secrets hidden in this game of cards - which was invented and put into use by a few men learned in Pythagorean philosophy, considering that the Pythagoreans say that there are very great secrets of nature hidden in numbers, and also that the greatest victory in the game of cards consists in the number thirty-one, which by its parts contains a most excellent Harmony, as we demonstrate presently.
The two dependent clauses at the end cannot, grammatically, be considered separate sentences, even if in modern English that is sometimes done. It does not seem to be Gosselin's intention. In English the result is a very long sentence, but not impossibly so. I think it is clearer in the original punctuation myself, although I might remove the capital letters. But given that I have not removed the capital letters elsewhere in the text, I leave them here. It seems to me that in transcribing Gosselin's text, one should say it is with modernized spelling, but otherwise the same as the original. It is the spelling that confounds me as a reader and translator.
As far as justifying the four elements as part of Pythagorean philosophy, a referral to the
Timaeus is not enough, because there has always been a distinction between "Platonism" and "Pythagoreanism". even if the two philosophies borrowed from each other, and even if it is Gosselin's likely source. Here is what V. F. Hooper says in
Medieval Number Theory, with his references (pp. 42-43), in his chapter ""Pythagorean Number Theory":
Four is also the number of the square (60), and is represented in the elements, the seasons, the 4 elements of man, the 4 principles of a reasonable animal, the lunar phases, and the 4 virtues. (61)
________________
60. Plutarch, De animae procreatique, 1.
61. Diogenes Laertius, Biography of Pythagoras, 19, 7; Theolog. Arith., 22. Enneads, VI, 6, 16. Capella, op. cit. VII.
Of these, the
Theolgumena Arithmeticae, although clearly including the four elements among the manifestations of the tetrad (Waterfield translation, p. 58) and in print then from a Parisian publisher, was available only in Greek. The
Enneads had been translated by Ficino; it is not Pythagorean, but perhaps refers to the Pythagoreans explicitly here, I don't know. The other two were readily available in Latin. Diogenes was originally in Greek, but I see on WorldCat that a Latin translation was published in 1490 Venice; then in the 1550s and 1560s there were multiple reprintings in various places. (
https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3A ... dblist=638)
I do not have Diogenes 19, unless it is the same as what the Loeb edition calls Book VIII, Ch. 1, section 25 (pp. 240-243 of Loeb edition). Here is the translation, pp. 241 and 243 (the Greek is on pp. 240 and 242)
Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers says that he found in the Pythagorean memoirs the following tenets as well. ... from the monad and the undefined dyad spring numbers, points; from points, lines; from lines, plane figures, from plane figures, solid figures; from solid figures, sensible bodies, the elements of which are four, fire, water, earth, and air...
The "Alexander" referred to is Alexander Polyhistor, 1st century b.c., the translator tells us in a note, p. 241. You can read this with the note, at
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... hapter%3D1.
I find Martianus
Capella,
Marriage of Philology and Mercury referring to the four elements in the section on Arithmetic, p. 278, and again on p. 279, of Stahl and Johnson translation,
https://books.google.com/books?id=nZ-Z9 ... ts&f=false, in much the same way as Diogenes Laertius. This book was in Latin and well known. Whether it explicitly says that this doctrine is Pythagorean, I don't know, as the page it would be on (275 or 276) is omitted from Google's selection. You might find it in a French translation. But it would be understood as Pythagorean.