Tarot de la Reyne
The Tarot de la Reyne (French: "Tarot of the Queen") is a Tarot deck published in 1911 by French occultist Madame de Maguelone. An extremely unusual and rare deck, it purports to utilize the writings and predictions of Nostradamus, however, the cards are mostly based on the life of Catherine de Medici, the Queen of France in 1556.
Creation
The deck was illustrated by Henry Steimer, a French artist responsible for drawing many comics and illustrations for novels throughout the early 1900s. The author, known only as Madame de Maguelone, was an occultist who gave lectures on esoteric topics such as palmistry in Paris as early as 1900. She had previously published several other decks and small booklets about divination. None of her other decks or books have survived to the present day, and her work is largely unknown to modern audiences.
Content
The Tarot de la Reyne deck contained 120 cards, most of these were fully illustrated and colored. Each card contained the meaning of the card printed on the top and bottom, making the deck easy to utilize cards in the reversed position. The deck was divided into two main segments, with the first 70 cards comprising the Major Arcana and 49 cards making up the Minor Arcana. The final card, #120, had the image of Nostradamus and Queen Catherine on it with the label "Le Consultant."
With 120 total cards, it deviated significantly from a normal Tarot deck, abandoning most of the traditional names for the cards in favor of entirely different ones. For example, the first card in the deck is called "The Dream" and depicts the marriage of Catherine de Medici to the King of France.
Each card contained an elaborate border showing snakes slithering around the edges and a portrait of Nostradamus on the top and Queen Catherine on the bottom.
It came with a lengthy guidebook, but the only known copy, currently housed in the Yale University Library, is missing many of its final pages, so the exact page count is unknown.
The Minor Arcana consisted of 49 cards of seven suits:
Each of the seven suits (called "the seven thoughts of Nostradamus") contained a King, a Queen, two cards connected to a god/astrological body, and three numbered cards for a total of seven cards. The numbered cards were illustrated with pip-type drawings of the suit's symbol.
Publication
The deck is believed to have been published in 1911 by Eugène Figuière & Cie of Paris, although there is some evidence it may have been printed as early as August 1909. It was featured in the February 10th, 1911 issue of the bi-weekly occult magazine La Vie Mysterieuse, although the article was merely a reprinting of a few pages from the guidebook.
The Tarot de la Reyne had a very limited print run. There are only a few decks in private collections, and none of them are believed to be complete. As of October 2022, Canadian bookseller, McClosky's Antiquarian Books & Cards, possesses the only known surviving deck, but it is missing 60 cards. The deck is being offered for $5,867.21 USD.
Legacy
In February 2023, the deck was revised and transformed into the True Oracle of Nostradamus by occultist Travis McHenry.