[Le Jeu des fortifications].

[A Paris, chez J. Mariette, rue St. Jacques aux Colonnes d'Hercules, ca. 1710-13?]. . 12mo (12 x 7.5 cm). Engraved double-page dedication, 52 engraved playing cards and an engraved double-page plan, all cut close and laid down at the time. 18th-century calf, spine with raised bands, compartments gilt, red morocco label lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, red speckled edges, housed in modern clam-shell box; lightly rubbed and bumped at extremities.
Lovely set of uncommon military playing cards.

The cards were drawn by Gilles de La Boissière (as shown on the later Daumont issue). Each card depicts a different form of fortification, with mathematical measurements appearing alongside the drawbridges, fortified chateaux, bastions, ravelins and ramparts.

Given that the jeu de l'oie was very much in favour at the turn of the century, a new type of game appeared, mixing the latter with conventional playing cards. The jeu des fortifcations (like the similar jeu de la guerre, also invented by La Boissiere) is a prime example: originally issued on a broadsheet, it could be played either as a jeu de l'oie, with dice, or as a card game, in which each square could be cut out to form a deck of cards (as here). The original owner laid down the cut-out cards to form this lovely volume, leaving aside the title, the rules of the game and the table alphabétique that complete the broadsheet. It is rare to find the game in this condition, as once the cards were cut out they were only very occasionally kept in a volume.

Originally published in 1668 by Mariette, 'an eminent French engraver and print-seller' (Bryan), the game proved popular; many reissues with small variations, sometimes in other languages, were printed over the course of the next century. Like the copy in the British Museum, the dedication is here signed by the original publisher, Mariette, but addressed to the students of the prestigious College de Louis le Grand, formerly College de Clermont but renamed following Louis XIV's visit to it in 1682, when he declared it a royal foundation. We would therefore date this copy from the second issue, possibly 1710-13.
BnF, Jeux de princes, jeux de vilains, p.93; Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, III-285; cf. D'Allemagne, Les Cartes a jouer (not mentioning this game) and D'Allemagne, Le Noble jeu de l'oye p. 221 (giving only later editions).