From some researches it seems clear, that this was made in the circle of Jacques Grasset St-Sauveur (1757 - 1810), possibly with the help of L.F. Labrousse and/or J. Laroque (if this weren't the same person). The Petit Oracle des Dames was announced for the first time in January 1800, but the address of Grasset St.-Sauveur had been already in 1797 related to the production of an Etteilla text (according an information of DDD).
Compare:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=824
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Melchior Montmignon d'Odoucet
I found this:
1789 (?).
The society is mentioned in DDD.Un Journal des Fédérés était royaliste. On souscrivait chez Gattey
(sic) et Senneville, rue Sainte Apolline, n" 18, au bureau, et rue
Sainte-Anne, n° 11, chez Dodoucet (2).
[Footnote (2)] Bib. Nat., Le 2/429, sans date. Le dernier numéro se termina par une ode
contre le duc d'Orléans.
http://www.archive.org/stream/lesclubsc ... t_djvu.txt
1790.
Révolution française
les evénements qui l'ont provoquée, accompagnée, & ceux qui la suivront, pronostiqués par les Prophétiques Centuries de M. Michel Nostradamus : avec La clef pour saisir le vrai sens de ses Prophéties, connoître les différentes époques de leur accomplissement, & un Dictionnaire explicatif de tous les mots obscurs; ensemble la réfutation d'un Ecrit anonyme, ayant pour titre... Prophéties anciennes & nouvelles, &c
par M. d'Odoucet
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24341140 ... %C3%A7aise
This is a text, which indicates some trouble between d'Odoucet and Etteilla / C. Hugand. The story of the trouble is told in DDD p. 103/104 ... well, I recommend, that you read it.
Well, I didn't find something new of real interest in this point, but I noted, that DDD described, that d'Odoucet (or Dodoucet) got personal trouble in 1797 and was threatened by prison. And this might be precisely the year, when something of Etteilla wandered to the publishing house of Grasset St.-Sauveur: "L'art de lire dans les cartes" (1791) transmuted in parts to "Le tireur de cartes, ou le cartonomancien" / (1797 Deroy; Deroy appeared 1800 in the production of Petit Oracle des Dames).
As Dodoucet really had problems, he might have decided to have running projects published elsewhere. Inside the publishers' world this would have been a logical solution.
Dodoucet proceeded with his problems, and the year 1807 brought a new crisis. DDD writes: "We know, that Dodoucet, citoyen in Paris, was under house arrest in Lille since 1804." In 1808 there were complaints and his arrest was ordered at 7 November 1808. This was the last information about Dodoucet.
I for my part see, that Bloquel and Castiaux united in 1809 in Lille and then Etteilla material appeared by Blocquel and also they used a Petit Oracle des Dames in 1809 (Andrea Vitali's version)... one year after Dodoucet had disappeared.
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C. Hugand from Lyon
About Claude Hugand, who first had trouble with Dodoucet (1790) and then moved from Lyon to Paris to cooperate with Dodoucet in a publishing house the last information had been from 1794 (in DDD).
I found:
Leçons élémentaires de calcul, à l'usage des écoles
C. Hugand
Dufait, 1797 - 118 pages
http://books.google.de/books/about/Le%C ... edir_esc=y
A teaching book for math in schools.
I also found a publishing date of the same text in 1798. So his life has become a little bit longer.
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Hisler from Berlin
DDD suspected a relation between Hisler and the publisher Baumgärtner, who caused a German Etteilla edition in the year 1793. I found a confirmation for this relation:
1793/94
Baumgärtner Book Catalog (advertising) in:
Neuer franzoesisch-militaerischer dekretirter Katechismus:
oder vollstaendige Abhandlung ueber die Kriegsuebung der Infanterie, der Kavalerie... (Google eBook)
1794 - 126 pages ... published by Baumgärtner
http://books.google.de/books?id=-oYzcSv ... navlinks_s
... see "Hisler" and "Eteilla"
Book catalog of Baumgärtner in the year 1793
Announcement of the German Etteilla book with cards (the author isn't noted)
Book catalog of Baumgärtner in the year 1794 (in the same announcement).
Höhere Kenntniß 3te Fortsetzung, nebst einem Anhang der Berechnung des Herrn von Hisler, eines Preußen und Mitarbeiters des Philosophen Eteilla, welche durch einen philosophischen und mathematischen Grundsatz die glüklichen Nummern der Lotterie und des Lotto bestimmen, mit 32 Kupfern, brochiert. ... 12. Gr.
Translation, as good as possible:
"Higher knowledge of third degree, beside an appendix with calculation of Herrn von Hisler, a Prussian and a cooperator of the the philosoph Eteilla, which by a philosophical and mathematical conclusion allows knowledge about the lucky number of lotteries, with 32 copperplate engravings ... 12 Groschen. "
Actually "Höhere Kenntniß 3te Fortsetzung" (here translated with "3rd degree") actually indicates [Fortsetzung = continuation], that this is Volume 4 of a text titled "Höhere Kenntnis ... ".
As Etteilla (who is treated in the announcement in a manner, as if the readers know, who he is) had written 4 works in continuation (4 "cahiers" of "Maniere de se recréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots."), this "3te Fortsetzung" is strange, as an earlier work of Etteilla in German language isn't known.
This condition naturally mustn't be true, it's possible, that an underground translation was distributed "between friends" in small number. Another (easier to believe) possibility is, that Hisler was only interested in the 4th cahier, in which he could present his own Lotto system.
This later text confirms the same ...
Bibliothek der Deutschen Reichsversammlung 1848/49 (Reichsbibliothek):
Bestandsverzeichnis
http://books.google.de/books?id=AAkWAQA ... edir_esc=y
Hisler is mentioned at DDD at pages 82, 100 and 113.
At page 82 it is spoken from the time around 1782, but it is referred to a Lotto book which presents the year 1772 (3x). DDD doesn't reflect the contradiction at this place ... so the reader stays confused.
At page 100 DDD presents, that Etteilla in 1791 noted (it's not totally clear, where this should be), that Hisler was his student in 1769/70 and and made his own Lotto system, which Etteilla used in 1782. Further we learn, that Hisler visited Etteilla in 1788 (this information came from a private letter) ... and 1788 is the date of the Etteilla Tarot .
Page 113 refers to the German edition ...
compare viewtopic.php?f=11&t=824
... and Hisler is suspected by DDD to have influenced it ... which is very plausible, as Hisler had in Baumgärtner an own publisher (see above) in 1794.
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The situation is so, that we don't know, who made the engravings for the book of Etteilla Tarot. DDD at p. 89 present a quote from 1783, in which Etteilla complains about the technical problems ... and the taste of the public. He desires to have such cards ... and although, as we know, he had connections to the Strassburg scene of engravers, he saw some problems for a production.
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Hisler an Engraver?
Now I made my studies to get anything about this "Hisler" from the web, who is a rather unknown man. The name Hisler is not very common, so it's not the type of difficulty, that one is drowned in too much entries.
I found an engraver ... Georg Hisler. I found works of him from c. 1600 (city view Florence), c. 1700 (city view Lyons), c. 1730, 1790, 1798 (and others from around this later time). His special objects were city views. A Prussian or Saxon background is probable. I didn't found much.
I observe, that the author of 1794 is addressed as Herr "von Hisler" and engraver Georg Hisler didn't use the "von". But I also observe, that this engraver made a city view of Lyons (possibly partly a copy of an older work, so the confusion about the date; well, it's a French city) and that the author "Hisler" was at the right time 1788 in Paris. And then we have the Etteilla Tarot made in 1788. And we have, that Hisler is called Etteilla's best pupil. And we have, that Hisler could transfer the Etteilla Tarot to Germany to Baumgärtner.
Georg Hisler's Lyon:
http://216.117.166.233/zoomifyURLDriven ... oom/62543/
http://www.loeb-larocque.com/2007/vente ... hp?page=39
Another Georg Hisler work c. 1790
http://www.antiquariat.de/showmedia.jsp ... d=18359877
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Hisler and his Lotto numbers
I got some copies from the text of 1809 (in Andrea Vitali's possession), which used the Petit Oracle des Dames as
"decoration". The greater part of the book is about "dream interpretation". Dream motifs were combined with numbers. A page of this part typically looked like this:
The dreams got numbers ... I first had difficulties to identify, what the numbers are good for. Now I realize, that these likely are lucky Lotto numbers.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=825
A deck of c. 1820
Again ... the numbers likely are lucky Lotto numbers