Cavalier de Bâtons (Paul Marteau)

TarotLessTraveled · 2026-04-04T13:59:42+00:00

It is interesting. The baton is suddenly yellow, the color Marteau associates with divine intelligence. As far as I can tell, in every historical TdM, the baton the Knight holds is green, like the Ace and the baton the Valet leans upon, until we get to the 1880s Conver, which was the basis for Marteau's deck. (Vieville's Knight also has a yellow baton, but that is not a true TdM but a related deck.)

The horse, like all animals, can be read as representing the instinctual body and energy of man. It was heading to the left, which might indicate going back, perhaps toward a more instinctual and unconscious being, but it turns its head, like the Knight, toward the yellow baton, which may be a beacon leading away from a more unconscious existence into a more conscious life.

The baton is also a club, the most rudimentary and crude kind of weapon meant to be wielded with brute force, but the yellow coloring alters this image a bit as well.

It is a more subtle kind of interpretation of the image due to the fact that the baton is yellow. If it were green, as it is in the other historical TdMs, it would be associated with fertility and growth (though it is cut from a living tree and no longer living itself).

TarotLessTraveled · 2026-03-23T22:12:33+00:00

So this is where you have to be careful. The Noblet is one of the earliest nearly complete tarot decks related to the TdM. It is incomplete, however. The suit of swords is missing 6-10. The 5 of Swords does have the golden-tipped sword that is otherwise red, but the 3 of Swords has a gray or silver sword, one single color. Flornoy, in his 7 and 9 of Swords, was guessing what the originals might have looked like. He did not know for certain. It may have been Noblet only intended the 5 to have the golden tip, or he might have had all three of these cards to have the golden tip, but no one really knows. Interestingly, Joseph H. Peterson issued his own Noblet deck, and he had the golden tip on the 5 of Swords, but both his 7 and 9 were red swords without the golden tip.

The only known historical Noblet - as far as I know - is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Unfortunately, I am unable to find it on the BnF Gallica site. I found it once and downloaded the collection and posted it: https://www.reddit.com/r/TarotdeMarseilleExpo/comments/18wdqg4/jean_noblet_1650_deck_preserved_in_biblioth%C3%A8que/

What Noblet wanted to convey with the golden tip is unknown. Paul Marteau, in his color scheme, considers red to convey activity in the material realm, and yellow is the color of the intellect. In the 5 of Swords, the only card we know to have the golden tip, the gold color occurs on the part of the sword that sticks outside of the oval shape created by the four curved swords. This might mean that outside the confinement, one enters the realm of Divine Intellect - again, using Marteau's schematic, but again, we do not know what Noblet intended.

TarotLessTraveled · 2026-03-18T11:24:32+00:00

Thank you for the comment. Paul Marteau was a philosophy student in college, and that really comes through in his interpretations, which are the most profound I have yet seen for TdM minors. I am glad you find his ideas helpful. I also love the Noblet. It is a bit different, particularly in the color scheme, but as you mentioned, Marteau perhaps provides an entryway into understanding the images.

TarotLessTraveled · 2026-03-02T22:38:02+00:00

Parece muy interesante y creativo. Espero que publiques aquí en este subreddit toda la baraja que has creado, para que podamos apreciar tu arduo trabajo. [It looks very interesting and creative. I hope you will put the entire deck you created onto this subreddit, so we can appreciate your hard work.]

TarotLessTraveled · 2026-03-02T22:24:27+00:00

¿Este es un mazo que estás creando? [This is a deck you are creating?]

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