It is quoted by the French poet Marc Papillon de Lasphrise in 1597.
Under the name coucou it is mentioned in Rabelais' long list of games (in Gargantua, 1534).
It is played with a standard deck of 52 cards by two people, designated the dealer and the receiver.
Then, the dealer may choose to exchange with the top card of the deck, unless the top card is a king, in which case no exchange occurs.
[1] Le her played a role in the development of the mathematical theory of probability with solutions, being sought by Bernoulli and de Montmort.