Quadrille (card game)

Quadrille is a card game that was highly popular in the 18th century at the French court and among the British nobility, especially women.

[1] Having become "one of the great European games for about a hundred years" by the mid-19th century, Quadrille had fallen out of fashion, superseded by Whist and Boston.

"[5] The 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen includes four references to Quadrille being played by an upper class character, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and her guests.

It is also frequently mentioned in The Diary of a Country Parson 1758-1802 kept by James Woodforde, edited by John Beresford.

A pamphlet written in Dublin in 1736, supposedly proposing new rules for the game, caused uproar when it became clear that it was simply a pretext for a vicious attack by the author, Archbishop Josiah Hort, on his enemy Richard Bettesworth MP.

However, in the red suits, for historical reasons, the order of the pip cards is reversed: K > Q > Kn > A > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 7.

The player who wins the auction becomes the Hombre ("The Man") or declarer, names the trump suit and aims to make six of the ten tricks.

Originally, each player anted an agreed stake in counters or fishes to the pool at the start of each deal.

Quanti mentions that, in some circles, the additional contracts of Grandissimo and Nemo are added, "forming a pleasing diversity".