Editing Lansquenet

{{Short description|Gambling game played with cards}}
{{for|the German mercenary soldiers|Landsknecht{{!}}''Landsknecht''}}
{{Infobox CardGame
| title = Lansquenet
| subtitle =
| image_link = Court cards 1694.jpg
| image_caption = ''[[Louis, Grand Dauphin|Grand Dauphin Louis]] plays Lansquenet at [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]] (1694)''
| Family =
| alt_names =
| type = Gambling
| players = 3+
| play = Clockwise
| num_cards = 40
| deck = Italian
| origin =
| related = [[Baccarat (card game)|Baccarat]], [[Monte Bank]], [[Basset (card game)|Basset]], [[Faro (banking game)|Faro]]
| playing_time = 5–10 min.
| random_chance = Easy
| skills = Chance, Counting
| footnotes =
}}
[[File:Jacob Duck - Soldiers Playing Cards in a Guardroom.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Jacob Duck]]: guardroom with soldiers playing cards, 17th century]]
'''Lansquenet''' is a [[banking game]] played with [[playing card|cards]], named after the French spelling of the German word [[Landsknecht]] ('servant of the land or country'), which refers to 15th- and 16th-century German [[mercenary]] foot soldiers; the lansquenet drum is a type of field drum used by these soldiers. It is recorded as early as 1534 by [[François Rabelais]] in ''[[Gargantua and Pantagruel]]''.

== Cards ==
Lansquenet is played with an [[Italian pack]] of 40 cards.

== Play ==

The dealer or banker stakes a certain sum, and this must be met by the nearest to the dealer first, and so on. When the stake is met, the dealer turns up one card and lays it to his right, for the table or the players, and another card in front of himself for the bank. He then keeps on turning up cards (while keeping the first two cards visible), until a card turns up with a value matching either of the first two cards. For instance, if the five of diamonds has been laid down for the bank, then any other five, regardless of suit, constitutes a win for the banker. If the table's card is matched first, he loses, and the next player on the left becomes banker and proceeds in the same way.

When the dealer's card turns up, he may take the stake and pass the bank; or he may allow the stake to remain, whereupon it becomes doubled if met. He can continue thus (doubling on each win) as long as the cards turn up in his favour (i.e., before the table's card appears, causing the banker to lose only his original stake) &ndash; having the option at any moment of giving up the bank and retiring for that time. If he does that, the player to whom he passes the bank has the option of continuing it at the same amount at which it was left. The pool may be re-made up by contributions of all the players in certain proportions (now including the previous bank player). The terms used respecting the standing of the stake are "I'll see" (''à moi le tout'') and ''Je tiens''.  When ''jumelle'' (twins), or the turning up of similar cards on both sides, occurs, then the dealer takes half the stake.

[[Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin|Robert-Houdin]] explained a mechanism by which a [[card sharp]] could cheat at lansquenet, by [[palming]] and then placing atop the deck a packet of cards in prepared order.<ref name="RobertHoudin">Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. [https://books.google.com/books?id=LYVRAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA285 ''Les tricheries des Grecs dévoilées: l'art de gagner à tous les jeux.''] Librarie Nouvelle: Paris, 1861. Pages 285–287.</ref>

== Cultural references ==
Lansquenet is listed by [[François Rabelais]] in ''[[Gargantua]]'' in 1534. The game is played by Porthos in the [[Alexandre Dumas, père|Alexandre Dumas]] novel ''[[The Three Musketeers]]''. Lansquenet is also played by D'Artagnan in the Dumas novel ''[[Twenty Years After]]''. Lucien Debray imagines Baroness Danglers might occupy herself with lansquenet in the Dumas novel ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]''. Lansquenet is played by various characters in the [[Pierre Choderlos de Laclos]] novel ''[[Les Liaisons dangereuses]]''.

A game in ''[[Le financier et le savetier]]'' (1856) by [[Jacques Offenbach]] enables the cobbler to win the hand of the financier's daughter. It is mentioned briefly in the novel ''[[À Rebours]]'' by [[Joris-Karl Huysmans]], and in the novel ''[[The General in his Labyrinth]]'' by [[Gabriel García Márquez]]. Lansquenet is played by two soldiers on a stone bench under an enclosed [[Populus|poplar]] as mentioned in Kinbote's note to line 130 in ''[[Pale Fire]]'' by [[Vladimir Nabokov]], and is also played by Fatima and her family in [[Charles Perrault]]'s [[Bluebeard]].

''[[Lansquenet-sous-Tannes]]'' is a fictional village in [[Joanne Harris]]' novel ''[[Chocolat (novel)|Chocolat]]''. It is mentioned in ''[[The Prague Cemetery]]'' by [[Umberto Eco]]. The game is mentioned in several of Georgette Heyer's historical novels. For example, in Chapter Thirteen of "[[The Masqueraders]]", Lansquenet is played in the novel ''[[The Luck of Barry Lyndon]]'' by [[William Makepeace Thackeray]]. Lanquenet is played by the protagonist in the 2022 video game ''[[Pentiment (video game)|Pentiment]]''.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
*Steinmetz, Andrew. [https://books.google.com/books?id=VDmcjBDdzZgC ''The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, In All Times and Countries, especially in England and France'']. Tinsley Brothers, 1870. {{ISBN|978-0-87585-096-2}} [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/466/466-h/466-h.htm]

==External links==
*{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Lansquenet|volume=16|page=185}}
*{{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Lansquenet |short=x}}

{{Banking games}}
[[Category:16th-century gambling games]]
[[Category:Banking games]]
[[Category:French gambling games]]