Triomphe

Triomphe (French for triumph) is a card game dating from the late 15th or early 16th centuries. It originated in either France, Spain (as triunfo), or Italy (as trionfo) and later spread to Germany and England. It may have started as a simplified version of trionfi (tarot) where the rules were transferred to a smaller and cheaper deck, essentially a poor man's tarot game. While trionfi has a fifth suit that acts as permanent trumps, triomphe randomly selects one of the existing four suits as trumps. Triomphe became so popular that during the 16th century the earlier game of trionfi was gradually renamed tarocchi, tarot, or tarock. This game is the origin of the English word "trump" and is the ancestor of many trick-taking games like Euchre (via Écarté) and Whist (via Ruff and Honours).

French rules

17th century French Triomphe, or French Ruff, was played by four players divided into two partnerships with a 52-card deck. The order of the cards from highest to lowest is King, Queen, Jack, Ace, 10, 9 ... 2. Each player takes a card from the deck, the one with the highest card becomes the dealer and passes five cards face down to everyone. The remaining 32 cards form the stock. The dealer then turns up a card from the stock, the suit of that card will be the trump suit. An optional rule is that the player with the Ace of trumps gets to exchange the exposed card with one from his hand. He can do the same with the remainder of the stock taking any trumps until he exposes a non-trump. This is called robbing the stock. If the dealer exposes an ace as the trump, then he gets the right to rob the stock. The current dealer picks the next dealer out of the opposing team.

Puy du Fou

Puy du Fou [pɥi dy fu] is a historical theme park in Les Epesses (between Cholet and La Roche-sur-Yon) in the heart of the Vendée region of Western France. The park brings in some 2 million visitors every year, making it the fourth most popular attraction in France after Disneyland Paris.

History

The history of the Puy du Fou (literally "Volcanic hill of the beech") as a theme park started in 1977 when Philippe de Villiers, a twenty-seven-year-old student (now a French politician) and Jean Saint Bris, a young creator of son et lumière shows in the Loire Valley, decided to create an original show named the Cinéscénie which means "the stage in moving".

When they discovered on the 13th of June 1977 the ruins of an old renaissance castle in the village of Les Epesses near Cholet, they wrote a good scenario very quickly about a local family named Maupillier (the real name of a soldier of Vendée at the time of the conflict between Vendée and the French Republic during the French Revolution), spanning from the fourteenth century until World War II.

Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (French pronunciation: [aʁk də tʁijɔ̃f də letwal], Triumphal Arch of the Star) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (originally named Place de l'Étoile), at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. It should not be confused with a smaller arch, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which stands west of the Louvre. The Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.

The Arc de Triomphe is the linchpin of the Axe historique (historic axis) – a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route which runs from the courtyard of the Louvre to the Grande Arche de la Défense. The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806 and its iconographic program pits heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail. It set the tone for public monuments with triumphant patriotic messages.