Before I go any further, below is the PDF with Fontaine’s assigned meanings for the cards, which explains it better:
You’ll need this on hand, because now we need to discuss…
FONTAINE’S WAY OF READING THE PIQUET/EUCHRE DECK
As you can see from the picture at the beginning of this lesson, Fontaine’s spread calls for laying out all thirty-two cards, in Grand Tableau fashion. Neither of the two card reading methods Agnes Miall gives for reading this deck employ every single card in the deck like Fontaine’s approach does. But Fontaine’s spread is not read in the same way the traditional Grand Tableau is. Fontaine strings each card together in an elaborate, on-going story, starting with the first card and making his way to card 32. (For an example of this, see pages 96-97 in Fontaine’s Golden Wheel Fortune Teller and Dream Book at InternetArchive.org). A rather nineteenth century way of going about it, in my opinion, but hey, sometimes that approach may be best, and it’s good practice in learning how to tell a story with the cards. Below is a PDF answer sheet I devised for this lay-out. I included a line below each card-space, because I find when trying to form a cohesive story, it helps to have some meaning-identifiers written below each card:
Fontaine specifies that the reader shuffle the deck three times, but I say, shuffle as many times as you feel necessary, although if you want to stay close to the three-times-only rule, six or nine shuffles are fine, being multiples of three.
The person being read-for is then to cut the deck three times in succession, which sounds like that could be as many as four piles (but when I read that, I heard the traditional three-piles-to-the-left-with-your-left-hand). As to which pile is picked-up first, Fontaine does not specify, so it is up to the reader to intuit in what order to pick up the piles the inquirer has cut.
The reader then fans out the full deck of cards, and the person being read-for is invited to draw one card from anywhere in the deck. This is the First Card, and it is the card of the most importance in Fontaine’s spread, because it give a key clue to the character of the person for whom you are reading (see list of meanings PDF above).
Fontaine says you can also glean the whole future course of the subject’s life from the First Card. If its meaning is a happy one, the individual will enjoy a happy life, if it has an unhappy significance, the individual will have an unhappy life. It also determines who all the court cards in the spread are to the subject. If the person you’re reading-for is a male, and the First Card is, for example, the Seven of Clubs, then the Knave (Jack) of Clubs in the spread is considered to represent him in the reading. The King of Clubs will be either his father or his uncle, or another older male relative, and the Queen of Clubs will be the lady he’s interested in. The court cards of the other same-color suit (Spades) will represent his friends and relations.
If you’re reading for a woman and the first card she chooses is, for example, the Eight of Hearts, then the Queen of Hearts in the spread is considered to represent her in the reading. The King of Hearts will represent her father, her uncle, or some other older male relative, and the Jack (Knave) of Hearts represents the fellow she’s interesting in, dating, or is her lover. The court cards of the other same-color suit (Diamonds) will represent her friends and relations.
For both males and females, the court cards of the other-color suits will represent all others, whether they’re co-workers, neighbors, employers, enemies, strangers, etc.
The card in the second and ninth positions are the next-most-important, for they say something about the inquirer’s life-situation and character. Say our Seven of Clubs fellow above has Nine of Diamonds in the position two, and the Seven of Diamonds in position nine. We know from the fact his First Card is the Seven of Clubs that money has never been a problem for him; he’s either inherited it, or he’s had no trouble earning it. Since it’s a Club, he may be a lawyer, or work in some capacity connected with the law. The Nine of Diamonds to the right of the first card says he’s a godparent to somebody, possibly someone else in the reading, and that he might have recently suffered an illness or injury. The Seven of Diamonds below him indicates he travels a lot. He may have done time in the military, or he has worked on a political campaign for a candidate for office, or both.
The same approach is taken in order to discern the character of all the other court cards in the spread—the card to a court card’s immediate right and directly below it both give a description of that individual’s life situation and characteristics. If the court card ends up on the right-hand side of the spread, in the numbers eight, sixteen, twenty-four positions, then the card to its immediate left and below it give the character description. If a court card ends up in the number thirty-two position, the last card in the spread, then the card immediately above it and the card to its immediate left will give the character description.