52 cards · Sibylle des Salons
Sibyl of the Salons online
The 52-card French oracle, read in pairs: draw your cards on the Santa Sara cloth, discover the combinations and open the Grand Tableau.
Draw the Sibyl
Sibyl spreads
What the Sibyl is
The Sibyl of the Salons (La Sibylle des Salons) is a 52-card French oracle of 19th-century everyday scenes: love, the letter, the journey, the visit, money. Each card carries a playing-card inset in its corner. The best-known edition was printed by Grimaud in Paris, and the drawings are traditionally attributed to the illustrator Grandville.
It is read much like the Lenormand: direct cards, no reversals, whose meaning comes from the combinations. Here you draw the Sibyl on the Santa Sara cloth.
How to read it
- There are no reversals: every card is read upright.
- Cards are read in pairs: the first is the subject, the second qualifies it (Love Note + Journey = news of love from far away).
- The male Querent (19) and the female Querent (20) represent you; in the Grand Tableau, the cards around them show what is closest.
- Each card has a polarity, positive, negative or neutral, that sets the tone of a combination.
The 52 Sibyl cards
Tap a card to see its meaning in love, work, as a person and in timing.
- 1. Love
- 2. The Sincere Friend
- 3. Absence
- 4. Waiting
- 5. Much Money
- 6. The Love Note
- 7. Annoyance
- 8. Grief and Tears
- 9. Gossip
- 10. Spite
- 11. Hope
- 12. The Enemy
- 13. The Obstacle
- 14. The Flatterer
- 15. Fidelity
- 16. The Man of Law
- 17. Inconstancy
- 18. The Gamblers
- 19. The Querent (Man)
- 20. The Querent (Woman)
- 21. Death
- 22. The Wicked Woman
- 23. The Soldier
- 24. The Town House
- 25. The Country House
- 26. Marriage
- 27. Illness
- 28. Thought
- 29. Presents
- 30. Loss of Money
- 31. The Protector
- 32. Traps
- 33. The Country Outing
- 34. Pleasures
- 35. The Quarrel
- 36. Delay
- 37. The Man of Means
- 38. Reconciliation
- 39. An Important Revelation
- 40. Success
- 41. Surprise
- 42. Tenderness
- 43. The Fair-Haired Woman
- 44. The Widow
- 45. A Little Money
- 46. The Letter
- 47. The Dark-Haired Young Man
- 48. The Dark-Haired Woman
- 49. The Thief
- 50. The Journey
- 51. The Visit
- 52. Victory
Artwork: La Sibylle des Salons, printed by B.-P. Grimaud, Paris, c. 1890, drawings attributed to Grandville. Scans by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica), public domain.