Guide · 5 min

How to read Marseille pips

No scenes on the pips — every minor is read from its number and its suit. It feels like a wall the first time — no figures, no story to lean on. But the method is small and it always works the same way: take what the suit governs, take what the number does, and read where they meet.

Start with the suit

Each suit names a register of life. That register is the room every pip in the suit stands in.

Batons

Bâtons · will and work

Cups

Coupes · feeling and relation

Swords

Épées · thought and conflict

Coins

Deniers · matter and means

Then read the number

The number is the same idea in every suit — it describes the shape of the count, not the picture. Ace builds to ten, then tips over.

Each count runs through all four suits — follow any one into its card.

  1. Ace

    The pure root of the suit — the seed, the suit at its most concentrated and least shaped.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  2. Two

    Division and pairing: the suit meets itself, an exchange or a choice between two of the same thing.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  3. Three

    The first result — the two has produced something; a small whole, growth you can point to.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  4. Four

    Stability and structure: the square, a pause, the suit held still long enough to rest on.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  5. Five

    The four disturbed — friction, loss of balance, the count where the suit meets resistance.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  6. Six

    Harmony restored: the exchange settles, a turning back toward ease after the five.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  7. Seven

    Effort against resistance — the unstable step past six, holding a position that wants to slip.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  8. Eight

    Order re-formed and set in motion: the suit organised, work underway rather than stalled.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  9. Nine

    Near-fullness — the suit almost complete, its weight felt, one short of the whole.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins
  10. Ten

    The suit overflowing: completion tipping over its own edge, an ending that spills into the next.

    BatonsCupsSwordsCoins

The courts

The four courts — Valet, Cavalier, Queen, King — are the suit carried by a person. The Valet is the suit being learned; the Cavalier is the suit in motion, carried somewhere; the Queen holds it inwardly; the King holds it outwardly, with authority. The suit's register tells you what kind of authority that is.

What it looks like

The Five of Coins. Not a scene to interpret — the number five in the suit of earth. Five is the count where the four's stability is disturbed; Deniers is the suit of body, money, and what holds. Read together: a shake in the material ground — a shortfall, an insecurity about means, the moment the structure you were resting on stops feeling solid. No beggars in the snow required; the number and the suit already said it.

Compare the scene-based reading on the Five of Pentacles card page.

The Tarot de MarseilleThe trumps, the suits, the edition

Every card on Familiar shows both traditions — the Rider–Waite–Smith scene and the Marseille reading — so you can hold a pip up to both at once.