This page is a translated archive of the original Académie des jeux oubliés, created on July 1, 2026, from the French original at salondesjeux.fr.
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This page is a translated archive of the original Académie des jeux oubliés, created on July 1, 2026, from the French original at salondesjeux.fr.
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The Man of Brou
The Man of Brou is a card game similar to Brisque in the order of the cards, their value, and the importance of marriages, and to Bezique for the fixed moment at which melds must be declared. However, whereas these two games are played by only two players, the Man of Brou involves four players in teams of two, as in Whist, whose rules of play it follows. The geographical origin of the Man of Brou appears to be Switzerland or the surrounding French regions as far as Lyon. Joseph Vasselier (1735-1798), a member of the Academy of Lyon, left behind a facetiously toned manuscript entitled Sermon on the Man of Brou, Preached by a Reverend Capuchin Father in Lyon, on 18 October 1767. Voltaire also mentions the game in one of his letters written from Ferney in 1761. Its etymology does not appear to have been addressed. While there exist several other, far older card games featuring the word Man in their name, such as L'Homme, the Man of Auvergne, or even Hombre of Spanish origin, all these games have in common that they are ultimately played individually, and that "the man" is the name given to the player who undertakes, by contract, to win alone against all the others. The Man of Brou contains no such notion of a contract, and its name cannot in this sense be linked to any of these other games. It may, however, have been named this way in imitation of the name the Man of Auvergne, without regard for its etymology. Brou could, for instance, then be the town now called Bourg-en-Bresse where one can visit the royal monastery of Brou. But man of brou may just as well be an expression that could characterize the jack present in the grand marriage typical of the game, which consists of the union of the jack, the queen, and the king of the same suit. The Man of Brou is mentioned in Switzerland in 1885: "This is the hour when these ladies gather every Friday to play the Man of Brouc and then have a bit of a chat..." —— Universal Library and Swiss Review, vol. 3. It should be noted here that the name here reads Brouc rather than Brou. Several other Geneva references from 1828 and 1829 give a different spelling, citing the Man of Brouck as a game that had been very popular since the middle of the 18th century. The Man of Brou is still played avidly today in Switzerland in the canton of Vaux under the name game of Brouc. Its rules have been codified by the association L'homme de Brouc based in L'Etivaz. Brouc gives rise there to annual championships. The rules of the Man of Brou presented here differ slightly from Brouc, and follow those presented for the first time in The Universal Academy of Games, published in Lyon in 1802. 1. Number of players and deck of cards The Man
of Brou is played between two teams of two players with a deck of 32 cards.
Teammates sit facing each other, and each has an opposing player
on their right and on their left. The cards have a point value that depends on their rank: The ace is worth 11 points; the ten is worth 10; the king, 4; the queen, 3; the jack, 2. The low cards made up of the nine, the eight, and the seven, are worth no points. The order of the cards and their value are thus the same as in Brusquembille. The total number of points contained in all 32 cards is therefore 120 points.
Once the two teams have been formed, either by mutual agreement or by drawing lots, each player takes their place around the table. Each player draws a card at random from the deck spread on the table, face down. The dealer is whoever draws the lowest card. The
hierarchy of the cards for this operation is that of Piquet,
namely: The player seated to the dealer's right is first to play, and leads the first card of the hand. A hand ends when all the cards have been played. The dealer must leave the turned-up card exposed throughout the first trick, then, if they have not played it, take it into their hand.
The Man of Brou is a trick-taking game in which each team tries to score as many points as possible. The player of each team who takes the first trick keeps all of their team's tricks in front of them. Any player is permitted to look at the last trick that was taken. In addition, a player may look at all the tricks taken by their own team. Such checks may only be made when it is their turn to play, and must not change the order of the cards taken. Play of the cards follows the rules of Whist: — a player must
follow suit if holding a card of the suit led; The player who played the highest trump, or, failing a trump, who played the highest card of the suit led, takes the trick. The player who took the trick leads the first card for the next trick. The suit of that card becomes the suit led.
When the hand is over, all eight tricks having been played, each of the two teams counts the points contained in its tricks. For a total ending in 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4, the team scores only the tens. For example, for 50, 51, 52, 53, or 54, it will score only 50 points. For a total ending in 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, the team does not score the units but adds 10 points. For example, for 55, 56, 57, 58, or 59, it will score 60 points. The totals being rounded this way, their sum may equal 130 points instead of the 120 that the deck normally contains. This case arises only when the teams have each scored a number of points ending in 5. Hand after hand, each of the two teams totals its points acquired. Note: taking the last trick does not entitle a team to any bonus.
A game of the Man of Brou is played to 301 points. This means that the final hand of the game is counted without rounding. For example, a team that at the start of a hand had acquired 230 points (rounded points) would need to score at least 71 more to win the game. In the case where it scored only 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, or 70, it could record only 70, which would give it a total of only 300 points — insufficient to win the game, which would continue. But if it scored more than 70, it would win the game.
When a team reaches 301 points, it scores: — one
game, if the opposing team has scored at least 150 points; To understand how a team's score can become negative, one must look at marriages, which allow points to be scored and can sometimes cause points to be lost. If, before the end of a hand, a team believes, from the points acquired in its tricks and/or its marriages, that it has reached 301 points, it is entitled to end the game immediately. If, after checking, 301 points have indeed been reached, that team wins the game, but if they have not, then it is the opposing team that is credited with winning the game, as if it had itself reached 301 points. If 301 points are indeed reached, the losing team's score is frozen at the moment of the winning team's declaration. If 301 points are not reached, the team that claimed the win of the game not only loses it but also scores no points for that hand. The award of a single or multiple game depends on this result.
In the Man of Brou, a marriage is the pairing of the queen and king of the same suit, but also that of the jack, queen, and king of the same suit — in which case it is sometimes called a grand marriage. Marriages earn extra points but can also cause points to be lost. They may be declared or picked up on the table during a trick.
When a player takes a trick, they and their partner may declare all the marriages they each hold separately in hand. If they wish, for tactical reasons, they may declare only some of them. No card from the trick may be part of a declared marriage. A marriage declared by a player immediately earns their team: — for
the queen and king of trumps: 40 points For reference, note that outside of trumps each card of the marriage counts for 10 points, and in trumps it counts for 20 points.
When a player takes a trick containing a marriage, their team immediately scores a number of points equal to double what that same marriage would have earned if declared: — for
the queen and king of trumps: 80 points For reference, note that outside of trumps each card of the marriage counts for 20 points, and in trumps it counts for 40 points. The opposing team must at the same time deduct the same number of points from its score. This may result in a team's score becoming negative.
As we have seen, when a team reaches 301 points while the opposing team's score is negative, the first team wins a quadruple game. 7.4. Arranging Marriages in the Piles The cards won by a team are stacked face down in front of whichever of the two teammates took the first trick for their team. Tricks stacked this way are commonly called piles. The piles are placed on top of one another crosswise so that they can be told apart. When a trick contains a marriage, the lowest card of it must be placed face up on the pile. Thus, if it is a grand marriage the jack will remain visible to all, and if it is a simple marriage, it will be the queen. This pile must be arranged in such a way that the corresponding marriage can always be identified.
The slam (vole) is achieved by a team when it takes every trick in a hand. In other games such as Piquet or, more recently, Belote, this is called a capot. The team that takes the slam scores a flat three games.
When a team takes the slam, it scores a triple game, but all the points of the hand on which the slam is taken are cancelled, whether they are points from tricks or points from marriages. As a result: — if
the slam was taken on the first hand, both teams' scores
are reset to zero;
We have just seen that, in principle, it is not possible to win both the triple game tied to the slam and the game, single or multiple, tied to the 301 points made up of tricks and marriages. There is, however, a way to depart from this rule, but it is not without risk. For this to be possible, before playing to the fifth trick of a hand, the team that has taken every previous trick must commit to taking the slam by announcing it to the other team. Then, the player on lead, by declaring "game and slam," commits their team to taking the slam while also reaching 301 points on that hand. It follows that this team, at the moment of the declaration, must already have at least 190 points, since the 120 points from the eight tricks would then provide the total of 301 points needed to win the game.
The team that succeeds in taking the slam, having committed to it by the declaration "game and slam," scores: — three
games for the slam, As a result, "game and slam" can earn the announcing team anywhere from four to seven games.
As soon as the team opposing the one that declared "game and slam" takes a trick, the current game ends. The team that failed to achieve the slam it committed to wins no game at all. The opposing team scores the number of games the other would have scored had it made the slam. The opposing team's score is frozen at the trick preceding the one it has just taken. The points of the trick just taken do not count, nor do those linked to a marriage that could have been declared or made on the table on that trick.
We have seen that the declaration of "game and slam" may be made at will up through the fourth successful trick. Once the fifth trick has begun this is no longer possible. There is, however, a case where the declaration of "game and slam" can be forced before the second, the third, or the fourth trick. This is when a team, seeing that with the points from tricks or those from marriages, the other team already has the 301 points needed to win the game, may then request the game be stopped immediately. — if
the opposing team agrees, the scores are worked out to determine
the number of games won; Conceding is no longer possible once the fifth trick has begun.
The score is kept by just one of the players. It is kept in a two-column table drawn on a sheet of paper. The columns are headed Us and Them, and correspond respectively to the scorekeeper's team and to the opposing one. In the table, marriage points (positive or negative) are entered as soon as they occur, and at the end of the hand the number of rounded trick points scored. Before the next hand, the scorekeeper announces the overall total of points acquired by the two teams. As a reminder, the number of points scored on a hand is not rounded if it allows 301 points to be reached. To record games won it is preferable to use tokens — 1 token for a single game, 2 for a double, etc. Depending on the time available for play, a limit may be set to an agreed number of games. One might, for example, play to 10, 12, or 14 games represented by that many tokens. The team that is first to reach this target will be declared the winner.
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