"With A Juggler You Will Visit Many Lands"

Here is one of the books that fortune tellers like Madame Prewster and Madame Morrow (see links below for more on them) used when New Yorkers ventured into the seedier parts of downtown to consult them in the mid-19th century. The mysterious Madam Le Marchand - or an unknown writer posing as Madam - published this Fortune Teller and Dreamer's Dictionary in 1863.

Le Marchand's book told both the professional and amateur fortune teller how to read cards, tea and coffee grounds, eggs, apple-parings, the palm of a client's hand or the moles on their body. It contained a dictionary of dreams and a "Ladies' Love Oracle" with which one could foretell your matrimonial future. In addition, you would learn "the art of discovering truth from falsehood." This is, of course, precisely what a detective does, though by other means than apple-parings and eggs (unless the mystery involves a restauranteur, I suppose). Le Marchand's book will figure in Frozen Charlotte, though I will not tell you how (one of the central characters is a fortune teller, though).

The questions and answers given in the book are generally of the predictable you-will-marry-a-dark-man type - but some are quirky, seeming to be personal to the writer (whoever he or she was). Here are just a few of these odd writing prompts. The answers are more evocative than the questions: 

Questions To Which the Oracle Replies 

Where will my pranks lead me?
Shall I lose my law-suit?
Shall I receive what is promised me?
What is a wise woman?
Are not my advances imprudent?
When shall I begin to grow old? 

Answers to the Oracle 

Be careful, you are watched.
An afflicted woman, nineteen years old.
Yes; but you will be his dupe.
The prima donna of a foreign theater.
Yes, from an uncle in California.
The rival of Madame Blanc.
Like the reeds of Phrygia.
Not if you have a good lawyer.
Yes, with a mask.
Be not an ignoramus.
Something that does not really exist.
Before the year 1941.
With a juggler you will visit many lands.

I wonder what a client would make of some of these answers. After all, in the 1860s, it was a given that almost anything would happen before 1941. And how many non-circus people would really expect to travel with a juggler?


Sometimes - probably quite often - the fortune teller would not be able to come up with an answer that satisfied the client. Madam Le Marchand understood this dilemma and provided the following exit lines. All but the first two put the blame squarely on the client for asking the wrong sort of question:

The Oracle is mute upon this question.
I am too discreet to tell it you.
How curious you are! 
Ask not here, madame.
No answer to your foolish question.

For more about fortune tellers in Victorian New York City, here are some related Dime Museum posts about them:

Madame Lolo Lulu
The Astonishing Madame Morrow
The Dark Doings of Madame Prewster
"I Knew My Fortune Already": Mrs. Hillis and Madame Phebe
Countess Habeba
Fred Bell, Eastern Mystic
Mrs. Hicks: Brooklyn's Favorite Palmist
Lady Gonzales: "Diploma In Parlor"

I can confidently predict that there will be more of these. When? As Madam Le Marchand would reply: That depends on circumstances.