Drogue

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Making trumps
5. Playing the tricks
6. Who wears the drogue
7. Punishment pegs
8. The mute game: signs
9. Winning the game
10. Tips for beginners
11. Variants

Overview

Drogue was the card game of French soldiers and sailors in the early 19th century. Two partnerships play tricks for card points – but nobody plays for money. Instead, the losers must wear a drogue: a small split wooden peg clipped onto the nose, kept on until they win it off again. Mistakes earn extra "punishment pegs", and in the silent version, players wearing a peg may only talk to their partner in signs – a twisted jaw for clubs, a glance at the sky for diamonds, a closed eye for an Ace.

The only surviving rules are a 32-page booklet, Règle du jeu de la Drogue (Paris, 1836), "by a captain of dragoons and a captain of infantry", who collected them from veteran players in a military hospital in 1830. The booklet leaves some things out; where this page has to fill a gap, it says so.

• Players: 4, in two partnerships; partners sit opposite each other.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers; about 20 clothes pegs, a few of them in a second colour for punishment pegs; and a washable face-paint pencil or small stickers.

About the pegs: the soldiers wore them on the nose, and the booklet insists they must grip firmly but not hurt. Clip them to an ear, a collar or a sleeve instead if you prefer – the booklet already allowed ears "when there are too many", and smokers could hang theirs on their lit pipe.

The cards

Take out all cards from 2 to 6; you play with 32 cards (7 to Ace). The booklet sorts them into:

• Mandrins – the four Jacks. They are always the four highest trumps, in this order: J♣ (the gros Mandrin, "big Mandrin"), J♠, J♥, and J♦ (the Mandrin chiard, the weakest).
• Brisques – Aces and Tens.
• Figures – Kings and Queens.
• Low cards – 9, 8, 7.

The booklet doesn't say how the other cards rank. We use the order of the games where Aces and Tens are called brisques (such as Bezique): A 10 K Q 9 8 7 in every suit, with the four Jacks on top of the trump suit.

After each deal, the cards in each side's tricks are counted:

The deck holds 120 points.

Setup

1. Partners: deal cards face up round the table until every player has received a King. The two players with Kings of the same colour are partners and sit opposite each other. Whoever received the first King deals (or lets the player on their right deal). (The booklet only says that partners are chosen by the Kings and that "the first King drawn deals"; how to draw is up to you.)
2. Talking or mute: agree whether you play au parler ("talking") or à la muette ("mute"). In the mute game, players wearing a peg may only communicate in signs (see below).
3. Dealing: the dealer shuffles, another player cuts, and the dealer deals 8 cards each, in packets of four or two, starting with the player on the right and going round to the right (anticlockwise). Play also goes to the right.

Making trumps

Trumps are one suit: any trump beats any card of another suit. They are chosen by the players' declarations, which always combine the cards of one suit with at least one Jack.

1. The player on the dealer's right starts: they announce how many cards they could make trumps with – their cards of one suit plus their Jacks. For example, A♥ K♥ 9♥ with J♣ and J♠ is five cards.
2. In turn, each other player may announce a higher number (or the same number, hoping for the higher point – see next step) or pass. A player who passes says so (mute sign: sweep a hand flat across the table from left to right).
3. If two players announce the same number, the higher point wins (if that ties too, the earlier announcement stands – our suggestion). For this count only, the cards take their ordinary value: Ace 11, King, Queen, Jack and Ten 10, the others their face value. The five cards above make 11 + 10 + 9 + 10 + 10 = 50.
4. The winner shows the cards to prove it and names the suit as trumps. They have "made the cards".

Restrictions:

• No Jack, no trumps: you can't declare without a Jack.
• At most seven cards can be declared.
• Never all four Jacks: if you hold all four, you may show only three – so with six cards including four Jacks, you declare five – and you must call "Qui vive pour les quatre Mandrins!" ("Who goes there – four Mandrins!"). You may pass instead, but you must still make the call.

The booklet doesn't say what happens if everyone passes; we suggest a new deal by the same dealer.

Playing the tricks

A trick is one round in which each player plays one card. The player on the dealer's right leads (plays the first card). Then, going to the right, everyone must:

• follow suit – play a card of the suit led – and beat the best card so far if they can (en forçant, "forcing");
• if they have none of the suit, play a trump;
• only if they can do neither, play any card.

The highest trump wins the trick; if none was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. The winner leads to the next trick. Remember that the four Jacks belong to the trump suit.

Example: Hearts are trumps. Anna leads the K♠. Ben must beat it if he can – he plays the A♠. Carla has no spades, so she must trump: she plays the 7♥. Dan has no spades either and trumps with the J♦, the lowest Jack, which still beats every heart. Dan wins the trick for Ben and Dan: 4 + 11 + 0 + 2 = 17 points.

Who wears the drogue

After the deal, each side adds up the points in its tricks.

After the first deal: the side with fewer points takes the drogue – each of its players puts on one peg. (At 60–60 nobody does; the next deal counts as the first one – our suggestion.)

After that: the side without pegs must make at least 41 points. If it makes fewer, it takes the drogue, and the other side is released: each of its players takes the peg off by showing, in the new hand, a Jack other than the J♦. A player who can't show one keeps the peg for now – they are cané dans la guérite, "stuck in the sentry box". The booklet adds that if their side then makes fewer than 31 points, they are rengagés, "re-enlisted".

Pegs go on after the next deal. While the cards are dealt ("the parade"), players may take their ordinary pegs off and talk. When the deal is done, the dealer – or, if the dealer wears a peg, the next player – calls "Aux armes!" ("To arms!"), and all pegs go back on; in the mute game they also call "Silence!".

Disgraces (vilenies) cost extra pegs, whichever side you are on:

• Débrisqué: no Ace or Ten in your side's tricks – take a peg.
• Défiguré: no King or Queen in your side's tricks – clip a peg to your buttonhole until you win a trick with a King or Queen in it.
• Capot: no tricks at all – take a peg, or two.
• Courte-queue: the clean side makes exactly 40 – it takes the drogue at once.

A clean side with a disgrace takes the drogue at once. Players already wearing pegs take one more for each disgrace (recharger, "reloading").

Example: Anna and Carla are clean; Ben and Dan wear pegs. This deal, Anna and Carla make only 38 points: they take the drogue. Ben shows the J♠ in his new hand and takes his peg off; Dan holds only the J♦ and stays "in the sentry box".

Punishment pegs

A punishment peg (drogue de punition, in another colour) is given for:

• not following suit, not forcing, or not trumping when you could;
• playing out of turn; cheating, if caught;
• declaring trumps without a Jack (discovered later);
• forgetting "Qui vive pour les quatre Mandrins!";
• talking in the mute game (see below);
• when three players wear pegs, the fourth forgetting to greet them after "Aux armes!" with "Salut à mes honorables factionnaires!" ("Greetings, my honourable sentries!").

Punishment pegs never come off during the parade. They are removed like this: when the dealer's deck is cut, the cutter asks each player wearing one which Jack they name to relieve them (if the cutter wears one, the dealer asks them). You name one Jack per punishment peg, but never the J♦, so at most three. After the deal, whoever holds a named Jack must call "Qui vive!" for it, or take a punishment peg. If it is in your own hand, one punishment peg comes off; if it is in another hand, yours stays. Several players may name the same Jack, but it frees only one.

Black nose (schwartz naz): the player who made trumps and loses their Ace of trumps to anyone gets a black mark on the nose (face paint or a sticker). It is removed in the same way as a punishment peg.

A player wearing a peg whose eight cards contain no King or Queen may ask for a new deal.

The mute game: signs

In the mute game, players wearing a peg may not speak except to say "Je demande la parole" ("I ask to speak") – and they may speak only after someone answers "Accordée" ("Granted"). Instead, they use these signs – to declare, to pass and to tell their partner about their cards:

Winning the game

Drogue has no end: the pegs simply go back and forth. Play for an agreed time; the side wearing fewer pegs at the end has won. (This is our suggestion – the booklet doesn't say.)

Tips for beginners

• Count the 41. As the clean side, you don't need to win – just make 41 points. Save your Aces and Tens and let the opponents have tricks with low cards.
• Jacks are your way out. Keep in mind which Jacks are left: you need a J♣, J♠ or J♥ to take a peg off.
• Protect your trump Ace if you made trumps – losing it earns you a black nose.
• Learn the signs before you start. A mute game with players pulling faces is half the fun.

Variants

Agree on these before you start.

• On the nose: wear the pegs as the soldiers did – but use pegs that don't pinch too hard.
• Natural order: if you prefer, rank the cards A K Q 10 9 8 7 below the Jacks; the booklet doesn't decide it.
• The four Jacks: the booklet says that the four Jacks "may not be played consecutively by the same players", on pain of a punishment peg. What exactly this means is unclear; one possible reading is that a side may not play all four Jacks one after the other.