kwaw
Rosanne said:What is symbolic about the 'one foot' bit?
Don't know. Boiado in his tarot poem uses a 'foot' idiom in reference to Laura who 'never put a foot wrong', that is, everything she did was perfect, she did everything right. Our hanged man however, appears to have got off on the wrong foot with someone, or been planted on the wrong foot (plante sur le pied gauche) or taken a wrong foot and strayed from the path of righteousness.
Perhaps the hanged man as traitor, seeking to keep a foot in both camps, has been found out and 'pulled up' by one of them. He has lost everything, certainly he no longer has 'the world at his feet'. Whatever plans he had they appear to have been scuppered, the rug has been pulled from beneath his feet. He is likely to die soon, or as we say, has one foot in the grave. He is certainly between the foot and square (in the height of affliction, the middle of danger, entre le pied & le carreau).
A prudent man treads carefully, our hanged man seems to have been imprudent; or as Gebelin would have it, is actually prudent (and putting his best foot forward and treading carefully with aforethought) but been turned upside down by mistake. And there are some examples of him being upright, though generally it is these that are considered to have been turned in error.
Ironically for someone hung up by the foot and unable to go anywhere we have the saying ‘to have one foot raised, or one foot in the air’, meaning always ready to go, depart, move on; or always ready with an off the cuff remark, able to make an extempore, improvisional speech, a witty retort. Someone dangerous, a stirrer, an agitator who stirs things up then leaves (it could be dangerous, after all, for the agitator to 'hang around' after stirring things up).
(Avoir un pied en l'air, un pied levé, un pied qui remue. Être prêt à partir, à se déplacer. .. Mais tu n'as pas, comme moi, un pied qui remue, et toujours prêt à partir… Il serait dangereux de laisser trop longuement à tout ce monde-là le pied en l'air.)
Also a foot is by definition an inferior part that supports a thing; the traitors foot is raised, the inferior part no longer supports him just as the treacherous 'inferior' failed to support his superiors.