Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography

by Albert A. Hopkins

Jean Eugène Robert, afterwards known to fame by the cognomen of Robert-Houdin, was born at Blois, the birthplace of Louis XII, on the sixth of December, 1805. His father was a watchmaker. At the age of eleven Robert was sent to a Jesuit college at Orleans, preparatory to the study of law, and was subsequently apprenticed to a notary at Blois, but finding the transcribing of musty deeds a tiresome task, he prevailed on his father to let him follow the trade of a watchmaker. While working in this capacity, he chanced one day to enter a bookseller’s shop to purchase a treatise on mechanics, and was handed by mistake a work on conjuring. The marvels contained in this volume fired his imagination, and this incident decided his future career, but he did not realize his ambition until later in life, when De l’Escalopier came to his aid.

In his early study of sleight-of-hand Houdin soon recognized that the organs performing the principal part are the sight and touch. He says in his memoirs: “I had often been struck by the ease with which pianists can read and perform at sight the most difficult pieces. I saw that, by practice, it would be possible to create a certainty of perception and facility of touch, rendering it easy for the artist to attend to several things simultaneously, while his hands were busy employed with some complicated task. This faculty I wished to acquire and apply to sleight-of-hand; still, as music could not afford me the necessary element, I had recourse to the juggler’s art.” Residing at Blois at the time was a mountebank who, for a consideration, initiated the young Houdin into the mysteries of juggling, enabling him to juggle four balls at once and read a book at the same time. “The practice of this feat,” continues Houdin, “gave my fingers a remarkable degree of delicacy and certainty, while my eye was at the same time acquiring a promptitude of perception that was quite marvelous.”

On Thursday evening, July 3, 1845, Houdin’s first Fantastic Evening took place in a small hall of the Palais Royal. The little auditorium would seat only two hundred people, but the prices of admission were somewhat high, front seats being rated at $1 or five francs, and no places were to be had under forty sous. The stage set represented a miniature drawing-room in white and gold in the Louis XV style. In the center was an undraped table, flanked by two small side tables of the lightest possible description; at the side wings or walls were consoles, with about five inches of gilt fringe hanging from them; and across the back of the room ran a broad shelf, upon which were displayed the various articles to be used in the séances. A chandelier and elegant candelabra made the little scene brilliant. The simplicity of everything on the conjurer’s stage disarmed suspicion; apparently there was no place for the concealment of anything. Prior to Houdin’s day the wizards draped all of their tables to the floor, thereby making them little else than ponderous confederate boxes. Conjuring under such circumstances was child’s play, as compared with the difficulties to be encountered with the apparatus of the new school. In addition, Houdin discarded the long, flowing robes of many of his predecessors, as savoring too much of charlatanism, and appeared in evening dress. Since his time, no first-class prestidigitateur has dared to offend good taste, by presenting his illusions in any other costume than that of a gentleman habited à la mode, nor has he dared to give a performance with draped tables. In fact, modern professors of the art magique have gone to extremes on the question of tables and elaborate apparatus, many of them using simple little guéridons with glass tops, unfringed. Houdin’s center table was a marvel of mechanical skill and ingenuity. Concealed in the body were “vertical rods each arranged to rise and fall in a tube, according as it was drawn down by a spiral spring or pulled up by a whip-cord which passed over a pulley at the top of the tube and so down the table leg to the hiding place of the confederate.” There were “ten of these pistons, and the ten cords, passing under the floor of the stage, terminated at a keyboard. Various ingenious automata were actuated by this means of transmitting motion.” The consoles were nothing more than shallow wooden boxes with openings through the side scenes. The tops of the consoles were perforated with traps. Any object which the wizard desired to work off secretly to his confederate behind the scenes was placed on one of these traps and covered with a paper, metal cover, or a handkerchief. Touching a spring caused the article to fall noiselessly through the trap upon cotton batting, and roll into the hands of the conjurer’s alter ego, or concealed assistant.

Let us now look at some of the illusions of the classic prestidigitateur of France. By far his best and greatest invention is the “light and heavy chest,” of which he himself wrote: “I do not think, modesty apart, that I ever invented anything so daringly ingenious.” The conjurer came forward with a little wooden box, to the top of which was attached a metal handle, and remarked as follows to the audience: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have here a cash box which possesses some peculiar qualities. I place in it, for example, a lot of bank-notes, for safe-keeping, and by mesmeric power I can make the box so heavy that the strongest man cannot lift it. Let us try the experiment.” He placed the box on the run-down, which served as a means of communication between the stage and the audience, and requested the services of a volunteer assistant.

When the latter had satisfied the audience that the box was almost as light as a feather, the conjurer executed his pretended mesmeric passes, and bade the gentleman lift it a second time. But try as he might, with all his strength, the volunteer would prove unequal to the task. Reverse passes over the demon box restored it to its pristine lightness. This extraordinary trick is performed as follows: Underneath the cloth cover of the run-down, at a spot marked, was a powerful electro-magnet with conducting wires reaching behind the scenes to a battery. At a signal from the magician a secret operator turned on the electric current, and the box, which had an iron bottom, clung to the electro-magnet with supernatural attraction. It is needless to remark that the bottom of the cash box was painted to represent mahogany, so as to correspond with the top and sides.

The phenomena of electro-magnetism were entirely unknown to the general public in 1845, when this trick of the spirit cash-box was first presented. As may be well imagined, it created a profound sensation. When people became more enlightened on the subject of electricity, Houdin added an additional effect, in order to throw the public off the scent as to the principle on which the experiment was based. After first having exhibited the trick on the “run-down,” he hooked the box to one end of a rope which passed over a pulley attached to the ceiling of the hall. Several gentlemen were now invited to hold the disengaged end of the rope. They were able to raise and lower the box with perfect ease, but at a wave of the magician’s wand the little chest descended slowly to the floor, lifting off their feet the spectators who were holding the rope, to the astonishment of everyone. The secret lay in the pulley and block. The rope, instead of passing straight over the pulley, in on one side and out on the other, went through the block and through the ceiling, working over a double pulley on the floor above, where a workman at a windlass held his own against the united power of the five or six gentlemen below. It is a simple mechanical principle and will be easily understood by those acquainted with mechanical power.

Houdin’s orange tree, that blossomed and bore fruit in sight of the audience, was a clever piece of mechanism. The blossoms, constructed of tissue paper, were pushed up through the hollow branches of the tree by the pistons rising in the table and operating against similar pistons in the orange-tree box. When these pedals were relaxed the blossoms disappeared and the fruit was gradually developed—real fruit, too, which was distributed among the spectators. The oranges were stuck on iron spikes affixed to the branches of the tree and hid from view by hemispherical wire screens painted green and secreted by the leaves. When these screens were swung back by pedal play the fruit was revealed. In performing this illusion Houdin first borrowed a handkerchief from a lady in the audience, and caused it to pass from his hand into an orange left on the tree. When the disappearance was effected, the fruit opened, revealing the handkerchief in its center. Two mechanical butterflies, exquisitely made, then took the delicate piece of cambric or lace and flew upwards with it. The handkerchief of course was exchanged in the beginning of the trick for a dummy belonging to the magician. It was worked into the mechanical orange by an assistant, before the tree was brought forward for exhibition.

Houdin was very fond of producing magically bon-bons, small fans, toys, bouquets, and bric-à-brac from borrowed hats. These articles he distributed with liberal hand among the spectators, exclaiming: “Here are toys for young children and old.” There was always a great scramble for these souvenirs. The conjurer found time to edit and publish a small comic newspaper, “Cagliostro,” copies of which were handed to every one in the theatre. The contents of this journal pour rire were changed from evening to evening, which entailed no small labor on the part of the hard-worked prestidigitateur. It was illustrated with comic cartoons, and was eagerly perused between the acts.

Here is one of Houdin’s bon mots: Le Ministre de l’Intérieur ne recevra pas demain, mais le Ministre des Finances recevra tous les jours ... et jours suivants.

The crowning event of Houdin’s life was his embassy to Algeria to counteract the influence of the Marabout priests over the ignorant Arabs. The Marabouts are Mohammedan miracle workers, and are continually fanning the flames of rebellion and discontent against French domination. The French Government invited Robert-Houdin to go to Algeria and perform before the Arabs in order to show them that a French wizard was greater than a Marabout fakir. It was pitting Greek against Greek! The marvels of optics, chemistry, electricity, and mechanics which Houdin had in his repertoire, coupled with his digital dexterity, were well calculated to evoke astonishment and awe. How well the famous French wizard succeeded in his mission is a matter of history. A full account of his adventures among the Arabs is contained in his memoirs and makes very entertaining reading. After his successful embassy to the land of the white bournous and turban, Houdin returned to France and settled down at St. Gervais near Blois, giving his time to electrical studies and inventions.