The earliest notice of ventriloquial illusion, as carried out in modern times, has reference to Louis Brabant, valet-de-chambre of Francis I., who is said to have fallen in love with a beautiful and rich heiress, but was rejected by the parents as a low, unsuitable match. However, the father dying, he visits the widow; and on his first appearance in the house she hears herself accosted in a voice resembling that of her dead husband, and which seemed to proceed from above. “Give my daughter in marriage to Louis Brabant, who is a man of great fortune and excellent character. I now endure the inexpressible torments of purgatory, for having refused her to him; obey this admonition and I shall soon be delivered; you will provide a worthy husband for your daughter, and procure everlasting repose to the soul of your poor husband.”
The dread summons, which had no appearance of proceeding from Louis, whose countenance exhibited no change, and whose lips were close and motionless, was instantly complied with; but the deceiver, in order to mend his finances for the accomplishment of the marriage contract, applies to one Cornu, an old and rich banker at Lyons, who had accumulated immense wealth by usury, and extortion, and was haunted by remorse of conscience. After some conversation on demons and spectres, the pains of purgatory, &c., during an interval of silence, a voice is heard, like that of the banker’s deceased father, complaining of his dreadful situation in purgatory, and calling upon him to rescue him from thence, by putting into the hands of Louis Brabant, then with him, a large sum for the redemption of Christians in slavery with the Turks; threatening him at the same time with eternal damnation if he did not thus expiate his own sins. Upon a second interview, in which his ears were saluted with the complaints and groans of his father, and of all his deceased relations, imploring him, for the love of God, and in the name of every saint in the calendar, to have mercy on his own soul and others, Cornu obeyed the heavenly voice, and gave Louis 10,000 crowns, with which he returned to Paris, and married his mistress.
The works of M. L’Abbe La Chapelle, issued 1772, and before alluded to, contain descriptions of the ventriloquial achievements of Baron Mengen at Vienna; and those of M. St. Gille, near Paris, are equally interesting and astonishing. The former ingeniously constructed a doll with moveable lips, which he could readily control by a movement of the fingers under the dress; and with this automaton he was accustomed to hold humorous and satirical dialogues. He ascribed proficiency in his art to the frequent gratification of a propensity for counterfeiting the cries of the lower animals, and the voices of persons with whom he was brought in contact. So expert, indeed, had practice rendered him in this way, that the sounds uttered by him did not seem to issue from his own mouth. La Chapelle, having heard many surprising circumstances related concerning one M. St. Gille, a grocer at St. Germainen-Laye, near Paris, whose powers as a ventriloquist had given occasion to many singular and diverting scenes, formed the resolution of seeing him. Being seated with him on the opposite side of a fire, in a parlor on the ground floor, and very attentively observing him, the Abbe, after half an hour’s conversation with M. St. Gille, heard himself called, on a sudden, by his name and title, in a voice that seemed to come from the roof of a house at a distance; and whilst he was pointing to the house from which the voice had appeared to him to proceed, he was yet more surprised at hearing the words, “it was not from that quarter,” apparently in the same kind of voice as before, but which now seemed to issue from under the earth at one of the corners of the room. In short, this factitious voice played, as it were, everywhere about him, and seemed to proceed from any quarter or distance from which the operator chose to transmit it to him. To the Abbe, though conscious that the voice proceeded from the mouth of M. St. Gille, he appeared absolutely mute while he was exercising his talent; nor could any change in his countenance be discovered. But he observed that M. St. Gille presented only the profile of his face to him while he was speaking as a ventriloquist.
On another occasion, M. St. Gille sought for shelter from a storm in a neighboring convent; and finding the community in mourning, and inquiring the cause, he was told that one of their body, much esteemed by them, had lately died. Some of their religious attended him to the church, and showing him the tomb of their deceased brother, spoke very feelingly of the scanty honors that had been bestowed on his memory, when suddenly, a voice was heard, apparently proceeding from the roof of the choir, lamenting the situation of the defunct in purgatory, and reproaching the brotherhood with their want of zeal on his account. The whole community being afterwards convened in the church, the voice from the roof renewed its lamentations and reproaches, and the whole convent fell on their faces, and vowed a solemn reparation. Accordingly, they first chanted a De profundis in full choir; during the intervals of which the ghost occasionally expressed the comfort he received from their pious exercises and ejaculations in his behalf. The prior, when this religious service was concluded, entered into a serious conversation with M. St. Gille, and inveighed against the incredulity of our modern sceptics and pretended philosophers on the article of ghosts and apparitions; and St. Gille found it difficult to convince the fathers that the whole was a deception.
M. St. Gille, in 1771, submitted his attainments in this direction to several experiments before MM. Leroy and Fouchy, Commissioners of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and other persons of exalted rank, in order to demonstrate that his mimicry was so perfect as to reach the point of complete illusion. For this purpose a report was circulated that a spirit’s voice had been heard at times in the environs of St. Germain, and that the commission was appointed to verify the fact. The company, with the exception of one lady, were apprised of the real nature of the case, the intention being to test the strength of the illusion upon her. The arrangement was that they should dine together in the country, in the open air; and while they were at table, the lady was addressed in a supernatural voice, now coming from the top of adjoining trees, then descending until it approached her, next receding and plunging into the ground, where it ceased. For upwards of two hours was this startling manifestation continued with such adroitness that she was convinced the voice belonged to a person from another world, and subsequent explanation failed to convince her to the contrary.
M. Alexandre, the famous ventriloquist, had an extraordinary facility in counterfeiting all the expressions of countenance and bodily conditions common to humanity. When in London, his mimetic powers, which he was fond of exercising both in public and private, made his company in high request among the upper circles. The Lord Mayor of the City, in particular, received the ventriloquist with great distinction, and invited him several times to dine at the Mansion House. But it unluckily happened that on every occasion when M. Alexandre dined there, he could not stay to spend the evening, having contracted engagements elsewhere. The Lord Mayor expressed much regret at this, and the ventriloquist himself was annoyed on the same account, being willing to do his best to entertain the guests whom the Lord Mayor had asked each time to meet him.
At last, on meeting M. Alexandre one day, the Lord Mayor engaged him to dine at the Mansion House on a remote day. “I fix it purposely,” said his lordship, “at so distant a period, because I wish to make sure this time of your remaining with us through the evening.” Through fear of seeming purposely to slight his lordship, M. Alexandre did not dare to tell the Mayor that on that very morning he had accepted an invitation from a nobleman of high rank to spend at his house the evening of the identical day so unfortunately pitched on by the civic dignitary. All the ventriloquist said in reply was, “I promise, my lord to remain at the Mansion House, till you, yourself think it time for me to take my leave.” “Ah, well,” said the Lord Mayor, and he went off perfectly satisfied.
At the appointed day Alexandre sat himself down at the magistrate’s board. Never had the ventriloquist comported himself with so much spirit and gaiety. He insisted on devoting bumpers to each and every lady present.
The toasts went round, the old port flowed like water, and the artiste in particular seemed in danger of loosing his reason under its potent influence. When others stopped, he stopped not, but continued filling and emptying incessantly. By and by, his eyes began to stare, his visage became purple, his tongue grew confused, his whole body seemed to steam of wine, and finally he sank from his chair in a state of maudlin, helpless insensibility.
Regretting the condition of his guest, the Lord Mayor got him quietly lifted, and conveyed to his own carriage, giving orders for him to be taken home to his lodgings. As soon as M. Alexandre was deposited there, he became a very different being. It was now ten o’clock, and but half an hour was left to him to prepare for his appointed visit to the Duke of ——’s soiree. The ventriloquist disrobed himself, taking first from his breast a quantity of sponge which he had placed beneath his waist coat, and into the pores of which he had, with a quick and dexterous hand, poured the greater portion of the wine which he had apparently swallowed.