A Swiss asked to see the shade of William Tell. The phantom of the great archer was evoked with apparently as much ease as the others. Delille, who was present, called for Virgil, whose Georgics he had lately translated. The poet appeared, having in his hand a laurel crown, which he held out to his French commentator. Many other equally extraordinary apparitions were shown at the will of various individuals in the audience, and towards the end of the evening Robertson showed his judgment, and under very difficult circumstances. A royalist who was present asked for the phantom of Louis XVI., the appearance of which would no doubt have raised a tumult amongst so many red-hot Republicans, had not Robertson replied that before the 18th Fructidor, the day on which the French republic declared that royalty was abolished for ever, he had had a receipt for bringing dead kings to life again, but that same day he lost it, and feared that he should never recover it again. The answer was said to have been whispered to Robertson by his friend Ponthieu, who saw the difficulty he was in. It was supposed that the demand was prompted by an agent of the police, who for some cause had a spite against Robertson. In any case the affair made such a noise that the next day the exhibition was prohibited by those in authority, and seals were placed upon the optician’s boxes and papers. The exhibition was, however, afterwards allowed to be continued, and was so successful that it had to be transferred to the old Capuchin convent near the Place Vendôme.
The whole of Paris rang with eulogiums upon Robertson’s wonderful exhibition at the Capuchin Convent. He had purposely chosen the abandoned chapel, which was in the middle of a vast cloister crowded with tombs and funereal tablets. It was approached by a series of dark passages, decorated with weird and mysterious paintings, and the very door was covered with hieroglyphics. The chapel itself was hung with black, and was feebly illuminated by a single sepulchral lamp. The whole assembly involuntarily remained grave and silent, and it was only when the first preparations for the exhibition were made, that the audience broke into a low murmur. Robertson commenced with an address on sorcery, magicians, witches, ghosts, and phantoms, and, having worked the spectators up to the proper pitch, he suddenly extinguished the single antique lamp already mentioned, plunging the assembly into perfect darkness. Then there arose a storm of rain, wind, thunder, and lightning. The bells tolled lugubriously as if summoning the dead from their tombs beneath the feet of those present; the wind whistled mournfully, the rain fell in torrents, the thunder rolled, and the lightnings flashed. But suddenly above all this confusion were heard the sweet notes of a harmonium, and in the far-off distance the sky was seen clearing gradually. A luminous point then made its appearance in the midst of the clouds, which gradually became the figure of a man, increasing in size every instant, until it seemed to be about to precipitate itself on to the spectators. A man in the front row was so frightened, that he uttered a scream of terror, when the phantom instantly disappeared. A series of spectres then issued suddenly from a cave. The shades of great men crowded together round a boat floating on a black and sluggish river, which the spectators had no difficulty in identifying as the Styx. The shadows gradually disappeared in the distance, getting smaller and smaller until they became invisible.
Robertson was extremely careful in all his entertainments to flatter the popular ideas of the day. For instance, one of his most famous exhibitions consisted in a picture of a tomb, in the middle of which Robespierre issued. The figure, as usual, walked towards the spectators; but when apparently within a few yards of them, it was struck down by lightning. Voltaire, Lavoisier, Rousseau, and other popular favourites then appeared on the scene, and disappeared again in the usual manner. Robertson generally ended his entertainment with an address something like the following:—
“We have now seen together the wonderful mysteries of the phantasmagoria. I have unveiled to you the secrets of the priests of Memphis. I have shown you every mystery of optical science; you have witnessed scenes that in the ages of credulity would have been considered supernatural. You have, perhaps, many of you, laughed at what I have shown you, and the gentler portion of my audience have possibly been terrified at many of my phantoms; but I can assure you, whoever you may be, powerful or weak, strong or feeble, believers or atheists, that there is but one truly terrible spectacle—the fate which is reserved for us all;”
and at that instant a grisly skeleton was seen standing in the middle of the hall ([fig. 54]).
Fig. 54.—Phantasmagoria (Robertson).
Even in those unbelieving days, when scepticism of every sort was riding rough-shod over the French people, Robertson had the greatest difficulty in disclaiming all approach to the possession of supernatural powers. Day after day he received applications from all quarters to reveal the secrets of the past, present, and future, to describe events that were passing in other countries; and it frequently happened, that after his entertainments, he would be asked by several members of his auditory to assist them in recovering property that had been lost or stolen from them. In the latter kind of cases he generally used to adopt the excellent plan of sending his would-be clients to the nearest police-office.