On page 245 of the same volume he presents the programme given at the first public performance in the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, stating:
“The performance will be composed of entirely novel Experiments invented by M. Robert-Houdin. Among them being The Orange-Tree, etc.”
Now to retrace our steps in the history of magic as set forth in handbills and advertisements of earlier and contemporaneous newspaper clippings describing their inventions.
Under the title of “The Apple-Tree” this mechanical trick appeared on a Fawkes programme dated 1730. This was 115 years before Robert-Houdin claimed it as his invention. In 1732, just before Pinchbeck’s death, it appeared on a programme used by Christopher Pinchbeck, Sr., and the younger Fawkes. In 1784 it was included in the répertoire of the Italian conjurer, Pinetti, in the guise of “Le Bouquet-philosophique.” In 1822 the same trick, but this time called “An Enchanted Garden,” was featured by M. Cornillot, who appeared in England as the pupil and successor of Pinetti.
The trick was first explained in public print by Henri Decremps in 1784 when his famous exposé of Pinetti was published under the title of “La Magie Blanche Dévoilée,” and in 1786-87 both Halle and Wiegleb exposed the trick completely in their respective works on magic.
That Robert-Houdin was an omnivorous reader is proven by his own writings. That he knew the history and tricks of Pinetti is proven by his own words, for in Chapter VI. of his “Memoirs” he devoted fourteen pages to Pinetti and the latter’s relations with Torrini.
Now to prove that the tree tricks offered by Fawkes, Pinchbeck, Pinetti, Cornillot, and Robert-Houdin were practically one and the same, and to tell something of the history of the four magicians who featured the trick before Robert-Houdin had been heard of: