The English manager, however, tarried in Spain. The figures were “tried” and as they proved motionless the case was dropped. The Englishman then claimed the automata as his property and sold them to a French nobleman. Their owner did not know how to operate them, so their great value was never realized by his family. After his death, during a voyage to America, they lay neglected in the castle of Mattignon, near Bayonne. After changing hands many times, about 1803 they passed into the hands of an inventor named Martin, and were controlled by his descendants for nearly a hundred years. One of his family, Henri Martin, of Dresden, Germany, exhibited them in many large cities, and advertised them for sale at 15,000 marks in the Muenchener Blaetter of May 13th, 1883. After Martin’s death, his widow succeeded in disposing of them to Herr Marfels, of Berlin, who had them repaired with such good results that in the fall of 1906 he sold them for 75,000 francs, or about $15,000, to the Historical Society of Neuchâtel. In April, 1907, the writing figure, the drawing figure, and the spinet player were on exhibition in Le Locle, Chaux-de-Fonds, and Neuchâtel.
So far we have traced only the original writing and drawing figure. This has been done purely to show that even if Robert-Houdin had been capable of building such an automaton, he would not have been its real inventor, but would merely have copied the marvellous work of the Jacquet-Drozes. Now to trace the figure which in 1844 he claimed as his invention.
With the fame of the Neuchâtel shop spreading and the demand for Swiss watches increasing, Maillardet and Jean Pierre Droz, apprentices or perhaps partners of Pierre Jacquet-Droz and Henri-Louis Jacquet-Droz, removed to London and there set up a watch factory. About this time Maillardet invented a combination writing and drawing figure which was pronounced by experts of the day slightly inferior to the work of the two Jacquet-Drozes. However, it must have been worthy of exhibition, for it appeared at intervals for the next fifty years in the amusement world, particularly in London. At first Maillardet was not its exhibitor nor was his name ever mentioned on the programmes and newspaper notices, but later his name appeared as part owner and exhibitor. As the Swiss watches had created a veritable sensation and were snatched up as fast as produced, it is quite likely that he had no time to play the rôle of showman.
The figure first appeared in London in 1796, when the London Telegraph of January 2nd carried the advertisement reproduced on the next page.