1, Haddock, 1797. 2, Garnerin, 1815. 3, Gyngell, 1816 and 1823. 4, Bologna, 1820. 5, Henry, 1822. 6, Schmidt, 1827. 7, Rovere, 1828. 8, Charles, 1829. 9, Phillippe, 1841.
In 1827 Schmidt and Gyngell joined forces, yet both before and after this date each performer had the wonderful little piece of mechanism on his programme. In 1841, four years before Robert-Houdin appeared as a public performer, Phillippe created a sensation in Paris, presenting among other automata “Le Confiseur Galant.” In 1845, when Robert-Houdin included “The Pastry Cook of the Palais Royal” in his initial programme at his own theatre in Paris, Phillippe was presenting precisely the same trick at the St. James Theatre, London.
Of this goodly company, however, Rovere and Phillippe deserve more than passing notice, as both were the contemporaries of Robert-Houdin, and Rovere was his personal friend. Both also appear in Robert-Houdin’s “Memoirs.”
The trick appears first, not as a confectioner’s shop with small figures at work, but as a fruitery, then again as a Dutch Coffee-House and a Russian Inn, from which ten sorts of liquor are served. Finally, in 1823, it is featured under the name that later made it famous, the Confectioner’s Shop.
Haddock, the Englishman who had the writing and drawing figure in his possession for some time, featured the fruitery on his programmes dated 1796. One of his advertisements from the London Telegraph is reproduced on page 106, in connection with the history of the writing and drawing figure, but for convenience I am quoting here Haddock’s own description of the fruitery trick, which was even more complicated than the famous Pastry Cook of the Palais Royal:
“A model of the neat rural mansion, and contains the following figures: First, the porter, which stands at the gate, and on being addressed, rings the bell, when the door opens, the fruiteress comes out, and any lady or gentleman may call for whatever fruit they please, and the figure will return and bring the kind required, which may be repeated and the fruit varied as often as the company orders: it will likewise receive flowers, or any small article, carry them in, and produce them again as called for. As the fruits are brought out, they will be given in charge of a watch-dog, which sits in front of the house, and on any person taking or touching them will begin to bark, and continue to do so until they are returned. The next figure belonging to this piece is the little chimney-sweeper, which will be seen coming from behind the house, will enter the door, appear at the top of the chimney, and give the usual cry of ‘Sweep’ several times, descend the chimney, and come out with his bag full of soot.”
In 1820, Haddock’s programme, including the fruitery, appears with only a few minor changes as the répertoire of Bologna, a very clever conjurer who afterward became the assistant of Anderson, the Wizard of the North, and who made most of the latter’s apparatus. On the Bologna programme, for a performance to be given at the Great Assembly Room, Three Tuns Tavern, the shop trick is described thus: “A curious Mechanical Fruiterer and Confectioner’s Shop, kept by Kitty Comfit, who will produce at Command such Variety of Fruit and Sweetmeats as may be asked for.”
The marvellous little shop does not appear again on programmes of magic until 1815, when Garnerin features it as “The Dutch Coffee-House.” On the programme used by Garnerin in that year for a benefit which he gave for the General Hospital at Birmingham, England, it is featured as No. 10: “A Dutch Coffee-House, a very surprising mechanical piece, in which there is the figure of a Girl, six inches high, which presents, at the Command of the Spectators, ten different sorts of Liquors.”