The Old and the New Magic

by Henry Ridgely Evans

“By means of this reflection, of which he is of course unaware, the spectator is led to believe that he sees three sides of the stage; and there being nothing to suggest to his mind the presence of the glass, he is led to believe that the bust is suspended in mid-air and without any support.”

“Aerial Suspension” was one of Houdin’s inventions. It has been a favorite trick since his time. In the original illusion Houdin had one of his young sons, who was dressed as a page, stand on a small stool. The performer then placed a walking-stick under the extended right arm of the boy, near the elbow, and one under the left arm. First the stool was knocked away and the youthful assistant was suspended in the air, held up only by the two frail sticks, which were in themselves inadequate to support such a weight. Then the left stick was removed, but the boy did not fall. To the astonishment of every one, the youth {142} was placed in a horizontal position. He remained in a perfectly rigid attitude with his head leaning on his arm, the top of the cane under his elbow.

This very ingenious trick was suggested to Houdin on reading stories about the alleged levitation of Hindoo fakirs. The walking-stick that supported the right arm of the assistant was of iron, painted to resemble wood. It fitted into a slot in the stage; its top connected with a bar concealed in the sleeve of the boy. This bar formed part of a strong steel framework worn under the assistant’s clothing. Thus was the page suspended in the air.

Houdin’s trick of the “orange-tree” was a capital one. The tree blossomed and bore fruit at the command of the conjurer. All the oranges were distributed among the spectators except one on the topmost branch of the tree. In this orange the magician caused a handkerchief to appear, which had been previously borrowed. The handkerchief was made to vanish from the hands of the performer. “Hey, presto!” the orange fell apart in four sections, whereupon two butterflies sprang out and fluttered upward with the handkerchief. The explanation of this beautiful trick is as follows: The tree was a clever piece of mechanism, so closely fashioned to resemble a plant that it was impossible to detect the difference. The blossoms, constructed of white silk, were pushed up through the hollow branches by pistons rising in the table and operating upon similar rods contained in the tree. When these pedals were relaxed the blossoms disappeared, and the fruit was slowly developed. Real oranges were stuck on iron spikes protruding from the branches of the tree, and were concealed from the spectators by hemispherical wire screens painted green. The screens were also partly hidden by the artificial foliage. By means of cords running down through the branches of the tree and off behind the scenes, an assistant caused the screens to make a half-turn, thereby developing the fruit. The borrowed handkerchief was exchanged for a dummy belonging to the conjurer, and passed to an assistant who placed it in the mechanical orange. The tree was now brought forward. After the real fruit had been distributed, the magician called attention to the orange on the top (the mechanical one). By {143} means of sleight of hand the handkerchief was made to vanish, to be discovered in the orange. The butterflies, which were fastened by wires to the stalk and fixed on delicate spiral springs, invisible at a little distance, flew out of the orange of their own accord, carrying with them the handkerchief, as soon as the fruit fell apart.

IV.

In the year 1846 Houdin was summoned to the Palace of Saint-Cloud to give a performance before Louis Philippe and his Court, whereupon he invented his remarkable trick of the enchanted casket, which created great excitement in the Parisian journals, and gained him no little fame. He had six days to prepare for the séance magique. Early on the appointed morning a van from the royal stables came to convey him and his son, together with the magic paraphernalia, to the palace of the king. A stage had been erected in one of the handsome salons of St. Cloud, the windows of which opened out on an orangery lined with double rows of orange-trees, “each growing in its square box on wheels. A sentry was placed at the door to see that the conjurer was not disturbed in his preparations. The King himself dropped in once to ask the entertainer if he had everything necessary.”

At four o’clock in the afternoon, a brilliant company assembled in the hall to witness the performance. The pièce de résistance of the séance was Cagliostro’s casket, the effect of which is best described in Houdin’s own words:

“I borrowed from my noble spectators several handkerchiefs, which I made into a parcel, and laid on the table. Then, at my request, different persons wrote on blank cards the names of places whither they desired their handkerchiefs to be invisibly transported.

“When this had been done, I begged the King to take three of the cards at hazard, and choose from them the place he might consider most suitable.

“ ‘Let us see,’ Louis Philippe said, ‘what this one says: “I desire the handkerchiefs to be found beneath one of the {144} candelabra on the mantelpiece.” That is too easy for a sorcerer; so we will pass to the next card: “The handkerchiefs are to be transported to the dome of the Invalides.” That would suit me, but it is much too far, not for the handkerchiefs, but for us, ‘Ah, ah!’ the King added, looking at the last card, ‘I am afraid, Monsieur Robert-Houdin, I am about to embarrass you. Do you know what this card proposes?’