“This trick gained me lively applause.”
Robert-Houdin never revealed the secret of this remarkable experiment in natural magic, but the acute reader, especially if he be a student of legerdemain, will be able to give a pretty shrewd guess as to the modus operandi. The best analysis of this trick has been lately given by Professor Brander Matthews. He writes as follows (Scribner’s Magazine, May, 1903):
“Nothing more extraordinary was ever performed by any mere conjurer; indeed, this feat is quite as startling as any of those attributed to Cagliostro himself, and it has the advantage of being accurately and precisely narrated by the inventor. Not only is the thing done a seeming impossibility, but it stands forth the more impressively because of the spectacular circumstances of its performance,—a stately palace, a lovely garden, the assembled courtiers, and the royal family. The magician had to depend on his wits alone, for he was deprived of all advantages of his own theatre and of all possibility of aid from a confederate mingled amid the casual spectators. {147}
“Robert-Houdin was justified in the gentle pride with which he told how he had thus astonished the King of the French. He refrained from any explanation of the means whereby he wrought his mystery, believing that what is unknown is ever the more magnificent. He did no more than drop a hint or two, telling the reader that he had long possessed a cast of Cagliostro’s seal, and suggesting slyly that when the King sent messengers out into the garden to stand guard over the orange-tree the trick was already done and all precautions were then futile.
“Yet, although the inventor chose to keep his secret, any one who has mastered the principles of the art of magic can venture an explanation. Robert-Houdin has set forth the facts honestly; and with the facts solidly established, it is possible to reason out the method employed to accomplish a deed which, at first sight, seems not only impossible but incomprehensible.
“The first point to be emphasized is that Robert-Houdin was as dexterous as he was ingenious. He was truly a prestidigitateur, capable of any sleight of hand. Nothing was simpler for so accomplished a performer than the substitution of one package for another, right before the eyes of all the spectators. And it is to be remembered that although the palace was the King’s the apparatus on the extemporized stage was the magician’s. Therefore, when he borrowed six handkerchiefs and went up on the stage and made them up into a package which remained on a table in sight of everybody, we can grant without difficulty that the package which remained in sight did not then contain the borrowed handkerchiefs.
“In fact, we may be sure that the borrowed handkerchiefs had been conveyed somehow to Robert-Houdin’s son who acted as his assistant. When the handkerchiefs were once in the possession of the son out of sight behind the scenery or hangings of the stage, the father would pick up his package of blank visiting-cards and distribute a dozen of them or a score, moving to and fro in very leisurely fashion, perhaps going back to the stage to get pencils which he would also give out as slowly as possible, filling up the time with playful pleasantry, until he should again {148} catch sight of his son. Then, and not until then, would he feel at liberty to collect the cards and take them over to the King. When the son had got possession of the handkerchiefs, he would smooth them swiftly, possibly even ironing them into their folds. Then he would put them into the parchment packet which he would seal twice with Cagliostro’s seal. Laying this packet in the bottom of the rusty iron casket, he would put on top the other parchment which had already been prepared, with its adroit imitation of Cagliostro’s handwriting. Snapping down the lid of the casket, the lad would slip out into the corridor and steal into the garden, going straight to the box of the appointed orange-tree. He could do this unobserved, because no one was then suspecting him and because all the spectators were then engaged in thinking up odd places to which the handkerchiefs might be transported. Already, in the long morning, probably while the royal household was at its midday breakfast, the father or the son had loosened one of the staples in the back of the box in which the designated orange-tree was growing. The lad now removed this staple and thrust the casket into the already prepared hole in the center of the roots of the tree. Then he replaced the staple at the back of the box, feeling certain that whoever should open the box in front would find the soil undisturbed. This most difficult part of the task once accomplished, he returned to the stage, or at least in some way he signified to his father that he had accomplished his share of the wonder, in the performance of which he was not supposed to have any part.
“On seeing his son, or on receiving the signal that his son had returned, Robert-Houdin would feel himself at liberty to collect the cards on which various spectators had written the destinations they proposed for the package of handkerchiefs which was still in full sight. He gathered up the cards he had distributed; but as he went toward the King, he substituted for those written by the spectators others previously prepared by himself,—a feat of sleight of hand quite within the reach of any ordinary performer. Of these cards, prepared by himself, he forced three {149} on the sovereign; and the forcing of cards upon a kindly monarch would present little difficulty to a prestidigitateur of Robert-Houdin’s consummate skill.
“When the three cards were once in the King’s hands, the trick was done, for Robert-Houdin knew Louis Philippe to be a shrewd man in small matters. Therefore, it was reasonably certain that when the King had to make a choice out of three places, one near and easy, a second remote and difficult, and a third both near and difficult, Louis Philippe would surely select the third which was conveniently at hand and which seemed to be at least as impossible as either of the others.
“The event proved that the conjurer’s analysis of the King’s character was accurate: yet one may venture the opinion that the magician had taken every needed precaution to avoid failure even if the monarch had made another selection. Probably Robert-Houdin had one little parchment packet hidden in advance somewhere in the dome of the Invalides and another tucked up out of sight in the base of one of the candelabra on the chimney-piece; and if either of the other destinations had been chosen, the substitute packet would have been produced and the magician would then have offered to transport it also into the box of the orange-tree. And thus the startling climax of the marvel would have been only a little delayed.