Kitchen of Parapharagaramus
The Inexhaustible Hat
And concluding with the celebrated DELUSION
Les Bassins de Neptune et les Poissons d’or
AND THE GRAND MENAGERIE!
Unanimously pronounced to be the most inexplicable and surprising Tour de Physique ever witnessed
ROBIN.
Henri Robin was a Hollander by birth, his real name being Dunkell. He was born about 1805 and died in Paris in 1874. Although he had appeared before the public many times and his talents as a prestidigatateur had long been recognized, it was not until the end of 1862, when he opened his theatre in Paris, that he became a celebrity and a household word in the country of his adoption. He was a man of distinguished appearance, very urbane, and possessed of a sparkling wit. His handsome little salle de spectacle, known as the Theatre Robin,[23] was situated on {164} the Boulevard du Temple. Porcelain medallions ornamented the walls, representing Archimides, Galileo, Palissy, Vaucanson, Franklin, Volta, Newton, Daguerre, Arago, Cuvier, Robertson, Humboldt, Comte, and Cagliostro. Of these great men only Vaucanson, Robertson, and Cagliostro could properly be classed as magicians. Vaucanson was a builder of ingenious automata; Robertson the creator of optical illusions; and Cagliostro a pretender to sorcery, who made use of hypnotism and phantasmagoria in his séances. But science has its wizards, in one sense of the word, and so Robin included the great pioneers of scientific research among his galaxy of wonder-workers.
[23] This theatre was demolished at the time of the enlargement of the Place de Chateau d’Eau.
HENRI ROBIN.
The journal La France said in its issue of January 19, 1863: “The stage is large and square in form, the curtain rises upon {165} a brilliantly lighted salon showing much gilding, filled with strange objects, electrical apparatus of all sizes, mysterious chests, revolving tables, articulated animals which as far surpass the automatons of Vaucanson as an Everard or Pleyel piano is superior to an old fashioned spinet. There were peacocks which paraded up and down and could tell you the name of any city you might think of; drums which beat the retreat without a drummer; Christmas trees which shook their branches, powdered with snow, and covered themselves with lighted candles, bonbons, flowers and toys; inexhaustible bottles, invisible bells, etc. Altogether it was the strange, supernatural and fantastic world of prestidigitation, magic and sorcery.