ROBERT HOUDIN

Jean Eugéne Robert was born in 1805, and was early inclined to be a watchmaker, his father's profession. That had not been his parents' intention, since they provided him with an excellent classical education at the University of Orléans. The young man was for a short time a practicing watchmaker, but seeing the performance of an itinerant con­juror named Carlosbach and coming upon a book on conjuring, he became much interested ín the art, whích at that period frequently made use of clever mechanical props. Because of his training and natural aptitude, he was quite capable of constructing such devices.

He took sleight-of hand lessons from a local amateur who was also a chi­ropodist, and when he felt himself sufficiently independent he moved to Tours and set up in the watchmaking business, doing conjuring on the side.

An accident in which he came under the care of a traveling magician named De Grisi, also known as Torrini, sealed his future. Young Robert was known to suffer from hallucinations. On this occasion he'd imagined that he was being poisoned, and for some reason he set out to travel by foot to the town of Blois. Along the way he collapsed, and when he regained his senses found himself with De Grisi. He was invited to travel with the show, and did so for many months, learning much about the business. However, De Grisí's tour (as Torriní) was rather unsuccessful, and Robert soon left. De Grisi continued on for a short while and died soon afterward at Lyons, France.

De Grisi had an interesting background. He was the son of a French count, and he first studied medicine when his family fortune was lost in the french revolution.

with whom he became associated. He was soon quite proficient as a performer, and began working on his own. De Grisi believed that Pinetti later betrayed him, fearful that he might now have a rival. The feud between the two continued for years, and De Grisi suffered greatly from the run-in with Pinetti.

De Grisi was one of those who performed the dangerous Bullet Catch trick; he had a version in which he acted a William Tell part, firing at his son. The boy was shot dead in error, and De Grisi stood trial. He was sentenced to six months in prison, during which time his wife died. Freed, he adopted his wife's maiden name, Torrini, and at that point he met Robert. De Grisi-Torrini had employed the young watchmaker to repair one of his automata, a featured part of his act.

(It should be mentioned here that some authorities believe De Grisi-Torrini to have been a character totally invented by Robert-Houdin to fluff up his biography. I doubt this claim.)

Jean Eugéne told the story that after leaving De Grisi's ser­vice, he was at the Fair of Angers when he saw a magician named Castelli, from Normandy. This mountebank had advertised that he would eat a man alive in view of all the spectators who would attend his show Naturally, the place was packed and young Robert had to attend such a remarkable exhibition. When Castelli asked for a volunteer, two men mounted the stage. One was rejected as being too fat, but the other seemed quite suitable for the performance. The Norman smacked his lips, sprinkled the seated man with pepper and vinegar, turned down the victim's collar, and bit him in the back of the neck. The volunteer howled, leaped up and left the stage nursing his nape. Castelli, with a great show of annoyance, impa­tiently called for another volunteer, but failed to obtain one. The spectators, Robert reported, were understandably disappointed.

Robert met and married the daughter of a well-known Parisian watch­maker named Houdin. He changed his last name to mark this event, and was thereafter known as Jean Eugéne Robert-Houdin.* Our hero spent several years manufacturing mechanical toys, intricate clocks, and various automata. It was a thriving business, and he took time out to occasionally give magic shows. Then in 1845 he gave the first of his "Soirées Fantastiques" in Paris, receiving rave reviews. He was launched on his conjuring career. In 1848 he stormed London to great acclaim, and was seen by fifteen-year-old William Palmer, who was to be so inspired that he became the conjuror Heller as a result. His mechanical skills enabled him to produce wonderful magical effects such as the Orange Tree, probably inspired by the Indian Mango Tree trick, * Pronounced "ro-bayr-oo-dan." in which the street performers would grow a tree by stages right before their audiences, covering a seed, then a sprout, and then various stages of a small mango tree, complete with fruit. Phílippe featured such a trick, too. Robert­Houdin's device consisted of a box in whích a small tree was planted. He would borrow a handkerchief from a lady spectator, cause it to vanish, then call attention to the tree. Slowly, blossoms would emerge, then fall to the floor one by one. This miracle was followed by the appearance of fully ripe oranges, one of which opened of its own accord to reveal a handkerchief within. Two mechanical butterflies took the lady's handkerchief into the air and it was returned to its owner.

Another of the great illusions introduced to Western magic by Robert­Houdin was his Aerial Suspension. The use of ether as an anaesthetic agent had just been discovered (in 1842). The magician spilled this liquid freely about the stage, and it put his suspension effect into the Big Illusion class. A reviewer of his show in London described it thus: [Robert-Houdin's] most impressive illusion was the "Escamotage de Robert-Houdin, fils," with his son suspended in equilibrium by atmo­spheric air, through the action of concentrated Ether, which concluded by showing the boy horizontal in the air and apparently supported by nothing except his elbow on the top of a walking stick.

The implication was that the ether had made the boy (Émile) light, and a rather flimsy "scientific" premise was thus established.

This illusion was first shown by Robert-Houdin in 1848, but the idea was not original to him. In 1836 Ling Lau Lauro, a pseudo-Oriental, had been the first to introduce it in the Occident. A few years earlier than that, in the city of Madras, India, an old Brahmin conjuror was reported to have done a suspension effect, but in his version he sat in the air cross-legged. The report had him using no better apparatus than a piece of plank, which, with four legs, he formed into an oblong stool; and upon which, in a little brass socket, he placed, in a perpendicular position, a hollow bamboo, from which pro­jected a kind of crutch, covered with a piece of common hide. These properties he carried with him in a little bag, which was shown to those who went to see him exhibit. The servants of the house held a blanket before him, and when it was withdrawn he was discovered poised in the air, about four feet from the ground, in a sitting attitude, the outer edge of one hand merely touching the crutch, with the fingers deliberately counting beads, and the other hand and arm held up in an erect pos­ture. The blanket was then held up before him, and the spectators heard a gurgling noise, like that occasioned by wind escaping from a bladder or tube, and when the screen was withdrawn he was again standing on the floor or ground.

The effect can be seen from the accompanying illustration. The report went on to say that this performer died at Madras in 1830, without imparting to any one the secret of the trick, which was said, however, by a knowing native, to be effected by holding the breath, clearing the tubular organs, and a peculiar mode of respiration.

Even Thomas Frost, the gentleman making this report, found this difficult to accept. Frost said the explanation was "too vague to be satisfactory." I agree.

In passing, I must report that in 1931, Time magazine ran a series of pho­tos of exactly this trick being done in India, and quite seriously reported that no scientific explanation was available for it. This shows what can happen when there is no "knowing native" available.

At that time in history, France occupied Algeria, to the considerable prof it of the occupiers. Unrest was constantly being stirred up by the Marabout priests, who performed various magical feats to keep alive the idea that they had divine connections. The French government called upon their most famous conjuror to pit his skills against that of the Marabout performers, and though the account as given in Robert-Houdin's Mémoires may be somewhat hyperbolized in favor of the conjuror, it is a historical fact that he did visit Algeria and bested the competition with his Light and Heavy Chest trick. This consisted of a small wooden box with a metal handle on the top. Robert-Houdin asked a Marabout to lift it, saying that it could only be lifted if he, the great wizard, willed it so. The Marabout easily lifted it with one hand, then set it down again. Now, announced the Frenchman, he willed that the Marabout had not even the strength of a woman, and was unable to lift the box. Try as he might, straining with both hands, the fakir found that the box would not budge until Robert-Houdin bent down to lift it with one hand. It is reported that this demonstration did much to consol­idate the reputation of the French in that part of the world. Hélas! That is past history, and the Algerians have discovered that they can do without the French, though they still enjoy a good conjuring show.

For this, and for various inventions connected with timekeeping, Robert­Houdin received numerous medals and commendations from his govern­ment. He retired, disappointed that only one of his sons chose to take up conjuring, and that with little enthusiasm; one joined the army, another became a watchmaker.

The master magician died at his home in Blois, France, in 1871. The high esteem of the French nation for their conjuring son was shown in 1971, when a postage stamp was issued there honoring the hundredth anniversary of his death.

From descriptions of his act, we know that Robert-Houdin was not dependent only upon the ingenious mechanical marvels he was able to cre" ate. Without his shomanship, humor, and artistic handling, the Soirées would have been merely exhibitions of interesting machinery Modern con­jurors, often far too preoccupied with owning the latest hardware of their art, would do well to note this fact.