Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, ambassador, author and conjurer. Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin
thought, after these remarks, he had changed his mind, and I joyfully said:
“Of course I have an inclination, and you cannot be ignorant of it, for it is of very old standing. You know I never wished to be other than—“
My father guessed my thoughts, and would not allow me to finish.
“I see,” he objected, “that you did not understand me, and I must explain my meaning more clearly. My desire is for you to choose a profession more lucrative than my own. Consider, it would be unreasonable to bury the ten years’ schooling for which I made such heavy sacrifices in my shop; remember, too, that, after thirty-five years’ hard work, I have been hardly able to save sufficient provision for my old age. Then, pray, change your resolution, and give up your mania for making a ‘parcel of filings.’ ”
My father, in this, merely followed the idea of many parents, who can only see the disagreeable side of their own trade. To this prejudice, I must allow, he added the praiseworthy ambition of the head of a family desirous that his son should rise a step higher on the social ladder than himself.
As I was utterly ignorant of all other professions or trades save that of a mechanician, I was unable to appreciate them, or consequently select one; hence I remained dumb. In vain did my father try to draw an answer from me by explaining the advantages I should derive from being a surgeon or chemist, a barrister or a solicitor. I could only repeat that I placed implicit confidence in his wisdom and experience. This self-denial and passive obedience appeared to touch him; I noticed it, and wishing to make a final attack on his determination, I said to him:
“Before making up my mind to any decided choice of profession, allow me to offer one observation. Are you sure that it is your trade which is impossible of extension, or is it owing to the smallness of the town in which you have carried it on? Let me follow my own bent, I beseech you, and when I have become a good workman by your instruction, I will go to Paris and make a fortune there; I feel quite convinced I can do so.”
Fearing lest he might give way, my father tried to cut the conversation short by evading a reply to my objection.
“As you leave it to me,” he said, “I advise you to become a solicitor; with your natural parts, aided by application and good conduct, I am certain you will make your way famously.”
Two days later I was installed in one of the best offices at Blois, and, owing to my caligraphy, I was employed as a copying clerk, and in engrossing from morning till night, though rarely understanding what I was writing. My readers can readily guess that this mechanical work could not long satisfy the turn of my mind; pens, ink, and paper were most unsuitable articles to carry out the inventive ideas which continually occurred to me. Fortunately, at that period, steel pens were unknown; hence I had a resource in making my pens, to which I devoted the best part of my time. This simple fact will suffice to give an idea of the deep spleen which weighed upon me like a coating of lead, and I should have certainly fallen ill, had I not found more attractive employment.
Among the mechanical curiosities entrusted to my father for repair, I had noticed a snuff-box, on the top of which a small piece of mechanism attracted my entire attention. The top of the box represented a landscape. On pressing a spring, a hare made its appearance, and went towards a tuft of grass, which it began to crop; soon after a sportsman emerged from a thicket accompanied by a pointer. The miniature Nimrod stopped at the sight of the game, shouldered his gun and fired; a noise indicative of the explosion of a fire-arm was heard, and the hare, apparently wounded, disappeared in the thicket, pursued by the dog.
This pretty piece of mechanism excited my desires in an eminent degree, but I could not hope to possess it, as the owner, in addition to the value he attached to it, had no reason to dispose of it, and, besides, my pecuniary means were insufficient. As I could not make the article my own, I determined, at least, to keep it in remembrance, and drew a careful plan of it without my father’s knowledge. This only more inflamed my desires, and I began to ask myself whether I could not make an exact copy of it.
Seeing no extreme difficulty in this, I rose at daybreak each morning, and, going down to my father’s workshop, I worked till the hour when he used to begin work. Then I rearranged the tools exactly as I had found them, locked up my work carefully, and proceeded to my office. The joy I experienced in finding my mechanism act was only equalled by the pleasure I felt in presenting it to my father, as an indirect and respectful protest against the determination he had formed as to my choice of a trade. I had some difficulty in persuading him that I had not been assisted by any one in my work, but when at last I removed his doubts, he could not refrain from complimenting me.
“It is a pity,” he said, thoughtfully, “that you cannot profit by your turn for mechanism; but,” he added, suddenly, as if seeking to dispel an idea that troubled him, “you had better take no pride in your skill, for it may injure your prospects.”
For more than a year I performed the duties of amateur—that is, unpaid clerk—and I was then offered a situation by a country solicitor as second clerk, with a small salary. I accepted this unexpected promotion very readily; but, once installed in my new duties, I found that my employer had deceived me as to their range. The situation I occupied was that of office-boy, having to run on errands, for the first and only clerk could more than attend to the business. I certainly earned some money: it was the first I had gained by my own labor, and this consideration gilded the pill, which was rather bitter to my pride. Besides, M. Roger (such was my new master’s name) was certainly the best fellow in the world. His manner, full of kindness and sympathy, had attracted me the first time I saw him, and I may add that his behavior towards me was most agreeable during the time I remained in his office.
This gentleman, the personification of probity, possessed the confidence of the Duc d’Avaray, whose estate he managed, and being full of zeal for his noble client’s business, he devoted more attention to it than to his office. At Avaray legal business was very scarce, and we had hardly enough to fill up our time. For my own part, I had many leisure hours, which my kind master enabled me to employ by placing his library at my service. I had the good fortune to find in it Linnæus’s Treaty on Botany, and I learned the rudiments of that science.
The study of botany required time, and I could only devote to it the hours prior to the office opening. Unfortunately, I had become a tremendous sleeper—I hardly know how—and I could not manage to get up before eight o’clock. I resolved to conquer this obstinate somnolency, and I invented a waking apparatus, which, from its originality, deserves honorable mention here.
The room I occupied formed a portion of the Château d’Avaray, and was situated over an archway, closed by a heavy gate. Having noticed that the porter opened this gate, which led into the gardens, every morning, the idea occurred to me of profiting by this circumstance to institute an energetic alarum. This is how I managed it. When I went to bed, I fastened to one of my legs the end of a cord, which, passing through my half-opened window, was attached to the upper part of the iron gate. When the porter pushed the gate open, he dragged me, when least expecting it, to the middle of my bedroom. Thus violently roused from sleep, I tried to hold on by the bed-clothes; but the more I resisted, the more did the pitiless porter push on his side, and I at length woke up to hear him always abusing the hinges, which he determined to oil before the day was out. Then, I unloosed my leg, and, with my Linnæus in my hand, I went to interrogate Nature on her admirable secrets, the study of which caused me to spend many pleasant hours.
As much to please my father as to scrupulously fulfil my duties in my new office, I had promised to pay no more attention to mechanical inventions—for I feared their irresistible attraction—and I had religiously kept my word. There was, then, every reason to believe that I should pass through all my grades creditably, and some day, in my turn, become Maître Robert, solicitor, in some country town. But Providence, in her decrees, had traced out a very different route for me, and my stern resolutions were routed by a temptation too powerful for my courage. In our office there was, strangely enough, a magnificent aviary filled with canaries, whose song and plumage were intended to dispel the impatience of a client forced by some accident to wait. This cage being considered a portion of the office furniture, I was bound, as errand-boy, to keep it in a proper state of cleanliness,