Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, ambassador, author and conjurer. Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin
zeal: in fact, I bestowed so much care on the comfort and amusement of the birds, that they soon absorbed nearly all my time.
I began by setting up in this cage a number of mechanical tricks I had invented at college under similar circumstances. I gradually added fresh ones, and ended by making the cage a work of art and curiosity, affording considerable attraction to our visitors. At one spot was a perch, near which the sugar and the seed-glass displayed their attractions; but no sooner had the innocent canary placed its foot on the fatal perch, than a circular cage encompassed it, and it was kept a prisoner until another bird, perching on an adjoining piece of wood, set loose a spring, which delivered the captive. At another place were baths and pumps; further on was a small trough, so arranged, that the nearer the bird seemed to draw to it the further off it really was. Lastly, each denizen of the cage was obliged to earn its food by drawing forward with its beak small pasteboards carts.
The pleasure I felt in carrying out these small schemes soon made me forget I was in a lawyer’s office for any other purpose than to be at the beck and call of canaries. The chief clerk drew my attention to it, and added some just remonstrances; but I had always a protest ready, and continued making daily improvements in the aviary. At length, matters reached such a point, that the supreme authority, that is to say my master in person, felt it his duty to interfere.
“Robert,” he said to me, assuming an earnest tone, which he rarely employed towards his clerks, “when you came into my office you were aware it was to devote yourself exclusively to business, and not to satisfy your own thirst for pleasure; warnings have been given you to return your duty, and you have paid no attention to them; I am, therefore, obliged to tell you that you must either decide on giving up your mechanical fancies, or I must send you home to your father.”
And the worthy Monsieur Roger stopped, as if to draw breath after the reproaches he had given me, I am sure much against his will. After a moment’s silence, he reassumed his paternal tone, and said to me:
“And now, my friend, will you let me give you a piece of advice? I have studied you, and feel convinced you will never be more than a very ordinary clerk, and, consequently, a still more ordinary notary, while you might become an excellent mechanician. It would be, then, wiser for you to give up a profession in which you have such slight prospect of success, and follow that for which you evince such remarkable aptitude.”
The kindly tone M. Roger assumed induced me to open my heart to him. I told him of my father’s determination to keep me from his own trade, and described to him all the vexation I had felt from it.
“Your father fancied he was acting for the best,” he replied to me, “by putting you in a profession more lucrative than his own; he thought he should only have a simple boyish fancy to overcome, but I am persuaded it is an irresistible vocation, against which you should no longer struggle. I will see your parents to-morrow, and I have no doubt I shall induce them to change their opinion about your future prospects in life.”
Since I quitted my father’s house he had sold his business, and had retired to a small property he had near Blois. My master went to see him as he had promised me; a long conversation ensued, and after numerous objections on both sides, the lawyer’s eloquence vanquished my father’s scruples, and he at length yielded.
“Well,” he said, “as he absolutely desires it, let him follow my trade. And, as I cannot instruct him myself, my nephew, who is a pupil of mine, will act towards my son as I did towards him.”
This news overwhelmed me with joy: it seemed as if I were entering on a new life, and the fortnight I had yet to spend at Avaray seemed to me terribly long. At length I set out for Blois, and the day after my arrival found me seated before a vice, file in hand, and receiving my first lessons in watchmaking from my relative.
CHAPTER III.
My Cousin Robert—The most important Event in my Life—How a Man becomes a Sorcerer—My first Sleight-of-Hand Feat—An utter Failure—Practising the Eye and the Hand—Curious Experiment in Prestidigitation—Monsieur Noriet—An Action more ingenious than delicate—I am Poisoned—Influence of Delirium.
BEFORE speaking of my labors in the watchmaker’s shop, I must introduce my readers to my new master. And, in the first place, to set myself right, I will say that my cousin Robert, as I used to call him, has been since my first connexion with him, one of my best and dearest friends. It would be difficult, in fact, to imagine a more happy character, a heart more affectionate and devoted.
With a rare intelligence, my cousin combined other equally valuable qualities. He possessed a graceful address, which, without flattery, I may say is peculiar to our family, and he was justly considered the first watchmaker in Blois, a town which has long excelled in the horologic art.
My cousin began by teaching me how to “make filings,” as my father called it, but I required no apprenticeship to learn the use of tools, and hence the outset was not so painful as it is usually to novices. From the beginning of my apprenticeship I was enabled to undertake small jobs, which gained me my master’s praise. Yet I would not have it supposed I was a model pupil, for I had still rife in me that spirit of investigation which drew down upon me several reprimands from my cousin, and I could not endure to confine my imagination to the ideas of another person. I was continually inventing or improving.
My whole life through, this passion—or, if you will, mania—has held sway over me. I never could fix my thoughts on any task without trying to introduce some improvement, or strike out a novel idea. But this temperament—eventually so favorable—was at this period very prejudicial to my progress. Before following my own inspirations and yielding to my fancies, I ought to have learned the secrets of my art, and, in fact, dispelled all ideas which were only adapted to make me diverge from the true principles of clockmaking.
Such was the sense of the paternal observations made now and then by my cousin, and I was obliged to recognize their justice. Then I would go to work again with redoubled zeal, though groaning inwardly at the bonds that fettered my genius. In order to aid my progress and afford me relaxation, my master recommended me to study some treatises on mechanics in general, and on clockmaking in particular. As this suited my taste exactly, I gladly assented, and I was devoting myself passionately to this attractive study, when a circumstance, apparently most simple, suddenly decided my future life, by revealing to me a vocation whose mysterious resources must open a vast field for my inventive and fanciful ideas.
One evening I went into a bookseller’s shop to buy Berthoud’s “Treatise on Clockmaking,” which I knew he had. The tradesman being engaged at the moment on matters more important, took down two volumes from the shelves and handed them to me without ceremony. On returning home, I sat down to peruse my treatise conscientiously, but judge of my surprise when I read on the back of one the volumes “Scientific Amusements.” Astonished at finding such a title on a professional work, I opened it impatiently, and, on running through the table of contents, my surprise was doubled on reading these strange phrases:
The way of performing tricks with the cards—How to guess a person’s thoughts—To cut off a pigeon’s head, to restore it to life, &c., &c.
The bookseller had made a mistake. In his haste, he had given me two volumes of the Encyclopædia instead of Berthoud. Fascinated, however, by the announcement of such marvels, I devoured the mysterious pages, and the further my reading advanced, the more I saw laid bare before me the secrets of an art for which I was unconsciously predestined.
I fear I shall be accused of exaggeration, or at least not be understood by many of my readers, when I say that this discovery caused me the greatest joy I had ever experienced. At this moment a secret presentiment warned me that success, perhaps glory, would one day accrue to me in the apparent realization of the marvellous and impossible, and fortunately these presentiments did not err.
The resemblance between two books, and the hurry of a bookseller, were the common-place causes of the most