Jean-Eugne Robert-Houdin

An Optimist Manager—Three Spectators in a Room—A Magical Collation—The Colchester Public and the Nuts—I return to France—I give up my Theatre—A Farewell Tour—I retire to St. Gervais—An Academician’s Predictions.

A SHORT time after this performance my engagement with Mitchell terminated.

Instead of returning to France, as I should much have desired after so lengthened an absence, I thought it better to continue my excursions in the English provinces till the end of September, when I hoped to reopen my theatre at Paris.

Consequently, I drew up an itinerary, in which the first station would be Cambridge, celebrated for its university; and set out.

Possibly the reader may feel no inclination to follow me on this tour, but he may be assured I will not drag him after me, especially as my second passage through England presents hardly any details worth mentioning here. I will content myself with recounting a few incidents, and among them a small adventure that happened to me, as it may serve for a lesson for all professionals, that it is dangerous both to their self-esteem and interests to drain public curiosity too deep in the various places whither the hope of good receipts attracts them.

I intended to go straight from London to Cambridge, but, half way, I took a fancy to stop and give a few performances at Hertford, a town containing some ten thousand people.

My two first performances were most successful, but on the third, seeing that the number of spectators had greatly fallen off, I decided on giving no more.

My manager argued against this resolution, and offered me reasons which certainly had some value.

“I assure you, sir,” he said, “that nothing is spoken of in the town but your performance. Every one is asking if you are going to perform to-morrow, and two young gentlemen have already begged me to keep them places if you intend to remain for to-morrow.”

GÉnet, my manager, was certainly the best fellow in the world; but I ought to have distrusted his counsels, knowing, as I did, his disposition to look at the bright side of everything. He was the incarnation of optimism, and the calculations he made about this performance went far beyond those of the inkstand inventor. To hear him talk, we should have to double the price of places, and increase our staff to keep back the crowd that would rush to see me.

While jesting GÉnet on his exaggerated ideas, I still allowed him to send out the bills for the performance he so much desired.

The next evening, at half-past seven, I went, according to my usual custom, to order the box-office to be opened, and the public allowed admission. The performance would commence at eight precisely.

I found my manager quite alone—not a soul had arrived yet. Still, that did not prevent him greeting me with a radiant air—though that was his normal condition.

“No one has yet come to the theatre,” he said, rubbing his hands, as if giving me first-rate intelligence; “but that is a good sign.”

“The deuce it is! Come, my dear GÉnet, I must have that proved.”

“It is easy enough to understand. You must have noticed, sir, that at our former performances we only had the country gentry.”

“Nothing proves it was so; still, I will allow it. Now go on.”

“Well, it is very simple. The tradespeople have not come to see you yet, and I expect them to-night. They are always so busy, that they usually defer a pleasure till the last moment. Have patience, and you will soon see the rush we shall have to contend against.”

And he looked towards the entrance door like a man perfectly convinced that his predictions would be fulfilled.

We had still half an hour—more than sufficient to fill the room—so I waited. But this half-hour passed in vain expectation. Not a soul came to the box-office.

“It is now eight,” I said, drawing out my watch, “and no spectators have arrived. What do you say to that, GÉnet?”

“Oh, sir! your watch is too fast—I am sure of it for——“

My manager was about to support his allegation by some proof drawn from his brain, when the town-hall clock struck. GÉnet, finding his reasons exhausted, contented himself with silence, while casting a despairing glance towards the door.

At length, I saw his face grow purple with delight.

“Ah! I said so,” he exclaimed, pointing to two young men coming towards us. “The public are beginning to arrive. They doubtlessly mistook the hour. Come, every man to his post!”

GÉnet’s joy did not last long, for he soon recognized in these visitors the two young gentlemen who had taken their places the previous day.

“You have kept our seats?” they said to the optimist, as they hurried in.

“Yes, gentlemen, yes; you can go in,” GÉnet replied, making an imperceptible grimace. And he led them in complacently, while striving to explain the emptiness of the room by saying it was only momentary. He had hardly returned to the box-office, when a gentleman of a certain age hurried up the steps, and rushed towards the pay place with a haste my previous success probably justified.

“Is there any room left?” he asked, in a panting voice.

My poor GÉnet did not know how to reply to this question, which seemed a jest; he, therefore, merely muttered one of those common-place phrases usually employed to gain time.

“Well, sir, to tell you the truth—I should say——“

“I know—I know: there are no places left. I expected it. But be kind enough to let me go in, and I will find some corner to stand in.”

“But, sir, allow me to tell you——“

“No matter.”

“But if, on the contrary——“

“All the better. There, give me a stall-ticket, and I will see if I can find room in the passage.”

Being at the end of his arguments, GÉnet supplied the ticket.

You can imagine the surprise of the eager visitor when, on entering the house, he found that he formed in his own person exactly a third of the audience.

For my own part, I soon made up my mind. After compounding with my conscience, by granting the usual quarter of an hour’s grace to the laggards, and seeing no one come, I informed my three spectators that, being only anxious to be agreeable to them, I would perform.

This unexpected news produced a triple hurrah in the house in the shape of thanks.

My orchestra consisted of eight amateurs of the town; and these gentlemen, as a compliment to my French origin, always played as overture the “Girondins” and the “Marseillaise,” with the assistance of the big drum, and never failed to terminate the performance with “God save the Queen.”

The patriotic introduction over, I began my performance.

My audience were collected on the first row of stalls, so that, in order to address my explanations to them, I should have had to keep my head constantly down, which would have eventually become troublesome. Hence I determined to look round the house, and address the benches just as if they were well covered.

For their part, my audience made all possible row to prove their satisfaction. They stamped, applauded, shouted, so as almost to make me believe the house full.

The whole performance was a mutual exchange of compliments, and the spectators saw the last of my tricks arrive with considerable regret. This, however, was not announced on my bills, for I reserved it as the best of my surprises.

“Gentlemen,” I said to my audience, “as I require three persons to assist me in performing this trick, will any gentlemen present have the kindness to come on the stage?”

At this comic invitation the public rose en masse, and obligingly placed themselves at my disposal.

After my three assistants had promised to stand at the front of the stage and not look round, I gave each an empty glass, announcing that it would be filled with excellent punch so soon as they expressed the wish, and I added that to facilitate the performance, they must repeat after me a few cabalistic words borrowed from the enchanter Merlin.

This jest was only proposed in order to gain time, for while we were performing it with bursts of laughter, a change was being carried out behind my kind assistants. The table on which I did my tricks had been removed, and another brought forward on which an excellent supper was spread, and a bowl of punch crackled in the centre.

GÉnet, clothed in black and a white cravat, and armed with a spoon, was stimulating a spectral flame, and when my assistants expressed a wish to see their glasses filled with punch, he said, in his most solemn voice,

“Turn round, and your wishes will be accomplished.”

My musicians had been spectators of this little scene, so I begged them to join us and try the virtues of my inexhaustible bowl. This invitation was joyfully accepted, the table was surrounded, the glasses were filled and emptied, and we passed two agreeable hours in performing this experiment.

Owing to the prodigality of my “inexhaustible bowl of punch,” my guests were all affected by a tender expansion. They almost embraced on parting; however, they contented themselves with shaking hands and vowing an undying friendship.

The instruction to be drawn from this anecdote is that, in offering a farewell to the public, you should not wait till there are none left to receive it.

On leaving Hertford, I went to Cambridge, thence to Bury St. Edmunds, Ipswich and Colchester, always taking receipts proportionate to the importance of the towns. I have only three souvenirs of those five towns: the failure at Hertford, the enthusiastic reception from the Cambridge students, and the nuts at Colchester.

But, it will be asked, what connexion can there be between nuts and a magical performance. A word will explain the fact to the reader, and all the tribulations this fruit caused me.

It is the custom at Colchester that when a body goes to the theatre he fills his pockets with nuts. These are cracked and eaten during the performance as a species of refreshment. Men and women both suffer from this cracking mania, so that a rolling fire is kept up through the house, often powerful enough to drown the voice.

Nothing affected my nerves so much as this incessant cracking; my first performance suffered from it, and despite my efforts to master myself, I went through the whole performance in a state of irritation. I consented, however, to perform a second time, but the manager could not induce me to promise a third. Although he assured me that his actors had grown quite accustomed to this strange music, and that even a minor actor might often be seen on the stage calmly cracking a nut while awaiting the reply, I could not stand it any longer, and left the town.

Most assuredly, the theatres in the smaller English towns are not equal to those in the cities.

At Colchester my tour was to end, and I was about starting for France, when Knowles, the Manchester director, remembering my success at his theatre, proposed to me to take a trip with him through Ireland and Scotland. We had then reached the month of June, 1849, when Paris was more than ever agitated by political questions; and theatres only existed in France as memorials of the past. I did not waste much time in forming a decision; I started with my English manager.

Our excursion lasted no less than four months, and I did not step on French soil again till the end of October.

Need I describe the delight with which I presented myself once more before a Parisian audience, whose kind patronage I had not forgotten? Those professional men who, like myself, have been long absent from Paris, will understand it, for they know nothing is so sweet to the heart as the applause given by a man’s fellow-citizens.

Unfortunately, when I recommenced my performances, I noticed with sorrow the change which had taken place in my health: the performances which I formerly went through with no fatigue, now caused me a painful state of exhaustion.

It was easy to find a reason for this disagreeable change; fatigue, the incessant thought connected with my performances, and still more the foggy atmosphere of England, had exhausted my strength. My life had been in some degree used up during my emigration. I should require a lengthened rest to restore it, and I could not think of it at this period, the best part of the season. I could only take precautions for the future, in case I should find myself suddenly compelled by my health to stop; so I decided on educating a pupil to take my place in case of need, and whose labor might assist me in the meanwhile.

A young man of pleasing exterior, and whose talent I was acquainted with, seemed to offer the conditions I required. My proposals suited him, and he immediately joined me. The future sleight-of-hand professor evinced great aptitude and zeal in learning my lessons. I employed him in a short time to prepare my experiments, then he aided me in the management of my theatre, and when the summer of 1850 arrived, instead of closing my rooms as usual, I continued to send out my bills; the only change was that Hamilton’s name was substituted for mine.

Considering his short period of study, my provisional substitute could not be yet very expert; still, he pleased, and the public were satisfied. During this period I enjoyed in the country a repose that had been long desired.

A man who has made a long journey never feels the fatigue so acutely as when he proposes to continue his journey after a few moments of rest. This was what I experienced when, my holiday being ended, I was obliged to leave the country to begin again the feverish existence of a theatre. I never felt such lassitude; never had I a greater desire to enjoy perfect liberty, to renounce those fatigues of an appointed hour, which may be justly called the collar of misery.

At this word, I see many of my readers start. “Why,” they will say, “thus call a labor whose object is to astonish an audience, and the result to gain honor and profit?”

I find myself compelled to prove the justice of the expression.

The reader will easily understand that the fatigue, preoccupation and responsibility attached to a magical performance do not prevent the conjurer being subjected to the ordinary sufferings of humanity. Now, whatever may be the nature of his sufferings or his grief, he must, at an appointed hour each night, hide them in his bosom, and assume the mask of happiness and health.

This is, in itself, a painful task, but, believe me, reader, it is not all; he must—and this is applicable to all professionals—under penalty of ruin, enliven, animate and excite the public, or, in other words, give them pleasure for their money.

Can this be always equally easy? In truth, the position artists hold would be intolerable, did not they find in the sympathy and applause of the public a gentle recompense which makes them forget the minor miseries of life.

I may say it with pride, to the last moment of my artist life I only met with sympathy and kindness; but the more I strove to render myself ever worthy of them, the more I felt my strength failing me, and the more, too, increased my desire to live in retirement and freedom.

At last, in January, 1852, judging Hamilton fit to succeed me, I decided on giving up my establishment to him, and in order that my theatre, the fruit of my labors, might remain in the family, two contracts were signed; and on the same day my pupil became my brother-in-law and my successor.

Still, however desirous an actor may be of retiring into private life, he very rarely renounces at once and for ever the applause which has become an agreeable stimulant for him. Hence, no surprise will be felt on learning that, after a few months’ rest, I proposed to give a few more performances, as a final parting from the public.

As I had not yet visited Germany, I proceeded to the banks of the Rhine. Desiring no unnecessary fatigue, I resolved to reserve to myself the choice of the places where I would perform. I therefore stopped, in preference, at those festal places called “Baths,” and visited in turn Baden, Wiesbaden, Homburg, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Spa. Nearly each of my performances was honored by the presence of one or more of the princes regnant of the Germanic Confederation.

It was my intention to return to France after my performances at Spa, but, at the request of M. Engel, manager of a theatre at Berlin, I retraced my steps, and started for the capital of Prussia.

I had made a six weeks’ engagement with M. Engel; but my success, and the excellent terms on which I stood with my manager, induced me to prolong it for three months. I could not have taken a more brilliant leave of the public: for, probably, I never saw greater crowds run after my performances. Thus the reception I obtained from the Berliner will ever remain one of my pleasantest reminiscences.

From Berlin I proceeded straight to the neighborhood of Blois, to the retreat I had selected.

Whatever might be my satisfaction in enjoying the freedom I had so long desired, it would soon have undergone the fate common to all our pleasures, and have grown flat by the mere effect of enjoyment, had I not reserved for these blessed hours of leisure studies in which I hoped to find a perennial source of amusement. After gaining a fortune by labors unjustly regarded as futile, I was about to devote myself to serious researches, as I had been formerly advised by a member of the Institute.

The circumstances to which I allude date back to the Exposition of 1844, when I submitted my automata and mechanical curiosities.

The jury entrusted with the examination of mechanical instruments, and designs had come to my productions, and I had repeated the little performance I had given a few days previously in the presence of Louis Philippe.

After listening with interest to the details of the numerous difficulties I had to overcome in making my automata, one of the members of the jury said to me:

“It is a great pity, Monsieur Robert-Houdin, that you did not apply the talent you have evinced in fancy objects to serious labors.”

This criticism wounded me the more, because at that period I considered nothing superior to my works, and in my fairest dreams of the future I desired no greater glory than that of the skillful inventor of the “automaton duck.”

“Sir,” I replied, in a tone that betrayed my pique, “I know no works more serious than those which give a man an honest livelihood. Still, I am ready to change my views, if you give me the same advice after you have heard me.

“At the period when I devoted myself to chronometers, I hardly earned enough to live upon; at present, I have four workmen to help me in making my automata; and as the least skillful among them earns six francs a day, you can easily form an idea what I earn myself.

“Now, sir, I ask you, if I ought to return to my old trade?”

My critic was silent, but another member of the jury coming up to me, said, in a low voice,

“Go on, Monsieur Robert-Houdin—go on; I am convinced that your ingenious works, after leading you to success, will conduct you straight to useful discoveries.”

“Monsieur le Baron SÉguier,” I replied, in the same key, “I thank you for your encouraging prediction, and will do my best to prove its correctness.”[E]

I have followed the advice of the illustrious savant, and find myself all the better for it.