Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (; 7 December 1805 – 13 June 1871) was a French watchmaker, magician and illusionist, widely recognized as the father of the modern style of conjuring. He transformed magic from a pastime for the lower classes, seen at fairs, to an entertainment for the wealthy, which he offered in a theatre opened in Paris, a legacy preserved by the tradition of modern magicians performing in tails.
Early life and entrance into conjuring Robert-Houdin was born Jean-Eugène Robert in Blois, France, on 7 December 1805—a day after his autobiography said he was.Illustrated History of Magic by Milbourne Christopher 1973 Vol. 2. His father, Prosper Robert, was a watchmaker in Blois. Jean-Eugene's mother, the former Marie-Catherine Guillon, died when he was just a young child. At the age of eleven, Prosper sent his son Jean-Eugène to school thirty-five miles up the Loire to the University of Orléans. At 18, he graduated and returned to Blois. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, but Robert-Houdin wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as a watchmaker.
Apprentice clockmaker His penmanship was excellent, and it landed him a job as a clerk for an attorney's office. Instead of studying law, he tinkered with mechanical gadgets. His employer sent him back to his father. He was told that he was better suited as a watchmaker than a lawyer, but by then, Jean's father had already retired, so he became an apprentice to his cousin who had a watch-shop. For a short time, Jean-Eugène worked as a watchmaker.
In the mid-1820s, he saved up to buy a copy of a two-volume set of books on clockmaking called Traité de l'horlogerie ("Treatise on Clockmaking"), written by Ferdinand Berthoud. He would go on to pursue the craft of clockmaking for the rest of his life, and is widely credited with inventing the mystery clock.
Introduction to magic When he got home and opened the wrapping, instead of the Berthoud books, what appeared before his eyes was a two-volume set on magic called Scientific Amusements. Instead of returning the books, his curiosity got the better of him. From those crude volumes, he learned the rudiments of magic. He practiced at all hours of the day.
From that point on, he became very interested in the art. He was upset that the books he got only revealed how the secrets were done but did not show how to do them. He found that learning from the books available in those days was very difficult due to the lack of detailed explanations, but the books piqued his interest in the art. So Robert-Houdin began taking lessons from a local amateur magician. He paid ten francs for a series of lessons from a man named Maous from Blois who was a podiatrist but also entertained at fairs and parties doing magic. He was proficient at sleight of hand, and taught Robert-Houdin how to juggle to improve his hand-eye coordination. He also taught him rudiments of the cups and balls. He told young Robert-Houdin that digital dexterity came with repetition, and as a direct result, Robert-Houdin practiced incessantly.
Magic was his pastime, and meanwhile, his studies in horology continued. When he felt he was ready, he moved to Tours and set up a watchmaking business, doing conjuring on the side.
Much of what we know about Robert-Houdin comes from his memoirs—and his writings were meant more to entertain than to chronicle, rendering it difficult to separate fact from fiction. Robert-Houdin would have readers believe that a major turning point in his life came when he became apprenticed to the magician Edmund De Grisi, Count's son and better known as Torrini. What is known is that his early performing came from joining an amateur acting troupe.
Marriage to Josèphe Cecile Houdin He performed at social parties as a professional magician in Europe and the United States. It was during this period while at a party that he met Josèphe Cecile Houdin, the daughter of a Parisian watchmaker, Jacques-François Houdin, who also originally came from Blois. Jean-Eugène fell in love with her at their first meeting. On 8 July 1830, they were married; he then hyphenated his own name to hers and became Robert-Houdin. He and Josèphe had eight children, of whom three survived.
He moved to Paris and worked in his father-in-law's wholesale shop. Jacques-François was among the last of the watchmakers to use the old method of handcrafting each piece and embraced his new son-in-law's ambitions for mechanism. While Houdin worked in the main shop, Jean-Eugène was to tinker with mechanical toys and automatic figures. With his work in the shop, Jean-Eugène was still practicing magic. Quite by accident, Robert-Houdin walked into a shop on the Rue Richelieu and discovered that it sold magic. He visited the store, which was owned by a Père (Papa) Roujol. There, he met fellow magicians, both amateur and professional, where he engaged in talk about conjuring, and he met an aristocrat by the name of Jules de Rovère, who coined the term "prestidigitation" to describe a major misdirection technique magicians used.
At Papa Roujol's, Robert-Houdin learned the details to many of the mechanical tricks of the time as well as how to improve them. From there, he built his own mechanical figures, like a singing bird, a dancer on a tightrope, and an automaton doing the cups and balls. His most acclaimed automaton was his writing and drawing figure. He displayed this figure before King Louis Philippe I and eventually sold it to P. T. Barnum.
On 19 October 1843, Josèphe died at the age of thirty-two, having been ill for months. At her death, having three young children to take care of, he remarried in August to Françoise Marguerite Olympe Braconnier, a woman ten years younger, who soon took over the household.
Robert-Houdin loved to watch the big magic shows that came to Paris. He dreamed about some day opening his own theatre. In the meantime, he was hired by a friend by the name of Count de l'Escalopier to perform at private parties.
Now that he had free time, he began constructing equipment for his own use instead of selling it to others. The income from the shop and his new inventions gave him enough money to experiment on new tricks using glass apparatus that would be (or at least appear to be) free of trickery. He envisioned a stage that would be as elegant as the drawing rooms in which he was hired to perform. He also decided that a magician should be dressed as such by wearing traditional evening clothes.
Opening the "Palais Royale" He obtained financial backing from Count de l'Escalopier, who fronted him the 15,000 francs to turn his vision into reality. He rented out a suite of rooms above the archways around the gardens of the Palais Royal, which was once owned by Cardinal Richelieu. He hired workmen to redesign the old assembly room into a theatre. They painted it white with gold trim. Tasteful drapes were hung, chic candelabras were placed throughout, and the stage furniture was set in the style of Louis XV.
On 3 July 1845, Robert-Houdin premiered his 200-seat Théâtre Robert-Houdin in what he called "Soirées fantastiques". No critics covered Robert-Houdin's debut, and in his memoirs, Robert-Houdin said that the show had been a disaster. He suffered from stage fright that caused him to talk too fast and in a monotone. He said that he did not know what he was saying or doing, and everything was a blur. He believed that a magician should not present a trick until it was mechanically perfected to be certain of avoiding failure, and this caused him to over-rehearse.
After the first show, he was close to having a nervous breakdown. He closed the theatre and had every intention to close it for good, until a friend agreed that the venture was a silly idea. Instead of admitting defeat, Robert-Houdin, irked at the friend's effrontery, used this insult to regain his courage, and persevered in giving the show a long run at his little theatre. Although the forty-year-old magician was unpolished at first, he soon gained the confidence required for the stage.
With each performance, Robert-Houdin got better, and he began to receive critical acclaim. Le Charivari and L'Illustration both said that his mechanical marvels and artistic magic were comparable to those of his predecessors like Philippe and Bartolomeo Bosco. Even with all of this, still relatively few people would come to the little theatre during the summer months, and he struggled to keep it open. To meet expenses, he sold the three houses that he had inherited from his mother.
The following year, he added a new trick to his programme that became especially popular. Seats at the Palais Royal were at a premium. This new marvel was called Second Sight drew the audiences into the little theatre. Once there, they saw the other creations Robert-Houdin had to offer. He also performed outside Paris, sometimes with local magicians, as he did in Liège in 1846 with the then well-known Belgian magician Louis Courtois.
Famous illusions
Robert-Houdin combined his mechanical abilities along with "showmanship, humour, and artistic handling" to produce his illusions. Robert-Houdin felt that every magic programme should be arranged so one trick builds upon the others. One surprise should lead to an even bigger surprise. Some of the tricks and illusions Robert-Houdin presented became classics. Here are a few of them.
Second sight When Robert-Houdin first opened his theatre, it was sparsely attended and he realized that he needed something more extraordinary that would bring the public to his theatre. So he came upon the idea of doing a two-person mind-reading act, concocting a silly story about how his son Émile had created a game of hot and cold that resulted in Robert-Houdin using it for the stage.
He named the trick "Second Sight", a title that was already used by magicians such as John Henry Anderson, but the effect was entirely different. Anderson had a box into which items were inserted. The medium would then describe the contents inside. In Robert-Houdin's version, he walked into the audience and touched items that the audience held up, and his blindfolded assistant, played by his son, described each one in detail. It caused a sensation and brought the throng to see his shows.
Eventually, Robert-Houdin changed the method, so instead of asking his son what was in his hands, he simply rang a bell. This stunned those that suspected a spoken code. He would even set the bell off to the side and remain silent, and his son still described every object handed to his father.
Robert-Houdin made the test even more difficult. He placed a glass of water into his son's hands, and Émile proceeded to drink from it. He was able to perceive the taste of the liquids that spectators from the audience merely thought of. Even then, the audiences were not entirely convinced; they tried to trip up Émile by bringing in books written in Greek, or odd tools such as a thread counter.
The ethereal suspension During Robert-Houdin's time, all of Paris was enthusiastically talking about the mysterious uses of "ether". He took advantage of this by presenting an illusion that appeared to use the pungent liquid. He told the audience that he had discovered a marvelous new property of ether. "If one has a living person inhale this liquid when it is at its highest degree of concentration, the body of the patient for a few moments becomes as light as a balloon," Robert-Houdin claimed.
He proceeded to "prove" just that. He placed three stools on a wooden bench. His youngest son Eugène stood on the middle one. With the instructions from his father, he extended his arms. Robert-Houdin placed two canes on top of the stools and positioned them under his son's arms.