Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin (December 7th 1805 with Blois - June 13rd 1871 with Saint-Gervais-the-Forest), is most famous magician French of the 19th century, the “renovating one of magic art”.

Biography

Born Jean-Eugene Robert in Blois, it combines later with its Patronyme the name of his wife, Cécile Églantine Houdin, not to be sharp with its family. He will become Robert-Houdin.

After studies with the college of Orleans, it goes to Paris where it studies the Horlogerie, the electricity and the construction of Automate S. It deposits several Brevet S of inventions. It is the first to improve the electric bulb with incandescence. Its bulbs are in permanent exposure to the museum of the Château of Blois.

It repairs inter alia the Componium , ancestor of the musical robots. This work brings an unquestionable notoriety to him and, become recognized clock and watch maker, he works for the Maison Destouche. He deposits in 1837 his first Brevet: a “alarm clock lighter”. Then it creates mysterious clocks whose mechanism is invisible and finally its own automats. Its “writer draftsman”, nail of the Exposure of 1844, is bought by famous the Barnum and opens to him the doors of the merchant Alphonse Giroud for whom it manufactures various automats.

He discovers the illusionnism in the collection of a Boniment or denouncing the charlatanism, the Doctor Carlosbach , the science of the retraction, ancestor of the Prestidigitation. Remarié after the death of his first wife, it starts her career of conjurer.

A collector, the Count of Escalopier, become his/her friend, advances the sum necessary to him to open a theater of magic in Paris. July 3rd 1845 takes place the first of the “fantastic Evenings of Robert-Houdin”, street of Valois, with the Palais Royal. It is immediate success. It presents to it magic automats like the Marvellous Orange tree , the Pastrycook of the Palais Royal , or the Acrobat with the Trapezoid and of the new experiments like the inexhaustible Bottle or the Suspension éthéréenne whose design and execution send to the oubliettes the obsolete repertory from now on of its predecessors.

In a few years Robert-Houdin makes fortune. He leaves his theater, which meanwhile settled boulevard of the Italians, to his Hamilton brother-in-law. Robert-Houdin goes back food to Blois in a property, “the Priory”, of which it fakes the garden thanks to electromechanical orders and apparatuses that it invented to surprise his visitors.

In 1888, the theater is sold by its heirs with some Georges Méliès, itself illusionist who founds the Academy of conjuring in 1891. Georges Méliès follows his traces by inventing the first cinematographic fakings. Lastly, some Ehrich Weiss, will know a world-famous personality under her name of scene, Harry Houdini, pseudonym which it adopted in homage to Robert-Houdin.

Robert-Houdin is interested in all that touches with sciences, it deposits many patents. One owes him the apparatuses allowing to measure the “keys” of the Escrime the USSR, the Taximètre, of the electromechanical apparatuses of remote control, certain instruments of Ophtalmologie.

In parallel, it publishes its memories and reveals its processes. It publishes also articles for the Large Encyclopedia Larousse .

Tested by the death of one of its sons killed during the war of 1870, it dies out close to Blois in 1871.

Vis-a-vis the castle of Blois, one can visit the “House of the Magic” which is a museum with the honor of Robert-Houdin and magic in general.

Mission in Algeria

The Colonel de Neveu, chief of the political office with Algiers, assistant of the general Randon, draws it from its semi-retirement to go to make a round in the Algerian colony , between October and November 1856. It has the role of showing to the Algerians that the marabout S do not have more to be able inspired of God that him and that they are only usurpers, false-prophets. Fomenters of revolts in the villages kabyles against the colonizer, the marabouts worried much the French government.

Robert-Houdin tells: " It was agreed that I will be returned to Algiers for on September 27th (1856), day when were to begin the great festivals which the capital of Algeria annually offers to the Arabs. I must also say that what influenced much my determination, it was of knowing that the mission (...) was quasi political. (...) One is not unaware of that the great number of the revolts (...) were caused by intrigants which are said inspired by the Prophet, and which are looked by the Arabs like envoys of God on the ground, to deliver them of (...) the roumi (Christian). However, these false-prophets, these saints marabouts who, in short, are not more wizard that me, and who are it even less, however manage to ignite the fanaticism of their co-religionists using juggling acts (...) "

Publications

• Confidences of a conjurer, by Robert-Houdin; a life of artist (2 volumes, 1858).

• Cheatings of the Greeks revealed; art to gain with all the plays (1861)
• Priory, mysterious organizations for comfort and the approval of a residence (1867). Text on line: * Note on new instruments suitable for the observation of the various bodies of the eye like to the manifestation of the entoptic images (1867)
• '' Confidences and revelations '' (1868) on line on Gallica Republication: Slatkine, Geneva, 1980. T
• How one becomes wizard. Secrecies of conjuring and the magic (1871)
• Magic and amusing physics (1877)

• How one becomes wizard, a life of artist, art to gain with all the plays, Magie of amusing physics, the priory by Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, is published in 2006 by the Omnibus editions

Films

• 1896 - Retraction of a lady at Robert Houdin: film of Georges Mélies, first of the kind with special effects.

• 1995 - Robert-Houdin a life of magician: film of Jean-Luc Muller, only documentary on Robert-Houdin available in DVD on www.automates-anciens.com
• 2007 - the Illusionist, is obviously inspired by the turns of Robert-Houdin.

External bonds

• automats of Robert-Houdin

• How one becomes wizard
• biographical Page

References

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