THE DISAPPEARING HANDKERCHIEF
Supreme egotism and utter disregard for the truth may be traced in all
of Robert-Houdin's writings, but they reached a veritable climax when he
indited chapter XVI. of his "Memoirs." During the course of this chapter
he described the so-called invention and first production of the
disappearing-handkerchief trick.
According to the American edition of his "Memoirs," page 303, he
received a command to appear before Louis Philippe and his family at St.
Cloud in November, 1846. During the six days intervening between the
official invitation and his appearance before the royal family, he
arranged a trick from which, he states, he had every reason to expect
excellent results. On page 305 he goes even further in his claims and
announces:
"All my tricks were favorably received, and the one I had invented for
the occasion gained me unbounded applause."
He then gives the following description of the trick and its
performance:
"I borrowed from my noble spectators several handkerchiefs, which I made
into a parcel, and laid on the table. Then, at my request, different
persons wrote on the cards the names of places whither they desired
their handkerchiefs to be invisibly transported.
"When this had been done, I begged the King to take three of the cards
at hazard, and choose from them the place he might consider most
suitable.
"'Let us see,' Louis Philippe said, 'what this one says: "I desire the
handkerchiefs to be found beneath one of the candelabra on the
mantelpiece." That is too easy for a sorcerer; so we will pass to the
next card: "The handkerchiefs are to be transported to the dome of the
Invalides." That would suit me, but it is much too far, not for the
handkerchiefs, but for us. Ah, ah!' the King added, looking at the last
card, 'I am afraid, M. Robert-Houdin, I am about to embarrass you. Do
you know what this card proposes?'
"'Will your Majesty deign to inform me?'
"'It is desired that you should send the handkerchiefs into the chest of
the last orange-tree on the right of the avenue.'
"'Only that, Sire? Deign to order, and I shall obey.'
"'Very good, then; I should like to see such a magic act: I, therefore,
choose the orange-tree chest.'
"The King gave some orders in a low voice, and I directly saw several
persons run to the orange-tree, in order to watch it and prevent any
fraud.
"I was delighted at this precaution, which must add to the effect of my
experiment, for the trick was already arranged, and the precaution hence
too late.
"I had now to send the handkerchiefs on their travels, so I placed them
beneath a bell of opaque glass, and, taking my wand, I ordered my
invisible travellers to proceed to the spot the King had chosen.
"I raised the bell; the little parcel was no longer there, and a white
turtle-dove had taken its place.
"The King then walked quickly to the door, whence he looked in the
direction of the orange-tree, to assure himself that the guards were at
their post; when this was done, he began to smile and shrug his
shoulders.
"'Ah! M. Robert-Houdin,' he said, somewhat ironically, 'I much fear for
the virtue of your magic staff.' Then he added, as he returned to the
end of the room, where several servants were standing, 'Tell William to
open immediately the last chest at the end of the avenue, and bring me
carefully what he finds there--if he does find anything.'
"William soon proceeded to the orange-tree, and, though much astonished
at the orders given him, he began to carry them out.
"He carefully removed one of the sides of the chest, thrust his hand in,
and almost touched the roots of the tree before he found anything. All
at once he uttered a cry of surprise as he drew out a small iron coffer
eaten by the rust.
"This curious find, after having been cleaned from the mould, was
brought in and placed on a small ottoman by the King's side.
"'Well, M. Robert-Houdin,' Louis Philippe said to me, with a movement of
impatient curiosity, 'here is a box; am I to conclude it contains the
handkerchiefs?'
"'Yes, Sire,' I replied with assurance, 'and they have been there, too,
for a long period.'
"'How can that be? The handkerchiefs were lent you scarce a quarter of
an hour ago.'
"'I cannot deny it, Sire; but what would my magic powers avail me if I
could not perform incomprehensible tricks? Your Majesty will doubtless
be still more surprised when I prove to your satisfaction that this
coffer as well as its contents was deposited in the chest of the
orange-tree sixty years ago.'
[Illustration: Reproduction of a very rare pastel portrait of
Cagliostro. From the Harry Houdini Collection.]
"'I should like to believe your statement,' the King replied with a
smile; 'but that is impossible, and I must, therefore, ask for proofs of
your assertion.'
"'If your Majesty will be kind enough to open this casket they will be
supplied.'
"'Certainly; but I shall require a key for that.'
"'It only depends on yourself, Sire, to have one. Deign to remove it
from the neck of this turtle dove, which has just brought it to you.'
"Louis Philippe unfastened a ribbon that held a small rusty key with
which he hastened to unlock the coffer. The first thing that caught the
King's eye was a parchment, on which he read the following statements:
"'This day, the sixth of June, 1786, this iron box, containing six
handkerchiefs, was placed among the roots of an orange tree by me,
Balsamo, Count of Cagliostro, to serve in performing an act of magic
which will be executed on the same day sixty years hence before Louis
Philippe of Orléans and his family.'
"'There is, decidedly, witchcraft about this,' the King said, more and
more amazed. 'Nothing is wanting, for the seal and signature of the
celebrated sorcerer are placed at the foot of this statement, which,
Heaven pardon me, smells strongly of sulphur.'
"At this jest the audience began to laugh.
"'But,' the King added, taking out of the box a carefully sealed packet,
'can the handkerchiefs, by possibility, be in this?'
"'Indeed, Sire, they are; but, before opening the parcel, I would
request your Majesty to notice that it, also, bears the impression of
Cagliostro's seal.'
"This seal, once rendered so famous by being placed on the celebrated
alchemist's bottles of elixir and liquid gold, I had obtained from
Torrini, who had been an old friend of Cagliostro's.
"'It is certainly the same,' my royal spectator answered, after
comparing the two seals. Still, in his impatience to learn the contents
of the parcel, the King quickly tore open the envelope, and soon
displayed before the astonished spectators the six handkerchiefs, which,
a few moments before, were still on my table."
While the use of the Cagliostro seal really formed no part of the trick,
its possession by Robert-Houdin goes to show how indefatigably he
collected conjuring curios and how quick he was to utilize any part of
his collection, and score thereby a brilliant showing.
Cagliostro seals were by no means rare. This prince of charlatans had
seals, like adventures, in great variety; and in this connection, it is
not out of place to tell something of Cagliostro and thus explain why
the parchment bearing his seal created such a sensation at St. Cloud.
Cagliostro has no match in the annals of magic. Not a conjurer in the
sense of being a public entertainer, he yet mystified and bewitched his
thousands. Something of a physician, more of an alchemist, and
altogether a charlatan, he left behind him a trail of brilliant
chicanery, daring adventure, and ignominious failure and undoing
unequalled in the history of Europe.
[Illustration: Reproduction of a rare portrait of Seraphinia Feliciani,
Comtesse de Cagliostro, wrongfully called Lorenzo in the Encyclopædia
Britannica. From the Harry Houdini Collection.]
Cagliostro was born Joseph Balsamo, in Palermo, Italy, June 8th, 1743.
His parents were in humble circumstances and he started his career as a
novice in the Convent of Benfratelli, from which he was expelled for
incorrigibility. Then he plunged into a life of dissipation and
cleverly planned, ofttimes brilliantly executed crimes. He fled Palermo
after forging theatre tickets and a will, and duping a goldsmith out of
sixty pieces of gold. At Messina he fell in with an alchemist named
Althotas, a man of some learning who spoke a variety of languages.
These two adventurers travelled in Egypt, and when Althotas died
Cagliostro went to Naples and Rome, where he married a beautiful
girdle-maker named Seraphinia Feliciani. This woman shared both his
triumphs and his disgrace. In 1776 they arrived in London, where he
announced himself as the Count di Cagliostro. The title was assumed, the
name was borrowed from his mother's side of the house. Here for the
first time Cagliostro announced himself also a worker of miracles or
wonders.
He exhibited two mysterious substances, "Materia Prima," with which he
transmuted all baser metals into gold, and "Egyptian Wine," with which
he claimed to prolong life. His wife, who was just past twenty, he
declared was more than sixty, her youthful appearance being due to the
use of his elixir. He founded a spurious Egyptian rite in connection
with the Masonic order which has been recognized as a blot upon Masonic
history, and he claimed thousands of Masonic dupes. All over the
Continent he and his beautiful wife travelled, now healing the poor for
nothing, now duping the rich, but always living in a most picturesque,
voluptuous fashion. He dipped into spiritualism and mesmerism, but
wherever he went his converts followed after.
[Illustration: Very rare Testot handbill printed about 1800, presented
by Testot to Henry Evanion. From the Harry Houdini Collection.]
In 1789, while in Rome, he was seized by that invincible power, the Holy
Inquisition, and was condemned to death. Later Pope Pius VI. changed the
sentence to life imprisonment. Confinement made him more daring than
ever. He asked for a confessor, and when a Capuchin monk was permitted
to enter his cell in this capacity Cagliostro endeavored to choke him
and escape in his robes. The monk fought for his life so effectually
that it was he, and not Cagliostro, who escaped. Cagliostro was
literally buried alive in a subterranean dungeon, as punishment for his
final offence, and his wife immured herself in a Roman convent, where
she died in 1794.
[Illustration: Testot programme, featuring "Cabalistic Art" in 1826.
From the Harry Houdini Collection.]
In Paris, perhaps, Cagliostro enjoyed his greatest triumphs of
charlatanism, and it is not remarkable that the appearance of his seal
in the midst of Robert-Houdin's trick should seem almost uncanny to the
royal family.
But to return to the disappearing-handkerchief trick. Robert-Houdin did
not invent this trick. It was presented by a number of conjurers before
Robert-Houdin was known in the world of magic. Robert-Houdin simply
employed the trick familiar to both his predecessors and contemporaries
and redressed it to tickle the fancy of his royal patron.
In England this trick was known among old conjurers as "The Ne Plus
Ultra of the Cabalistic Art." In 1826 one M. Félix Testot, who claimed
to be a compatriot of Robert-Houdin, presented the trick in the British
provinces, and one of his bills I am reproducing because it shows that
the trick he offered the provincial Britons and the trick which
Robert-Houdin offered the royal family at St. Cloud were identical. It
also proves that London had seen the trick; and what London had seen,
Paris, including Robert-Houdin, had heard of.
[Illustration: Marriot programme featuring "Cabalistic Art" in 1831, or
fifteen years before Robert-Houdin claims to have invented the
disappearing handkerchief trick. From the Harry Houdini Collection.]
A programme used by "The Celebrated Mr. Marriot, Professor of Recreative
Philosophy," in 1831, contains word for word the announcement of the
trick used on Testot's bill, which goes to show that a popular test was
to have articles passed from the Adelphia Theatre to the gun which was
being watched by a sentinel.
[Illustration: Jefferini handbill, dated 1833, in which he announces
that any article will be made to fly 500 miles a minute.]
February 22d, 1833, found a Mr. Jefferini at the Royal Clarence Theatre,
Liverpool Street, King's Cross, Liverpool. He agreed to make "an article
fly at the rate of five hundred miles an hour, from King's Cross to the
Centre of Greece."
The original Buck featured on his programme a similar trick which he
called "The Loaf Trick." On a bill dated October 26th, 1840, it is
announced as follows: "Watch in a loaf. The magician will command any
gentleman's watch to disappear. It will be found in a loaf at any
baker's shop in Town." The senior Ingleby changed the trick somewhat,
sending out to any market for a shoulder of mutton, which, on being
cut, would yield up a card previously drawn by some spectator. He thus
describes his trick in his book "Whole Art of Legerdemain," published in
London in 1815:
"TRICK FOUR.
"To cut out of a Shoulder of Mutton a Card which one of the Company had
previously drawn out of the Pack.
[Illustration: Only known portrait of the clever English conjurer, Buck.
From an engraving in the Harry Houdini Collection.]
"Having desired a person to draw a Card out of several which you hold to
him, and to remember it, which he promises to do, you tell him it shall
be in a shoulder of mutton which you will send for.
"Accordingly you desire a servant to go to the butcher's and bring one.
When brought, it is examined, and then ordered to be put down to roast.
After performing some tricks, you recollect the shoulder of mutton,
which is immediately brought half-roasted, and after cutting it for some
time you at length find the card, and produce it.
[Illustration: Ingleby handbill, dated 1808. From the Harry Houdini
Collection.]
"Explanation:
"Having forced a card on one of the company, your confederate has an
opportunity, when the mutton is sent to be roasted, of conveying a thin
duplicate of that card folded into a narrow compass into the fleshy part
near the shank, which can be easily done by means of a sharp penknife.
"This trick, though remarkably simple, has created universal
astonishment at the Minor Theatre, where it was frequently exhibited by
Mr. Ingleby."
[Illustration: Frontispiece from Ingleby's book, "Whole Art of
Legerdemain," said to be an excellent likeness of the conjurer-author.
From the Harry Houdini Collection.]
The method of performing the trick was so familiar to conjurers of
Robert-Houdin's time and earlier that Henry Evans Evanion was able to
describe it to me from actual witnessings. Acting on his explanation, on
my return to America I offered the trick, without any great amount of
preparation and without a hitch, at a matinée entertainment given by a
secret organization. I will describe precisely how this was done, and
allow my readers to judge of the similarity of the trick offered years
ago by humble travelling magicians whose names have been written most
faintly in the annals of conjuring, and the much-vaunted trick
"invented" by Robert-Houdin for the entertainment of his sovereign.
The hall in which the matinée was given was located in Harlem, Borough
of Manhattan, New York City, and I had decided that the handkerchiefs
which were to make the flying journey should be "desired" by some one
present to appear under the top step of the winding staircase in the
Statue of Liberty, which is located in New York Harbor. This meant a
half-hour ride from the hall to the boat in a Subway train; then a run
across New York Harbor to the Statue. These boats left the dock on the
hour and the half-hour, so I timed my performance to fill just half an
hour, starting with some sleight-of-hand, the egg-bag trick, and
swallowing a package of needles and bringing them up threaded, which
latter trick was introduced into magical performances in Europe by K. K.
Kraus in 1816.
[Illustration: Reproduction of a rare Buck handbill, dated 1844. From
the Harry Houdini Collection.]
Just before 3:30 o'clock I borrowed three handkerchiefs and tied them
together for easier handling. I had three handkerchiefs, similarly tied
together, under my vest, and just at 3:30, I switched the two sets of
handkerchiefs, so that the handkerchiefs furnished by the spectators
were under my vest and the bogus handkerchiefs in my hand. First I
dropped the bogus handkerchiefs on the table-trap, picking up the opaque
glass cover with which they were to be hidden, and, by a carefully
rehearsed bit of carelessness, dropped and broke it. Then, leaving the
bogus handkerchiefs on the table trap, I stepped toward the wings,
apparently to secure another glass bell or cover. To all intents and
purposes, I did not pass from the view of the audience, for fully half
of my body was on the stage, but as my assistant handed me a new glass
cover, he deftly extracted the real handkerchiefs from under my vest.
Then, while I returned to the stage with my patter and description of
the flight the handkerchiefs were about to make, my assistant, with the
handkerchiefs in his pocket, walked unnoticed from the door, and, once
out of sight, ran madly to the Subway station. There he boarded an
express and reached the boat landing just in time to catch the 4 o'clock
boat. At the Statue, my brother and a tinsmith were waiting for him.
The handkerchiefs were placed in the tin box, securely soldered, and
then this box was placed inside a second iron box, which was locked. The
"plant" was then taken upstairs and hidden under the top step.
In the mean time, with my thoughts following my assistant every step of
his trip, I was playing out my end of the game. The audience was
supplied with blank cards on which they might write the name of the
place where the handkerchiefs should reappear. This, of course, took
some time, and when the cards, each folded to hide the writing thereon,
were collected in a hat, I shook them up thoroughly, and then turned
them out upon a plate, deftly adding, on the top, three cards which I
had concealed in my hand. This was sleight-of-hand purely, and I next
picked out those three prepared cards on each of which was written "Can
you send the handkerchiefs under the top step of the Statue of Liberty?"
Explaining that I had in my hand three cards chosen at haphazard, I
wished the final choice to be made by a disinterested party. A baby was
finally chosen to select the card. Naturally, I refused even to take the
slip of paper from the baby's hand, and one of the lodge members read
the question.
Murmurs of surprise and incredulity echoed from all over the hall. The
test was too difficult! I then announced that if the audience would
select its own committee, making sure to pick out men who could not be
bribed, I would accompany them, and we would surely return with the
handkerchiefs, sealed in double boxes, as found under the famous
stairway. As an elaborate course luncheon was to be served, the
committee had time to act, and away we went, leaving the lodge to its
feast. So much time had been lost in selecting the committee that we
reached the wharf just in time to catch the 5 o'clock boat. On landing I
received a prearranged signal from my assistants that all was well, and
as I watched my committee dash up the stairs I knew that their quest
would be rewarded.
When the committee and the writer returned to the lodge-room, a mechanic
was required to pry open the box. There lay the identical handkerchiefs
furnished by my spectators, who could hardly believe their eyes.
On other occasions I have asked my audience to select a spokesman, who
in a loud voice would announce the point at which the handkerchiefs
would be found, and then my man, waiting just outside the door, would
mount his bicycle and pedal like mad for the hiding-place, naturally
outstripping any committee appointed. But the first method, that of
selecting the place beforehand and having all arrangements made, even to
the three prepared cards, is safest and is probably the one used by
Robert-Houdin to deceive the French monarch. I doubt if he even had
three different cards prepared, as he claims. I believe he exaggerated
his feat, for that would have been taking long chances.
For this trick I claim not an iota of originality. I simply fitted it to
the time, the place, and the audience, and that I believe is all
Robert-Houdin did when he "invented" the disappearing handkerchief trick
for the amusement of his sovereign.