pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 103
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 103 | THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT-HOUDIN Robert-Houdin injects a little humor into this chapter, for he relates that as Molière and J. J. Rousseau con- sulted their servants, he decided to do likewise; so early the next morning he in- Lebe hich ulu schoene vited his portress and Stadt Dresden her husband, Auguste, a stone-mason, to be pres- else Sode ent at the first perform- ance of the figure. The Les Androides mason's wife chose the question, "What is the vienment reveir emblem of fidelity?" The automaton replied leur pays by drawing a pretty lit- tle greyhound, lying on Specimens of penmanship executed by the Droz writing automaton in 1796 and a cushion. The stone- 1906 respectively. From the brochure mason wished to see the issued by the Society of History and Archaeology, Canton of Neuchatel, Switz- works, saying: "I under- erland. stand about that sort of thing, for I have always greased the vane on the church steeple, and have even taken it down twice." When the work was completed, according to page 208 of the American edition of his "Memoirs," he returned to Paris, collected the remaining two thousand five hundred francs due him from Monsieur G , to whom he delivered the figure, and two thousand francs more on an automatic nightingale made for a rich merchant of St. Petersburg. Incidentally he men- tions that during his absence his business had pros- pered, but he fails to state who managed it for him, and here is where I believe credit should be given Opre, [86] - |