pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 111
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 111 | THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT-HOUDIN At this time his work attracted the attention of Lord Keith, Governor of Neuchâtel, then a province of Prussia, who induced the young inventor to visit the court of Ferdinand VI. of Spain, providing the necessary intro- ductions. Pierre Jacquet- Droz remained for some time in Madrid and made a clock of most complicated pattern. This was a perpetual calen- dar. For hands, he utilized artificial sunbeams, shooting out from the sun's face which formed the dial, to denote the hours, days, etc. With the money received from the Henri-Louis Jacquet-Droz, son Spanish monarch he returned of Pierre Jacquet-Droz, and the to Switzerland to find that his superior of his father as a mecha- nician. Born Oct. 13th, 1752, died son, Henri-Louis, had inher- November 15th, 1791. From the Jaquet-Droz brochure, issued by ited his remarkable inventive the Neuchâtel Society of History and Archaeology. gifts. He sent his boy to Nancy to study music, draw- ing, mechanics, and physics. During his son's absence in all probability he produced the first of the marvellous automata which made the Jacquet-Drozes famous the modern world over, namely, the writing figure. With the return of Henri-Louis Jacquet-Droz from college commenced what may be termed the golden age of mechanics in Switzerland. Associated with father and son were the former's pupils or apprentices, Jean- Frédéric Leschot, Jean-David Maillardet, and Jean Pierre Droz, a blood relation who afterward became director of [ 94] |