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Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (December 7, 1805 – June 13, 1871) was a French magician. He is widely considered the father of the modern style of conjuring. ==Early life and entrance into conjuring== Master of magic 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〕〔The Magic of Robert-Houdin, Volumes 1 and 2: An Artist's Life by Christian Fechner〕 His father, Prosper Robert, was one of the best watchmakers in Blois. A skillful artisan and hard worker, Prosper Robert's main ambition was to provide for his family, but he also wanted his children to climb the social ladder. 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 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,〔The Master Magicians by Walter B. Gibson 1966〕 but Robert-Houdin wanted to follow into his father's footsteps as a watchmaker. 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 worked as a watchmaker.〔 In the mid-1820s, young he saved up to buy a copy of a two-volume set of books on clockmaking called ''Traité de l'horlogerie'', or ''Treatise on Clockmaking'', written by Ferdinand Berthoud.〔〔 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 best of him. From those crude volumes, he learned the rudiments of magic. He practiced at all hours of the day.〔 From that point when he accidentally received those books on conjuring, 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 provided,〔 but the books piqued his interest in the art. So Jean 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 fêtes doing magic. He was proficient in sleight of hand, and he taught Jean how to juggle to coordinate his eye and hand.〔〔 He also taught him rudiments of the cups and balls. He told young Jean that digital dexterity came with repetition, and as a direct result, Jean practiced incessantly.〔 Magic was his pastime, but 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.〔 Later, he performed at social parties as a professional magician.〔 It was during this period while at a party that he met the daughter of a Parisian watchmaker, Monsieur Jacques François Houdin, who had also come from Jean Robert's native Blois.〔〔〔 The daughter's name was Josèphe Cecile Houdin, and Jean fell in love with Cecile at their first meeting.〔 On July 8, 1830, they were married. He hyphenated his own name to hers and became Robert-Houdin.〔〔 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 methods of handcrafting each piece and embraced his new son-in-law's ambitions for mechanism.〔 While M. Houdin worked in the main shop, Jean was to tinker with mechanical toys and automatic figures.〔 He and Josèphe had eight children, of whom three survived; this was fairly typical for that time period.〔 With his work in the shop, Jean was still practicing magic. Quite by accident, Robert-Houdin walked into a shop on the Rue Richelieu and discovered 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 and eventually sold it to P. T. Barnum.〔 On October 19, 1843, Monsieur Robert-Houdin's beloved wife died,〔〔 having been ill for months; she died at the age of thirty-two.〔 At her death, she left him with three young children to take care of; to take up the burden, he remarried in August of that year to François Marguerite Olympe Braconnier, a woman ten years younger than himself.〔〔 The new Madame Robert-Houdin 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 of his 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) 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 thought that a magician should be dressed as such by wearing traditional evening clothes.〔 He obtained financial backing from Count de l'Escalopier, who fronted him〔 the 15,000 francs〔 to make 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.〔Who was portrayed in Alexandre Dumas, père's ''The Three Musketeers''.〕 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 July 3, 1845, Robert-Houdin premiered his 200-seat theatre 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 about to have 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 affrontery, 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 was 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 opened. 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 program that became especially popular. Seats at the Palais Royal were at a premium. This new marvel was called ''Second Sight''. ''Second Sight'' drew the audiences into the little theatre. Once there, they saw the other creations Robert-Houdin had to offer.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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