Now You Don't – When Espionage Meets Magic
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Now You Don't: When Espionage Meets Magic
Alan White
aljwhite
aljwhite.bsky.social
17 min read19 January
Spies and magicians have plundered one another’s box of tricks throughout history but, as Alan White reports, these practised deceivers can’t be trusted to tell the truth about their co-operation. Illustrations by Tracy Worrall
The way he tells it, the great magician was beginning to settle into his retirement when he got a letter he couldn’t ignore. In 1856, Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, aged 51, had finally packed up his act, and was to devote himself to his studies and experiments. A glorious future lay spread out before him – free from the stress of performing, he was, in his words, “about to devote myself to my peaceful studies, and enjoy the pleasantest existence man ever had on earth”.
The year before, he’d been approached by a Colonel François-Edouard de Neveu, the head of the political office at Algiers. The colonel had requested that he perform before the leaders of the Arab tribes there. Robert-Houdin turned down the invitation; he was tired of the stress involved in putting on a show, wishing instead to focus on winning awards as an inventor with his “new applications of electricity to mechanism”.
But de Neveu wasn’t to be dissuaded: he contacted Robert-Houdin for a second time and, this time, the magician decided to go. One reason, he said, was the “quasi political” nature of the visit, the notion he might be able to render his country a “service”. The mission involved undermining the Marabouts; Muslim religious leaders regarded by the local Arab population as “envoys of God”, sent to deliver them from the oppression of Christians.
These men, Robert-Houdin wrote, were “no more sorcerers than I am”, yet would “contrive to influence the fanaticism of their co-religionists”, through the use of tricks upon a populace he described as “primitive”. His task was simple: to show that their tricks were not magic but “child’s play”, so that the French could demonstrate they were “their superiors in everything”.
Robert-Houdin was raised in a family that owned a clock-making business. After moving to Paris in adulthood, he’d continued to develop his skills with gadgetry. To understand the man’s work, consider arguably his most beautiful trick, first shown in 1845 at the premiere of his theatre in Paris.
He takes a lady’s handkerchief and places it on a table, alongside an egg, a lemon and an orange. He picks up the handkerchief, rubs it in his hands, and it disappears.
He picks up the egg. The audience know what’s coming; it’s a corny old bit of legerdemain. He’ll crack it open and reveal the object is inside. But he does not do that – instead, he vanishes the egg. He announces that it has gone inside the lemon. He picks up the lemon. It, too, vanishes. Now he picks up the orange, rolling it from palm to palm, showing the audience that it is shrinking. Finally, it is reduced to just a powder. The powder is lit, giving off a blue flame.
Now a small orange tree is brought on stage. It is placed above the flame. Its leaves slowly begin to twist, and spread, and white flowers begin to blossom. With a wave of the magician’s wand, they disappear, replaced by oranges, ever growing in size, until Robert-Houdin can pick them from the tree, and hand them to the audience. The final orange remains on top of the tree. It opens, to reveal the lady’s handkerchief. Two butterflies appear behind the tree and lift the handkerchief by its corners, revealing it to the audience. The magician bows; the curtains close.
Nothing was new – not the sleight of hand, nor less the use of automata. But to blend the three with such elegance, to create a device so intricate: it elevated the art to a new level.
So, the...