Editing Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (section)

==Early life and entrance into conjuring==
Robert-Houdin was born Jean-Eugène Robert in [[Blois]], France, on 7 December 1805—a day after his autobiography said he was.<ref name="ref2">Illustrated History of Magic by Milbourne Christopher 1973</ref><ref name="ref3">{{cite book |title=The Magic of Robert-Houdin: An Artist's Life |volume=1 |first1=Christian |last1=Fechner |url=https://archive.org/details/Christian_Fechner_Magic_Of_Robert-Houdin_An_Artists_Life_Vol._1 |access-date=29 April 2016 |via=Internet Archive}} [https://archive.org/details/Christian_Fechner_Magic_Of_Robert-Houdin_An_Artists_Life_Vol._2 Vol. 2].</ref> His father, Prosper Robert, was a watchmaker in Blois. Jean-Eugene's mother, the former Marie-Catherine Guillon, died when he was just a young child.<ref name="ref3"/> At the age of eleven, Prosper sent his son Jean-Eugène to school thirty-five miles up the [[Loire]] to the [[University of Orléans]].<ref name="ref2"/> At 18, he graduated and returned to Blois. His father wanted him to be a lawyer,<ref name="ref3"/> but Robert-Houdin wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as a watchmaker.

===Apprentice clockmaker===
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-Eugène worked as a [[watchmaker]].<ref name="ref3"/>

In the mid-1820s, he saved up to buy a copy of a two-volume set of books on clockmaking called ''[[Traité de l'horlogerie]]'' ("Treatise on Clockmaking"), written by [[Ferdinand Berthoud]].<ref name="ref3"/> He would go on to pursue the craft of clockmaking for the rest of his life, and is widely credited with inventing the [[Mystery watch|mystery clock]].

===Introduction to magic===
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 better of him. From those crude volumes, he learned the rudiments of magic. He practiced at all hours of the day.<ref name="ref3"/>

From that point on, 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.<ref name="ref2"/> He found that learning from the books available in those days was very difficult due to the lack of detailed explanations,<ref name="ref3"/> but the books piqued his interest in the art. So Robert-Houdin began taking lessons from a local amateur magician.<ref name="ref3"/> 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 parties doing magic. He was proficient at sleight of hand, and taught Robert-Houdin how to juggle to improve his hand-eye coordination.<ref name="ref2"/><ref name="ref3"/> He also taught him rudiments of the cups and balls. He told young Robert-Houdin that digital dexterity came with repetition, and as a direct result, Robert-Houdin practiced incessantly.<ref name="ref2"/>

Magic was his pastime, and 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.<ref name="ref3"/>

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.<ref name="ref3"/>

===Marriage to Josèphe Cecile Houdin===
He performed at social parties as a professional magician in Europe and the United States.<ref name="ref3"/> It was during this period while at a party that he met Josèphe Cecile Houdin, the daughter of a Parisian watchmaker, Jacques-François Houdin, who also originally came from Blois.<ref name="ref2" /><ref name="ref3" /> Jean-Eugène fell in love with her at their first meeting.<ref name="ref3" /> On 8 July 1830, they were married; he then hyphenated his own name to hers and became Robert-Houdin.<ref name="ref2" /><ref name="ref3" /> He and Josèphe had eight children, of whom three survived.<ref name="ref2" />

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 method of handcrafting each piece and embraced his new son-in-law's ambitions for mechanism.<ref name="ref3"/> While Houdin worked in the main shop, Jean-Eugène was to tinker with mechanical toys and [[Automaton|automatic figures]].<ref name="ref3"/> With his work in the shop, Jean-Eugène was still practicing magic. Quite by accident, Robert-Houdin walked into a shop on the Rue Richelieu and discovered that it sold magic. He visited the store, which was owned by a Père (Papa) Roujol.<ref name="ref2"/> 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 [[Sleight of hand|"prestidigitation"]] to describe a major misdirection technique magicians used.<ref name="ref2"/><ref name="ref3"/>

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 [[Louis-Philippe of France|King Louis Philippe]] and eventually sold it to [[P. T. Barnum]].<ref name="ref3"/>

On 19 October 1843, Josèphe died at the age of thirty-two,<ref name="ref2"/><ref name="ref3"/> having been ill for months. At her death, having three young children to take care of, he remarried in August to Françoise Marguerite Olympe Braconnier, a woman ten years younger,<ref name="ref2"/><ref name="ref3"/> who soon took over the household.

Robert-Houdin loved to watch the big magic shows that came to Paris.<ref name="ref2"/> He dreamed about some day opening his own theatre. In the meantime, he was hired by a friend by the name of Count de l'Escalopier<ref name="ref2"/> to perform at private parties.<ref name="ref3"/>

Now that he had free time, he began constructing equipment for his own use instead of selling it to others.<ref name="ref2"/> 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 to be) 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 decided that a magician should be dressed as such by wearing traditional evening clothes.<ref name="ref3"/>

===Opening the "Palais Royale"===
He obtained financial backing from Count de l'Escalopier, who fronted him<ref name="ref3"/> the 15,000 francs<ref name="ref2"/> to turn 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]]. 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 of France|Louis XV]].<ref name="ref2"/>

On 3 July 1845, Robert-Houdin premiered his 200-seat [[Théâtre Robert-Houdin]] 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.<ref name="ref2"/>

After the first show, he was close to having 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 effrontery, used this insult to regain his courage, and persevered in giving the show a long run at his little theatre.<ref name="ref2"/><ref name="ref3"/> Although the forty-year-old magician was unpolished at first, he soon gained the confidence required for the stage.<ref name="ref3"/>

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 were 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 open. 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 programme that became especially popular. Seats at the Palais Royal were at a premium. This new marvel was called ''[[Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin#Second Sight|Second Sight]]''. ''Second Sight'' drew the audiences into the little theatre. Once there, they saw the other creations Robert-Houdin had to offer.<ref name="ref2"/> He also performed outside Paris, sometimes with local magicians, as he did in [[Liège]] in 1846 with the then well-known Belgian magician [[Louis Courtois (illusionist)|Louis Courtois]].<ref name="ref3" />