Jean’s 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 Jean saved up to buy a copy of a two volume set of books on clock making called Traité de l’horlogerie, or Treatise on Clockmaking, written by Ferdinand Berthoud. The book seller had put the books off to the side for Jean. He reached up to the shelf and grabbed the books. He wrapped the two volumes and handed them to the young aspiring clockmaker.

But when Jean 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, Jean Robert 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 because 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 fetes 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 watch making 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 Grisy, better known as Torrini. Unfortunately, there is no record of a Torrini or a de Grisy.

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, 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 still was 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 there 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.

These triumphs were short lived because 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 utilizing glass apparatus that would 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 thought that a magician should be dressed as such by wearing traditional evening clothes.

It was not, however, till Count de l’Escalopier fronted him the 15,000 francs he needed that his dream would become a reality. He rented out a suite of rooms above the archways around the gardens of the Palais Royal, which was once owned by the 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 where hung, chic candelabras where 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." Not a single critic covered Robert - Houdin’s debut, but that was just as well, for in his memoirs, Robert - Houdin confessed that the show had been a disaster! He suffered from stage fright that caused him to talk too fast and in a monotone. He did not know what he was saying or doing. Everything was a blur. He believed that a trick should never fail because the magician should not present a trick that was not mechanically perfected, 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 he continued his long run at his little theatre. At first the forty year old magician was unpolished, but soon he gained the confidence required for the stage.

With each performance, Robert - Houdin got better, and the critics did come. Le Charivari and L'Illustration both said that his mechanical marvels and artistic magic was comparable to those of his predecessors like Philippe and Bosco. Even with all of this, the people still did not come to the little theatre during the summer months. This made it a struggle for him 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 was to attract all of Paris. 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.

The Arabs of Algeria were said to be excited to rebel against French colonialists by miracles performed by their religious leaders. In 1856, Napoleon III's Second French Empire sent Robert - Houdin there, hoping that he might perform tricks that were far more impressive, thereby dissolving the excitement of the rebels. Robert - Houdin's tricks, it is said, succeeded in breaking up the influence of the mullahs. Moreover, the Arabs became afraid of Robert - Houdin. In one trick, he allowed an Arab to shoot at him with a marked bullet, but instead of killing him, the bullet was found between his teeth. After that, they believed he could do anything. Robert - Houdin was not the first illusionist to perform the bullet catch and many since him have adapted their own version of the effect.

He used another famous trick to prove that French magic was stronger than local shamanism techniques: he presented an empty box with an iron bottom that anyone could lift up. By turning on an electro - magnet hidden under the floor, he made it immovable, "proving" that through will power, he could make it impossible to lift for the strongest Algerian warriors. He found the trick was more impressive when he claimed not that he could make the trunk heavy, but when he claimed he could make the strong man too weak to lift a trunk that even a small child could lift.

Another automaton trick, the "Orange Tree" was used by the eponymous conjurer in Steven Millhauser's short story, "Eisenheim The Illusionist", subsequently filmed as The Illusionist (2006).

Robert - Houdin is often credited as being "the father of modern magic". Before him, magicians performed in marketplaces and fairs, but Robert - Houdin performed magic in theatres and private parties. He also chose to wear formal clothes, like those of his audiences. Many magicians today mimic this by wearing tail - coats, though other magicians view this as old-fashioned and believe that they should wear contemporary clothes. Doug Henning was the first to rebel against this stereotype with a distinctive modern look of his own.

Reading any biographies of him, it's obvious that Robert - Houdin lived for magic, constantly conjuring new ideas and performing even on vacation. His wife was often involved in his extremely clever and innovative tricks, which he had to admit were 'deceptions' to authorities, to avoid prosecution for witchcraft.

Robert - Houdin felt that every magic program should be arranged so one trick builds upon each other. One surprise should lead to an even bigger surprise. Some of the tricks and illusions Robert - Houdin presented became classics. Here are a few of them.

When Robert - Houdin first opened his theatre, it was sparsely attended. Though his inventions were good, they needed a draw that would bring the public to his little theatre. So he came upon the idea of doing a two person mind reading act. He even concocted a silly story on how his son Emile created a game of hot and cold that resulted into Robert - Houdin utilizing that for the stage.

He took the title that was used by such magicians as John Henry Anderson, but the effect was entirely different. Anderson had a box into which items were inserted. The medium would then describe the contents inside. In Robert - Houdin’s version, he walked into the audience and touched items that the audience held up and his blindfolded assistant, played by his son, described each one in detail. It caused a sensation and brought the throng to see his Soirees.

Eventually Robert - Houdin changed the method so instead of asking his son what was in his hands, he simply rang a bell. This stunned those that suspected a spoken code. He would even set the bell off to the side and remain silent and his son still described every object handed to his father.

Robert-Houdin even made the test difficult. He placed a glass of water into his son’s hands and Emile proceeded to drink from it. He was able to perceive the taste of the liquids that spectators from the audience merely thought of. Even then the audiences weren’t entirely convinced. They tried to trip up Emile by bringing in books written in Greek. He even described odd tools like a thread counter.

During Robert-Houdin’s time, all of Paris was enthusiastically talking about the mysterious uses of "ether". He took advantage of this by presenting an illusion that appeared to use the pungent liquid. He told the audience that he discovered a marvelous new property of ether. “If one has a living person inhale this liquid when it is at its highest degree of concentration, the body of the patient for a few moments becomes as light as a balloon,” Robert - Houdin claimed.

He proceeded to prove just that. He placed three stools on a wooden bench. His youngest son Eugène stood on the middle one. With the instructions from his father, he extended his arms. Robert - Houdin placed two canes on top of the stools and positioned them under his son’s arms.

He took a vial of ether and opened. The audience smelled it wafting through the theatre. He placed the vial under his son’s nose who went limp. In reality, the vial was empty. Another son of his Emile poured real ether on a very hot iron shovel. That’s what the audience smelled.

Robert - Houdin took the stool away from his son’s feet and he just hung limp as a rag. He took away one of the canes so he was dangling by one arm and carefully placed his head against his upraised hand. This was startling enough. What he did next was stunning. He lifted his boy upright in a horizontal position by his little finger. Then let go until he was suspended in mid air. Robert - Houdin stepped away to leave his son in that suspended state, balanced only by his right elbow and no other support.

When it was apparent that the drug was wearing off, Robert - Houdin returned his son to his upright position. When he woke up, he seemed no worse for wear. Robert - Houdin built up the surprise of spectators until, “… by gradually heightening it up to the moment when, so to speak, it exploded.”

This brought letters of protest against Robert - Houdin thinking he was putting his son’s health at jeopardy by punching him in the face repedly , although the ether had nothing to do with the trick.

On one of Robert - Houdin’s side table, he has an egg, a lemon, and an orange. He soon displays what he is going to do with them. He goes into the audience and borrows a lady’s handkerchief that was in style then. He rolls it into a ball. He rubs the ball in between his hands and the handkerchief gets smaller and smaller until it disappears passing through to the egg on the table.

Carefully he picks up the egg. The audience expects him to crack it open and produce the spectator’s handkerchief. Instead, he makes that disappear too. He tells the audience that the egg went to the lemon. This is repeated with the lemon and the orange. When he makes the orange disappear, all that is left is a fine powder. This is placed into a silver vial. He soaks this vial with alcohol and sets it on fire.

A small orange tree planted in a wooden box is brought forth by one of his assistants. The audience notices that the tree is barren of any blossoms or fruit. The blue flame from the vial is placed underneath it. The vapors from it causes the leaves to spread and sprout orange blossoms from it. Robert - Houdin then picks up his magic wand and waves it. The flowers disappear and oranges bloom forth.

He plucks the oranges from the tree and tosses them to the audience to prove they are real. He does this until he only has one left. He waves his wand again and the orange splits open into four sections revealing a white material of sorts inside of it. Two clockwork butterflies appear from behind the tree. The butterflies grab the end of the corner of the white cloth and spread it open revealing the spectator's handkerchief.

The trick can be seen performed by Paul Daniels on his BBC television series. (Refurbished by John Gaughan.) Paul Daniels' Orange Tree automata illusion. A more complex variant of The Marvelous Orange Tree is included in the film The Illusionist.

Robert - Houdin brings on a large portfolio used for holding documents or art work under his arm. The portfolio is only about one and three quarters of an inch thick. Too small or too thin to hold anything but pictures.

He sets it on two thin trestles to hold the case with the spine facing the audience. He removed the expected drawings from it. One of those pictures showed a bareheaded woman. Then he produced two ladies bonnets decorated with flowers; one for winter, the other for summer. He lowers the flap for each production. Then he showed a picture of birds followed by a stuffed bird flat as a pancake. With that he proceeded to produce from the portfolio four live turtle doves.

He showed a picture of a cartoon of two cooks fighting with pots. This was followed by three enormous copper pots. One is filled with beans, another with flames bursting forth, and the third pot is filled with boiling water. As an afterthought, he lifted the top flap of the portfolio and pulled out a large cage filled with birds.

He walked forward towards the audience with the square cage and they applauded thinking the trick was over. “Nothing here now - neither anything, nor anybody,” as he knocked on the upright flap. For a finale, he closes the portfolio one last time and produces his young son from it.

The amount of tricks he invented for his theatre was extensive, but his most remarkable one was the Light and Heavy Chest. He took advantage of the infancy of the usage of electricity, especially the then novelty of Hans Christian Oersted's discovery of electromagnetism, to his advantage. Robert - Houdin brought on a small wooden box about a foot wide. He said that he had found a way to protect it from thieves. He asked a spectator to lift it, usually a small child. The child lifted it with ease. Then he brought an adult male up from the audience and asked him to lift the same box. Even though he used all of his might, the adult male was unable to lift the box! What made this trick even more incredible is that Robert-Houdin used this (among others) to help squelch a rebellion.

This trick can be seen performed by Derren Brown on his Channel 4 television series The Events. 

Robert - Houdin's inventions were pirated by his trusted mechanic Le Grand, who was arrested for making and selling duplicate illusions. Many of those illusions fell into the hands of his competitors like John Henry Anderson, Robin, Robert Heller, and Compars Herrmann. It is not known whether Herrmann or the others bought the illusions directly from Le Grand or from another source. But they willingly performed the illusions after knowing that they were invented by Robert - Houdin.

Robert-Houdin’s little theatre became a mecca for magic enthusiasts. Herrmann was a constant visitor to the Palais Royal. The public complained because Robert - Houdin couldn’t magically make his theatre bigger. It became the place for the Paris elite to go. Even the King Louis Philippe rented out the room for a private performance. After the triumph he gave at the Royal Palace, in 1847, the king decided to take his entourage to see Robert - Houdin at the Palais Royal.

The following February a revolution ended the reign of Louis-Philippe. With it show business also ended. The Revolution closed all Parisian theatres. Robert - Houdin shut down his theatre and went on the road. He toured the Continent briefly and then he headed off to Great Britain.

With a company of French dramatists, Robert - Houdin made his English debut at the St. James Theatre in London. He presented his program three times a week. Much to his dismay, he found out that Compars Herrmann beat him to the territory. Not only was he billing himself as the Premier Prestidigitateur of France, but he was also using pirated versions of his illusions. Despite this, Robert - Houdin still accomplished a success there. So much so, in 1848, he did a command performance for Queen Victoria. After a three month tour of England, he went back home after about a year and a half away. He reopened the theatre and became a permanent fixture in Paris. In 1850, He handed the Palais Royal to his brother - in - law Hamilton (Pierre Etienne Chocat). This left him free to tour France. He did so for two years. Then he went to Germany and a return engagement to England where he ended up performing a second time for Queen Victoria.

He did a brief tour of France and then at the age of 48, retired from public performances. He gave the theatre back to Hamilton who continued to fill the little theatre.

After Robert-Houdin retired, he devoted himself to his inventions with electricity and his writings. His home le Prieuré (the Priory), was a marvel in advancement. His home was run entirely by electricity.

In 1856, he was asked by Louis-Napoleon to pacify the tribes in French Algeria. During this period, the French Army commanders maintained order in the newly pacified region. They supervised local Muslim administrations and the bureaux arabes. These areas were closed off to colonization by the Europeans.

Napoleon III was worried about a religious tribe called the Marabouts. The Marabouts were able to control their tribe with their faux magical abilities. They advised their leaders to break ranks with the French. Napoleon wanted Robert - Houdin to show that French magic was stronger. The magical mission began with an informal show at the Bab Azoun Theatre in Algeria where he would give performances twice weekly. He also gave many special galas before the country’s tribal chiefs. He used The Light and Heavy Chest during these performances, but instead of playing it for comedy as he had in Paris, here he played it straight. Robert - Houdin once invited the strongest tribesman on stage and asked the Arabian to pick up the wooden chest placed on stage. The Arabian picked it up with no problem. Then Robert - Houdin announced that he was going to sap his strength. He waved his wand and declared, "Contemplez! Maintenant vous êtes plus faible qu'une femme; essayez de soulever la boîte." ("Behold! Now you are weaker than a woman; try to lift the box.") The Arabian laughed at this and with all of his might, pulled on the handle of the chest. But it would not budge! He tried and tried until he tried to rip it apart. Instead, he screamed in pain, as Robert - Houdin had rigged the box to give the Arabian an electrical shock if he tried to rip the handles off. The Arabian let go of the handle, ran off into the aisle, and ran screaming out of the theatre. A variation of this event was included in the film The Illusionist.

After his performances were done, he gave a special presentation for several chief men of their tribe. He was invited to the home of the head of the tribe of the desert interior, Bou - Allem. In dawn of the Arab desert, Robert - Houdin was challenged to do a special trick. He obliged by inviting one of the rebels to shoot at him with a marked bullet, which he caught between his teeth. He was given a certificate from Bou - Allem, who wore a red robe symbolizing his loyalty to France. With this scroll praising his mysterious manifestations, Robert - Houdin went back to France with the mission accomplished.

"The blow was struck," Robert-Houdin said, "...henceforth the interpreters and all those who had dealings with the Arabs received orders to make them understand that my pretended miracles were only the result of skill, inspired and guided by an art called prestidigitation, in no way connected with sorcery." He went on to say, “The Arabs doubtless yielded to these arguments, for henceforth I was on the most friendly terms with them." He was rewarded for his services of the French government by suppressing any possible rebellion.

After his mission in Algeria completed, Robert - Houdin gave his last public performance at the Grand Théâtre in Marseille, then returned to his home in Saint - Gervais, near his native Blois, where he wrote his memoirs, Confidences d’un Prestidigitateur. He also wrote several books on the art of magic. He lived happily in retirement for about fifteen years until advent of the Franco Prussian War. His son Eugene was a captain in a Zouave regiment. On August 6, 1870, Robert - Houdin heard news of his son being mortally wounded at the Battle of Worth. Meanwhile, Hessians (soldiers) captured Paris and Robert - Houdin hid his family in a cave near his property. The Hessian soldiers were very rude, according to Robert - Houdin, but he found the Polish soldiers to be a lot kinder.

Four days later, Robert - Houdin was to find out that his son had died of his wounds. With the stress from that and the war, his health deteriorated and he contracted pneumonia. On June 13, 1871, he died of his illness, at the age of sixty-five.

His home in Blois is open to the public as a museum and theatre first opened by his grandson Paul Robert - Houdin in April 1966.

On December 1852, the Theatre Robert - Houdin moved from its original location to the Boulevard des Italiens. Ownership passed from Hamilton to Cleverman (François Lahire), then to Robert - Houdin’s son Emile. Emile was too busy to perform at the theatre, so he arranged for Pierre Edouard Brunnet to present the show. After his death, Emile’s widow sold the theatre to George Méliès in 1888. Méliès later presented the first movies there. He accidentally discovered stop action special effects and presented his creation at the Theatre Robert - Houdin. One of his classics is A Trip to the Moon. In 1924 the building was demolished.

Robert-Houdin's autobiography is The Memoirs of Robert-Houdin. His life and works are also cited in Robertson Davies' "Deptford Trilogy", notably in the trilogy's third novel World of Wonders, which takes place on the set of a movie about Robert-Houdin.

Jim Steinmeyer said in his book, Hiding the Elephant, that every magician of the 20th century was haunted by Robert-Houdin, “…who cast an enormous shadow over their generation.” American magician and escape artist Harry Houdini (born Ehrich Weiss) was so impressed by Robert - Houdin that after reading his autobiography in 1890, Ehrich adopted the stage name of "Houdini" in honor of Robert - Houdin. He incorrectly believed that "i" on the end of a name meant "like" in French. But Houdini, his own career and reputation established by that time, later lost his youthful respect for Robert - Houdin, believing that he took undue credit for other magicians's innovations, and wrote The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin in 1908.

It is incorrect to refer to Jean Eugène Robert - Houdin as "Houdin." His last name was Robert-Houdin. His birth name was Jean Eugène Robert. He married Mademoiselle Houdin, and under special dispensation from the French government, was allowed to use the hyphenated last name.