Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) [Transcriber’s note: The etext attempts to replicate the printed book as closely as possible. Many obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected. Certain consistently used archaic spellings have been retained (i.e. secresy, boquet, unforseen, caligraphy, caligrapher, conjuror, etc.) A list of corrections made follows the etext. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the text body.] MEMOIRS OF ROBERT-HOUDIN AMBASSADOR, AUTHOR, AND CONJURER. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. EDITED BY DR. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE. PHILADELPHIA: GEO. G. EVANS, PUBLISHER, NO. 439 CHESTNUT STREET. 1859. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by G. G. EVANS, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY RINWALT & CO., 34 SOUTH THIRD STREET. EDITOR’S PREFACE. A man may not only “take his own life,” by writing his autobiography, without committing _felo de se_, but may carry himself into future time by producing a book which the world will not willingly let die. This is what M. Robert-Houdin, the greatest artist in what is called Conjuring, has lately done in the remarkable book _Confidences d’un Prestigiteur_, a faithful translation of which is here presented to the American reading public. The work has had the greatest success in Europe, from its lively style as well as the various information it contains, historical and philosophical, on the practice and principles of sleight-of-hand, and the other details, mental as well as mechanical, which unite to make perfect the exhibition of White Magic, the antipodes of what our forefathers knew, persecuted, and punished as the Black Art.