Torrini’s son was accidentally shot by a spectator in the gun trick during a performance at Strasburg, as has been explained in the chapter on the “History of Natural Magic and Prestidigitation.” Overcome with grief at the loss of his only child and at the subsequent death of his wife, he abandoned the great cities {137} and wandered about the French Provinces attended by has faithful assistant and brother-in-law, Antonio. But to return to Robert-Houdin. One day at Aubusson the conjurer’s caravan collided with an enormous hay cart. Houdin and Antonio escaped with light contusions, but the Master had a leg broken and an arm dislocated. The two horses were killed; as for the carriage, only the body remained intact; all the rest was smashed to atoms. During Torrini’s illness, Houdin, assisted by Antonio, gave a conjuring performance at the town hall to replete the exchequer. Houdin succeeded very well in his first attempt, with the exception that he ruined a gentleman’s chapeau while performing the trick of the omelet in the hat. Soon after this Houdin bid adieu to Torrini and returned to his parents at Blois. He never saw Torrini again in this life. After following watchmaking at Blois for quite a little while, he proceeded to Paris, with his wife,—for he had not only taken unto himself a spouse, but had adopted her name, Houdin, as part of his own cognomen. He was now Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, master-watchmaker. His recontre with the Count de l’Escalopier and the result have already been given. Houdin completely revolutionized the art of conjuring. Prior to his time, the tables used by magicians were little else than huge confederate boxes. Conjuring under such circumstances was child’s play, as compared with the difficulties to be encountered with the apparatus of the new school. In addition, Houdin discarded the long, flowing robes of many of his predecessors, and appeared in evening dress. Since his time all first-class prestidigitateurs have followed his example, both as to dress and tables. Houdin’s center-table was a marvel of mechanical skill and ingenuity. Concealed in the body were “vertical rods, each arranged to rise and fall in a tube, according as it was drawn down by a spiral spring or pulled up by a whip-cord which passed over a pulley at the top of the tube and so down the table-leg to the hiding-place of the confederate.” There were “ten of these pistons, and ten cords passing under the floor of the stage, {138} terminating at a key-board. Various ingenious automata were actuated by this means of transmitting motion.”