H. DECREMPS, Né à Beduer en Querci, le 15. Avril. 1746. Il a su démasquer, dans ses heureux Écrits, Du grand art de jongler les trop nombreux Apôtres. Il eut des envieux, mais encor plus d’amis, Et mérita d’avoir & les uns & les autres. _Par M. Sal_ * * *. M. DECREMPS] Needless to explain, the expelled intruder was not the author of the book in question, but genuinely a “poor devil” who played his part in the comedy, for a money consideration. However, Decremps was an able man, who could act with as much shrewdness as energy. In 1785 he followed his first book with a second, explaining Pinetti’s newest tricks, the self-playing organ, artificial snakes and birds, chess-playing automatons, ascending balloons in human shape, perpetual motion, learned animals, automatic flute playing, etc. The handling of the topic is much more thorough than in the first volume, and the matter interestingly set forth. It is in the form of letters of travel; the author {34} in company with a Mr. Hill, an Englishman, traverses distant lands, where remarkable and astonishing things are met with, and the causes and construction which bring about their wonderful results, are ascertained and explained. They reach the Cape of Good Hope, where, amid a savage population, with many arts of refined civilization, they encounter a wizard, who, in a bombastic declaration, extols his own wonder-working powers. In the course of the narrative these feats are described and their operation explained. The behavior of the wizard is amusingly depicted. How strenuously he denies the truth of the solution of his wonders found by the strangers; how he endeavors, by means of every artifice, to hoodwink the public; how he first strives, through cunning and bribery, then through abuse and injury, to rid himself of his dangerous adversaries—in all this is Pinetti’s character so intimately pictured that we cannot err in supposing this entire portion of the book directed solely against him. And what name does he give the wizard? He calls him “Pilferer.” Decidedly, Decremps could be severe. These books were translated into English in 1785, and published as a single volume, under the title of _The Conjurer Unmasked_, etc. Pinetti, who was an original genius, sought to overcome the effects of Decremps’ revelations in other ways besides chicanery. He invented new illusions, performed his old tricks with greater dash and brilliancy, and added new appointments to his _mise en scène_, to dazzle and overcome the spectators. His patter was unceasing and convincing. But now was heard the distant thunder of the approaching social upheaval—the French Revolution. The political horizon was full of black clouds. The people of Paris began to desert the theatres for clubs and cafés, there to enter upon political discussions. Pinetti, seeing the audiences of his Temple of Magic dwindling away, packed up his apparatus and went to England, which is the immediate aim of all fugitives from France.