“In the course of the same year (1863),” says Robert-Houdin in his _Les Secrets de la prestidigitation et de la magie_, “M. Hostein, manager of the Imperial Châtelet Theatre, purchased[19] from M. Pepper the secret of the ‘Ghost,’ in order to introduce it into a drama entitled _Le Secret de Miss Aurore_ [a French adaptation of “Aurora Floyd”]. M. Hostein spared no expense in order to ensure the success of the illusion. Three enormous sheets of unsilvered glass, each five yards square, were placed side by side, and presented an ample surface for the reflection of the ghost-actor and his movements. Two Drummond lights (oxy-hydrogen) were used for the purpose of the trick. [19] He paid 20,000 francs for the invention. “But before the trick was in working order at its new destination, several of the Parisian theatres, in the face of letters patent duly granted to M. Pepper, had already advertised performances wherein it was included. “M. Hostein had no means of preventing the piracy; unluckily for himself, and still more so for the inventor, the plagiarists had discovered among the French official records a patent taken out, ten years before, by a person named Séguin for a toy called the _Polyoscope_, which was founded on the same principle as the ghost illusion.” Professor Pepper claims to have been totally unaware of the existence of M. Séguin’s Polyoscope. In his _True History of the Ghost_, Pepper describes the toy as follows: “It consisted of a box with a small sheet of glass placed at an angle of forty-five degrees, and it reflected a concealed table, with plastic figures, the spectres of which appeared behind the glass, and which young people who possessed the toy invited their companions to take out of the box, when they melted away, as it were, in their hands and disappeared.” In France, at that time, all improvements on a patent fell to the original patentee, and Pepper found himself out-of-court. {95} The conjurer Robin claims, on very good authority, to have been the original inventor of the ghost illusion. He writes as follows: “I first had the idea of producing the apparitions in 1845. Meeting innumerable difficulties in carrying out my invention I was obliged to wait until 1847 before reaching a satisfactory result. In that year I was able to exhibit the ‘spectres’ to the public in the theatres of Lyons and Saint Etienne under the name of ‘The living phantasmagoria.’ To my great astonishment I produced little effect. The apparitions still were in want of certain improvements which I have since added. After succeeding in perfecting them I met with great success in exhibiting them in Venice, Rome, Munich, Vienna and Brussels, but as my experiments were very costly I was obliged to lay them aside for some time.”