The whole of Paris rang with eulogiums upon Robertson’s wonderful exhibition at the Capuchin Convent. He had purposely chosen the abandoned chapel, which was in the middle of a vast cloister crowded with tombs and funereal tablets. It was approached by a series of dark passages, decorated with weird and mysterious paintings, and the very door was covered with hieroglyphics. The chapel itself was hung with black, and was feebly illuminated by a single sepulchral lamp. The whole assembly involuntarily remained grave and silent, and it was only when the first preparations for the exhibition were made, that the audience broke into a low murmur. Robertson commenced with an address on sorcery, magicians, witches, ghosts, and phantoms, and, having worked the spectators up to the proper pitch, he suddenly extinguished the single antique lamp already mentioned, plunging the assembly into perfect darkness. Then there arose a storm of rain, wind, thunder, and lightning. The bells tolled lugubriously as if summoning the dead from their tombs beneath the feet of those present; the wind whistled mournfully, the rain fell in torrents, the thunder rolled, and the lightnings flashed. But suddenly above all this confusion were heard the sweet notes of a harmonium, and in the far-off distance the sky was seen clearing gradually. A luminous point then made its appearance in the midst of the clouds, which gradually became the figure of a man, increasing in size every instant, until it seemed to be about to precipitate itself on to the spectators. A man in the front row was so frightened, that he uttered a scream of terror, when the phantom instantly disappeared. A series of spectres then issued suddenly from a cave. The shades of great men crowded together round a boat floating on a black and sluggish river, which the spectators had no difficulty in identifying as the Styx. The shadows gradually disappeared in the distance, getting smaller and smaller until they became invisible. Robertson was extremely careful in all his entertainments to flatter the popular ideas of the day. For instance, one of his most famous exhibitions consisted in a picture of a tomb, in the middle of which Robespierre issued. The figure, as usual, walked towards the spectators; but when apparently within a few yards of them, it was struck down by lightning. Voltaire, Lavoisier, Rousseau, and other popular favourites then appeared on the scene, and disappeared again in the usual manner. Robertson generally ended his entertainment with an address something like the following:—