Louis Apollinaire Christien Emmanuel Comte "The King's Conjurer" (born

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, 22 June 1788 – Rueil, 25 November 1859), also known simply as Comte, was a celebrated nineteenth-century

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

ian magician, greatly admired by Robert-Houdin. He performed for

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 y ...

at the

Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (, ) was a palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in the west-front of the Louvre Palace. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henri IV to Napoleon III, until it was b ...

and was made a

Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

Louis-Philippe Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed the Citizen King, was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, the penultimate monarch of France, and the last French monarch to bear the title "King". He abdicated from his throne ...

. He was sometimes called "The Conjurer of the Three Kings" (Louis XVIII,

Charles X Charles X may refer to: * Charles X of France (1757–1836) * Charles X Gustav (1622–1660), King of Sweden * Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon (1523–1590), recognized as Charles X of France but renounced the royal title See also * * King Charle ...

, and Louis-Philippe). In 1814, Comte became the first conjurer on record to pull a white rabbit out of a top hat though this is also attributed to the much later John Henry Anderson. QI, A Series, Episode 3 Comte owned the Théâtre Comte passage des Panoramas of the

2nd arrondissement of Paris The 2nd arrondissement of Paris (''IIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is colloquially referred to as ''deuxième'' (second/the second). It is governed locall ...

and another one in the Passage Choiseul. File:Paris, France, Admission Jeton Token Théâtre Comte, Passage Choiseul, ND (1827 - 1846), reverse.jpg, Admission token Théâtre Comte, passage Choiseul, for a family of 4, reverse. File:Paris, France, Admission Jeton Token Théâtre Comte, Passage Choiseul, ND (1827 - 1846), obverse.jpg, Admission token Théâtre Comte, passage Choiseul, for a family of 4, obverse.

Bibliography

* Milbourne Christopher,

David Copperfield ''David Copperfield''Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work; see is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to matur ...

, ''The Illustrated History of Magic'', 2005, p. 133. . * Henry Ridgely Evans, ''The Old and the New Magic'', Chicago, 1906. Reprinted 2006, . p. 150''ff''. * Paul Courville, Magic Tokens 2020, p. 32-33, @ www.magictoken.org

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comte, Louis French magicians People from Geneva 1788 births 1859 deaths People from the Republic of Geneva