Louis Comte

Louis Apollinaire Christien Emmanuel Comte "The King's Conjurer" (born Geneva, June 22, 1788 – Rueil, November 25, 1859), also known simply as Comte, was a celebrated nineteenth-century Parisian magician, greatly admired by Robert-Houdin.

Admission token Théâtre Comte, passage Choiseul, for a family of 4, reverse.
Admission token Théâtre Comte, passage Choiseul, for a family of 4, obverse.

He performed for Louis XVIII at the Tuileries Palace and was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by Louis-Philippe. He was sometimes called "The Conjurer of the Three Kings" (Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis-Philippe).[1] In 1814, Comte became the first conjurer on record to pull a white rabbit out of a top hat[2] though this is also attributed to the much later John Henry Anderson.[3]

Comte owned the Théâtre Comte passage des Panoramas of the 2nd arrondissement of Paris and another one in the Passage Choiseul.

Bibliography
  • Milbourne Christopher, David Copperfield, The Illustrated History of Magic, 2005, p. 133. ISBN 0-7867-1688-6.
  • Henry Ridgely Evans, The Old and the New Magic, Chicago, 1906. Reprinted 2006, ISBN 1-4286-3672-2. p. 150ff.
  • Paul Courville, Magic Tokens 2020, p. 32-33, ISBN 1727158539 @ www.magictoken.org

References
  1. Jacques Voignier, preface to The Magic of Robert-Houdin: An Artist's Life at The Miracle Factory Archived 2008-11-21 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Colin McDowell, Hats: Status, Style, and Glamour, 1992, p. 74. ISBN 0-8478-1572-2.
  3. QI, A Series, Episode 3
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