you, I work for Mr. Thomas Edison in New Jersey, and my job is to go all over Europe looking for rare and special dolls. I'd like to tell you a story about one very old doll that was quite famous. It was an automate. They don't have it here in the Museum. Monsieur Saulnay is a toymaker, and he doesn't have it in his toymaker's shop either. But I can tell you what it was like."
As she talked the fat man opened the illuminated cases and began pulling out brightly colored boxes to stack on the table.
"Miss Short," he said over his shoulder in what I could now place as a faintly guttural German accent, "is writing a book about automates."
Elsie nodded. "This is a story about the great French philosopher Descartes, boys and girls. He lived almost three hundred years ago. One day in the year 1644, Descartes was summoned all the way to Stockholm by the Queen of Sweden, because she wanted to meet him. So he arranged to travel from Paris, right where we are, to Antwerp, Belgium on land, and then from Antwerp to Sweden by sea. He was accompanied, he told the captain of his ship, by his young daughter, Francine. But after two days under sail, neither the captain nor the crew had seen the little girl. She was in her cabin, seasick, Descartes said. Then on the third day a terrible storm arose, just north of the English Channel."
The toymaker opened one of the boxes on the table and pulled out a clay mask, painted brown and white, which looked like the snout of a grinning dog.
"The sailors," Elsie said, "were worried about the little girl. So while Descartes was on deck clinging to a mast in the wind, some of them ran down below, into his cabin, where they found, not a little girl, but a box about the size—"
"Of this box here." The German had a pronounced limp. He put down the dog mask and moved awkwardly a few feet to his right. Then he stooped and heaved a green and red wooden box upright onto the table. It was about twenty inches tall and was decorated with crescents and sparkling silver stars. There were two brass hinges and a golden knob.
Elsie turned the box so that its door faced the children.
"And in that box," she told them, "the sailors found a doll, a life-sized painted doll made out of wax and a wig and pieces of wood and metal. And as one of the sailors leaned forward to touch it, the doll jumped out of the box and began to walk, moving her arms and legs—just like a real person!"
Her hand pulled a lever, the door of the box sprang open, and slowly, mysteriously, into the light lurched a dazzlingly white little girl with golden hair and a red velvet dress moving her right arm stiffly, turning her painted face back and forth. Her eyes rolled. Her mouth dropped open as if to speak.
Some of the children began to scream in terror. One of the mothers cried, "Ohhhh!" and snatched her child back. A patter of applause instantly died away.
"But of course it wasn't a real little girl," Elsie said hurriedly, and stopped the doll in mid-step. She lifted its skirt to show a pair of wooden dowels and two roller balls where the feet should have been.
"It was an automate doll, a toy, a machine that acts like a person. You see, Descartes once did have a daughter, and her name was Francine, but she died when she was five years old, of
scarlet fever, and Descartes missed her so much that he made a mechanical replica of her and carried it with him everywhere."
Elsie spread the doll's skirt and flounced sleeves. "She might have looked like this. But our doll was made in 1774 by one of the members of the famous Jacquet-Droz family in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. They also made a pair of life-sized little boys. One of them can draw pictures. The other can actually write 'I think, therefore I am' in French with a real pen and ink. Those are still in existence, in a museum."
"The writing doll is remarkable," said Henri Saulnay,
As she talked the fat man opened the illuminated cases and began pulling out brightly colored boxes to stack on the table.
"Miss Short," he said over his shoulder in what I could now place as a faintly guttural German accent, "is writing a book about automates."
Elsie nodded. "This is a story about the great French philosopher Descartes, boys and girls. He lived almost three hundred years ago. One day in the year 1644, Descartes was summoned all the way to Stockholm by the Queen of Sweden, because she wanted to meet him. So he arranged to travel from Paris, right where we are, to Antwerp, Belgium on land, and then from Antwerp to Sweden by sea. He was accompanied, he told the captain of his ship, by his young daughter, Francine. But after two days under sail, neither the captain nor the crew had seen the little girl. She was in her cabin, seasick, Descartes said. Then on the third day a terrible storm arose, just north of the English Channel."
The toymaker opened one of the boxes on the table and pulled out a clay mask, painted brown and white, which looked like the snout of a grinning dog.
"The sailors," Elsie said, "were worried about the little girl. So while Descartes was on deck clinging to a mast in the wind, some of them ran down below, into his cabin, where they found, not a little girl, but a box about the size—"
"Of this box here." The German had a pronounced limp. He put down the dog mask and moved awkwardly a few feet to his right. Then he stooped and heaved a green and red wooden box upright onto the table. It was about twenty inches tall and was decorated with crescents and sparkling silver stars. There were two brass hinges and a golden knob.
Elsie turned the box so that its door faced the children.
"And in that box," she told them, "the sailors found a doll, a life-sized painted doll made out of wax and a wig and pieces of wood and metal. And as one of the sailors leaned forward to touch it, the doll jumped out of the box and began to walk, moving her arms and legs—just like a real person!"
Her hand pulled a lever, the door of the box sprang open, and slowly, mysteriously, into the light lurched a dazzlingly white little girl with golden hair and a red velvet dress moving her right arm stiffly, turning her painted face back and forth. Her eyes rolled. Her mouth dropped open as if to speak.
Some of the children began to scream in terror. One of the mothers cried, "Ohhhh!" and snatched her child back. A patter of applause instantly died away.
"But of course it wasn't a real little girl," Elsie said hurriedly, and stopped the doll in mid-step. She lifted its skirt to show a pair of wooden dowels and two roller balls where the feet should have been.
"It was an automate doll, a toy, a machine that acts like a person. You see, Descartes once did have a daughter, and her name was Francine, but she died when she was five years old, of
scarlet fever, and Descartes missed her so much that he made a mechanical replica of her and carried it with him everywhere."
Elsie spread the doll's skirt and flounced sleeves. "She might have looked like this. But our doll was made in 1774 by one of the members of the famous Jacquet-Droz family in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. They also made a pair of life-sized little boys. One of them can draw pictures. The other can actually write 'I think, therefore I am' in French with a real pen and ink. Those are still in existence, in a museum."
"The writing doll is remarkable," said Henri Saulnay,
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