Nicolas-Philippe Ledru
1731–1807Performing for Louis XVI and Joseph II, Ledru presented a self-dressing female robot and other illusions, while also devising nautical maps and using electricity to treat epilepsy.
Particulars
Nicolas-Philippe Ledru, known as Comus, performed for Louis XVI and the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II in 1777, but his most striking act was a female robot that dressed itself on command. He also presented an artificial hand that wrote a spectator's thoughts and a 'siren' that answered questions, blending scientific demonstration with illusion in his Paris office.
Born in Paris in 1731, Ledru styled himself after the Greek god of mirth and revelry. He traveled widely across Europe, gaining a reputation for experiments on sound, light, electricity, magnetism, and the incompressibility of water. Louis XV appointed him his physician and gave him the title Professeur de Physique des Enfants de France, while Louis XVI authorized him to practice at a new hospice Médico-Électrique.
Beyond entertainment, Ledru devised a new system for nautical maps and applied electricity therapeutically for nervous system illnesses, including epilepsy. He was imprisoned during the Terror but avoided the guillotine. He died in 1807 a wealthy man, and his fortune later passed to his grandson, the politician Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin.
Compiled from Wikipedia. Automated record.