George Duke wrote on Fri, Feb 22, 2008 06:20 PM UTC:
Tom Standage book 'The Turk' 2002: ''[In 1770] Before the audience Kempelen announced that he had built a machine the likes of which had never been seen: an automaton Chess player. ....wheels, cogs, levers, large horizontal cylinder of protruding studs similar to that found in a clockwork music box.'' And ''Edmund Cartwright had just seen the Turk in London. Surely, he reasoned, if it was possible to construct machine capable of playing Chess, it ought to be possible to build an
automatic loom.'' [patented 1787] And ''There are numerous accounts
of Napoleon's match with the Turk. As young man in the 1790s, Napoleon
played Chess in the Cafe de la Regence in Paris. Johann Nepomuk Maelzel [who bought it by 1809] set up the Turk in the apartment of the Prince de Neufcha^tel, Napoleon's most trusted general. 'The Emperor went there, and I followed him,' recalled Constant in his 1830 memoirs.''
''The Turk was purchased by Napoleon's stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais sometime between 1809 and 1812. Eugene was the son of Napoleon's wife Josephine by her previous husband (who had been guillotined in 1794).''
''On June 21, 1813, the French army was defeated by the duke of Wellington at Vitoria. News of the victory inspired Maelzel to hatch a plan. He would commission new piece of music for the [automaton] Panharmonicon to mark the occasion. Maelzel jotted down rough outline of such piece and asked Beethoven to write it for him. The composer readily agreed.'' And ''Beethoven was initially skeptical about the metronome but changed his mind and started marking his scores with 'M.M.' (Maelzel Metronome) and number to indicate correct tempo setting.'' Moving exhibition to London, Maelzel augmented his display of the Turk (now Eugene's) ''with his diorama, the Conflagration of Moscow, and the Panharmonicon.'' ''Maelzel subsequently modified the speaking apparatus for trip to France so that the Turk said 'Echec' instead, and thereafter the Turk spoke French.'' --all from Standage
