PUPPET, puppets are small moving figures made from cardstock, wood, metal, bone, or ivory, which are used by street entertainers to amuse the people, and sometimes also what one calls gentlefolk.

Their invention is very old. Herodotus was familiar with them already and called them statues moved by nerves. In Xenophon’s “The Banquets,” Socrates asked a charlatan: how could he be so cheerful in a profession that was so sad? “Me,” he replied, “I make a good living from the madness of men from whom I draw good money with some pieces of wood that I manipulate.” Aristotle did deign to speak of these human figures, he says, “held by threads that move their hands, legs, and heads.” In Plato’s first book of laws, one can find a fine passage on this subject: it is an Athenian who says that the passions produce in our bodies what the strings produce in the wooden figures; “they move all of our limbs,” he continues, “and throw them in contrary movements, in accordance with the way in which they are opposed to one another.”

Did the use of these spring-driven figures not pass, with the wealth of Asia and the corruption of Greece, to the Romans, the vanquishers of these ingenious peoples? Nothing is truer; it is sometimes discussed by Latin authors. Horace, speaking of a prince or major figure, who lets himself be led by the whim of a woman or favorite, compares him to these toys whose movements come at the discretion of the hand that holds the string. “You,” he said, “are you not the slave of someone? Idol of wood, it is a foreign arm that controls your spirit!”

Tu mihi qui imperitas, aliis servis miser atque
Duceris, ut nervis alienis mobile lignum.
Satire 7. bk. II. v. 81 . [1] 

Let’s listen to the arbiter of Nero’s pleasures: “While we were drinking, says Petronius at the feast of Trimalcion, a slave brought a silver skeleton whose muscles and vertebrae had magnificent flexibility. It was put on the table twice; and this statue having made singular movements and grimaces on its own, Trimalcion cried out: So, this is what we will all be when death has plunged us into the grave?”

Doubtless Petronius’ skeleton was moved by weights, wheels, and interior springs, like the automatons of our artists.

In his works, emperor Marc Antony speaks of these kinds of spring-driven statues two or three times and uses them as a comparison for moral precepts. Similarly, Favorinus, so praised by Aulus Gellius, wanting to prove the freedom of man and his independence from the stars, said that men would be nothing but pure machines that could be put in motion if they did not act on their own accord, or if they were under the influence of these stars.

In a word, all of the expressions that the Greeks and Romans use indicate that they knew, as well as the moderns, these moving figures that we call puppets . Neuroplesta for Herodotus, Xenophon, and others, that is to say, devices of nerves and springs; Horace’s mobilia ligna nervis alienis ; Pertonius’ catenationes mobiles ; Apuleius’ ligneoloe hominum figuroe, perfectly signify what the Italians mean by gelli buratini , the English by the puppets , and the French by marionnettes.

This spectacle seems to be made for our nation. Jean Brioché, a tooth-puller, popularized it for us in the middle of the last century. It is true that at the same time an Englishman found the secret of moving the puppets with springs, and without using strings; but we preferred Brioche’s puppets because of the jokes that he made them tell. Finally, Fanchon, or François Brioché, immortalized by Despréaux, made himself more celebrated than his father in this noble profession.

1. Here is a modern translation: “Wretch, you who order me around serve another,/ Like a wooden puppet jerked by alien strings.” Horace, Satires , book II, Satire 7, lines 81-82.